PHOTOS: San Diego 2014

With my grandmother in California not doing well, and her eventual passing away in January, it prompted a couple trips to the greater San Diego area. Here are a ton of photos I took during my two trips there.

My grandmother chose to spend her last days in her house out in Jamul, CA, which is about 20 miles east of San Diego. She has 3 acres of property out there with a range of fruit and nut trees including this orange tree, which had some delicious oranges ready to eat right off its branches.

My last visit here was back in 2010. It always brings back tons of childhood memories.

I'm pretty sure these are the branches of a pepper tree. It's so big now!

Lots of cacti varieties out there.

I call this jellyfish cactus. Actually, it reminds me of Davy Jones from the Pirates of the Caribbean films.

Always loves playing with this tree. Bleeds copious amounts of white sap when you scratch its bark.

More crazy cacti.

Look up from my grandma's property and this is what you see. Used to be just rocks up there. Now there are houses and a busier road.

The inside of one of the oranges I picked. So delicious!

Typically, my grandma's orchard would be filled with the sweetest tangerines this time of year, but the weather was pretty dry this winter and so nothing really came in.

These cacti are rose shaped.

A shot of the house. I will never forget this place.

My dad and his youngest brother outside cooking up some food. We had some very tasty Mexican food that night.

An old chair outside.

My Uncle Gil visiting with my grandma on one of her last days.

On February 7th, after my grandmother passed, I went back to California with my whole family. Coral did amazingly well for her first airplane ride. First thing we did in San Diego was eat at El Indio, a Mexican restaurant we love and one that has been featured on Food Network and Travel Channel countless times.

Our next stop was Fort Rosecrans National Cemetery out on Point Loma. This is where my grandfather's ashes are kept. Here is Coral paying her respects.

My grandfather faces west and has a beautiful view of the ocean. My grandma's ashes will eventually go in the same spot where they can be together forever.

After that, we took a short drive down the road to the Old Point Loma Lighthouse. Lots of history behind this area that I won't get too deep into, but it was a leisurely place to stroll.

There's a thin spiral staircase that leads to the top of the lighthouse.

Bethany and the girls on the steps of the lighthouse.

Here are a couple ships and a helicopter going by. Lots of sea and air traffic around here with San Diego Airport, the city, and the Naval Air Station being so close to each other.

This is the Cabrillo National Monument, which commemorates the landing of Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo at San Diego Bay on September 28, 1542.

We went to my grandma's after that and relaxed for the rest of the day. The next day was when family was going to come over for an informal memorial service, so that morning we wandered around the property with the girls. Here is Coral reaching for an orange. She loved eating them.

My dad watching the girls hide out under the pepper tree. This was Coral's first time to California, but it was Julie's second.

The lemons on my grandma's property were also in season, so I made fresh homemade lemonade for the first time ever. It was the best tasting lemonade I had ever drank.

As people arrived, burgers were being grilled outside.

My dad mostly led the the service and it ended with the slideshow I made with pictures provided by other family members.

I don't know what's going to happen to the property, so it was very sad to leave knowing that it might be the last time I ever see this place. I'm glad I got to spend so much time here and that my girls got to see where their great-grandparents lived.

We went to La Jolla Shores to let the girls play on the beach.

I made this panorama facing the land from the beach.

Coral playing in some water. Love her reaction.

Stepping foot in the water. Coral would walk right into the ocean if we didn't stop her.

Julie is on lifeguard duty.

We then went to Belmont Park, which is kind of a small carnival on the beach. See the Dole Whip truck in the background? Love that Dole Whip!

I took the girls on the merry-go-round. Julie chose the cat. Looks like Luna!

Coral loved it so much that she didn't want to get off.

They had an artificial wave place at Belmont Park called Wave House. Super cool! Loud music, a bar, food, spectators... I wish there was a place like this in WA.

It's hard to fight the urge to move down to Cali after all the nice weather and visiting the beaches.

We checked into our hotel later that Sunday. We decided to spend an extra night closer to the city to sort of unwind from the weekend's events. We stayed at Humphreys Half Moon Inn on Shelter Island. Nice open balcony rooms, but the outer decor was a bit older looking.

That night, we went to another good Mexican restaurant in Old Town and I went out really quick to take pictures of nighttime San Diego from near our hotel.

The next morning, we walked to a nearby muffin bakery for breakfast. Humphreys has an outdoor concert venue that seems nice. Thankful that no one was playing while we were there though.

They had a rather nice pond with huge koi swimming around and some colorful parrots up above. Felt sort of Hawaiian themed.

A view of the set of CSI: Miami. Just kidding, just a lot of tinting in post. ;-)

After checking out of our hotel, we walked down the beach of Shoreline Park.

These four guys were perched along the rocks. They weren't scared of us at all, which kind of scared me.

I have a feeling that it's going to be a while before our next trip to San Diego, but I hope that's not the case. It's such a great city and I hope to see our extended family there.

I showed 47 photos in this post, but you can view all 157 pictures in these two sets:
San Diego 2014 - Visit 1
San Diego 2014 - Visit 2