Family Trip To San Diego.

Our family trip to San Diego…

{the prettiest tree at the Little Italy Farmers Market}

The thing I love about my family is that even though there are so many of us, we all love each other and get along. My siblings and cousins are truly my best friends and I would not have it any other way. I feel pretty lucky to have so many amazing people in my life. Since there are SO many of us, it’s hard to get us all in one place at the same time, but this past weekend we ended up doing just that, and it could not have been more perfect.

My younger brother Kai not only loves to film videos, but he’s also an awesome photographer, and ended up taking a ton of shots over the weekend. He let me borrow is camera at the farmers market to steal some shots of all the flowers and veggies, but other than that, all of these photo are his, and I love each and every one. Since he took so many, I thought I’d share some fragments of our trip with you all.

These are kind of the highlights of the trip, so let me walk you through it a bit.

Friday

Friday was an oddly cold and cloudy day. Therefore, we all got settled in to our respective spots, explored a little of San Diego and then went over to my cousin Matt and Abby’s house to share pizza for dinner from Hoboken, one of my cousin’s favorite pizza spots in San Diego. <–thin crust and lots of cheese. We got an Hawaiian, mushroom, and cheese pizza, and loved them all. Sometimes pizza nights at home are the best…especially on a Friday.

Later that night, my brothers Kai, Red, and adopted brother (not really, but basically) Blake all arrived. They had been up in Mammoth snowboarding and drove down for the weekend. My mom got a studio hotel room with 2 queen beds at the Catamaran Resort…for eight bodies. Yeah, it was an interesting sleeping situation. Mom and dad in one bed, Asher and I and Red in another, Kai and Blake on the pull-out sofa, and Trevor on a roll away. The rest of the crew slept at Abby’s either on the couch or on the floor. <–super Gerard family style, aka – hillbilly.

{this guy though…}

{little miss Asher}

{the prettiest}

{the fam minus Creighton, Trevor, and Brendan}

Saturday

I got up early Saturday morning and went for a “power walk” around the bay and then back down the boardwalk. I wanted to get back because I had big plans to hit up the Little Italy Farmers Market in downtown San Diego. Honestly, I think this is what I was most looking forward to about this trip. I LOVE farmers markets and this one did not disappoint. I dragged everyone outta bed and told the boys I’d buy em breakfast if they came. They pretty much jumped at that. So we all packed in the car and headed downtown. I was basically in flower and produce heaven, and am still dreaming about all the fresh berries. It was amazing…I took lots of photos as you can see.

The boys and my dad got breakfast, and mom and I opted for fresh berry smoothies, so good! We strolled around a bit and then headed back to the pool, where we basically camped out for the rest of the day…and where I got fried like a lobster, for real. Promise I had on 30 sun-block the entire time…and reapplied several times! I was just so white that I think my skin reacted kind of weird to the sun. Either way, I was burnt to a crisp, UGH. Still loved the sunshine though, and all the fun times at the pool with the fam.

Saturday night we walked over to my cousin Abby and Matt’s house for a small graduation party. Then Asher and I finished the night off with a little Harry Potter back in our hotel bed. We probably got in a full 5 minutes before we were both out. 🙂

 {these two…love um}

Sunday

I was set on providing my mom with a sweet Mother’s Day breakfast. As soon as everyone was awake I forced them outta bed and downstairs to the hotel’s restaurant for a surprise Mother’s Day breakfast. We had almost everyone there. I do think it was the perfect start to the day. We sat outside, and even though it was a bit chilly, it was fun eating by the bay. My mom got a stack of waffles, which she said were great…but nothing like mine. Got to love her.

The rest of the crew was pretty tired from a late night of a little too much fun…cough, cough…and maybe one too many cocktails. We ended up hanging at the beach and then mid afternoon dad and I decided to grab some bikes and explore the antique stores. We ended up giving up after an hour of riding around and realizing that we were still nowhere near the antique store we had been aiming for. Oh well, I loved being outside and riding bikes together.

For Mother’s Day dinner, we all walked to the Spanish Tapas Restaurant, but they couldn’t seat all of us so we then walked over to Mamma Mia’s, which turned out to be the most amazing place. We had the entire back room to ourselves, which was perfect because there were nineteen of us. The owner was genuinely excited to share his food, and the waitress was so friendly and accommodating of our large, and often rowdy, crew. Lyndsie and I ordered for the table, with a round of appetizers, salads, and then four incredible pastas, finishing off the meal with desserts. Everything was SO mouth wateringly good, but the ravioli was without a doubt my favorite…followed by the tiramisu for dessert. YUM.

My mom said it was by far her best Mother’s Day ever. Having EVERYONE there, laughing and just having a good time was the only thing she could have ever wanted on Mother’s Day.

{all my girls}

{putting this kid in his place}

{my go-to recipe adviser right there}