San Diego - Day 2 - Coronado and Torrey Pines

On Tuesday morning we decided to head to Coronado Island. It's a gorgeous little island in San Diego that has beautiful beaches that are super family friendly - very spacious and not at all crowded. The ocean was freezing, so none of us went in past our knees, but we played in the incredibly soft sand for hours on the beach.

When we first got there, Eleanor wasn't feeling so hot. We had been bounced around in the back of the van a bit and I think she was just feeling a bit nauseous so she laid down under a towel for a few minutes and had a snack.

The rest of us explored the beach with the sand toys that Lauren had so thoughtfully collected before we arrived!

There is the famous Coronado Hotel behind us...

And soon Eleanor was quite herself again.

She even decided she wanted to be buried in the sand, which she has never done before. I buried my legs, so she wanted hers buried, then she asked to be made into a volcano, and then she wanted to be buried all the way.

From there she decided to explode out into a sand monster and chased everyone (not just our family) around the beach!

And sweet Jane stayed her sweet self...

After our excursion to Coronado we headed back for naps, lunch (which we picked up from In-N-Out!), and regrouping before we met up with my mom's sisters. They were staying in San Clemente for the week and were kind enough to drive down and visit us in San Diego. We all headed to Torrey Pines when the girls woke up from their naps, and my goodness, I could have spent days here! On the recommendation from someone who used to live in San Diego with young kids, we parked up at the top of the National Park and then just took the trails from up there around (instead of hiking up to the top from the bottom).

Everywhere you looked was just gorgeous views of the ocean and cliffs. Eleanor insisted on wearing her yellow "Belle dress" and hiked the entire time by herself. Jane did fairly well but needed to be carried about half the time (which Chris and Grandma took turns doing).

We hiked to a few overlooks and over a couple trails, but there were so many and we just didn't have the time to see them all! If we go back to San Diego, this is probably my #1 spot to explore more.

Overall the entire park was beautiful and we were there at just a gorgeous time of day. It wasn't too hot and was so enjoyable.

From there we headed home for dinner (which Eric had grilled for us) and then celebrated birthdays! We knew we wouldn't see my sister again before our birthdays were over (since everyone in our family is currently crammed into a 7 week stretch!) so while we primarily celebrated Eleanor and me (the August birthdays) we also celebrated Chris and Jane. My mom and Eric and Lauren surprised us all with tickets to visit Sea World later in the week as a birthday gift! We were super excited because we've never been and can see it from Lauren's apartment.

That night we played some Monopoly and then headed to bed to get ready for another fun day!