San Diego Vacation Day 6 - Coronado Island

Besides our LEGOLAND adventures, this was definitely my favorite day of vacation. We started off with a yummy breakfast the Olive Cafe in Mission Beach.Then we headed to Coronado Island for a day of beachcombing, sandcastle building, digging, boogie boarding and soul recharging.

Our first stop was Silver Strand State Beach. Spencer was so excited when we arrived that he plopped himself down about 2 feet from the parking lot to start digging in the sand.

I mentioned before that we held off on going to Coronado until Thursday. Well, that was because low tide was going to be around 9:45AM that day (it was quite a bit earlier the previous days) and we wanted to give ourselves the best chance to find lots of seashells. And boy did we!  This beach is incredible. The sand is so soft and glitters like gold (from lots of mica I think?). We filled our bucket with beautiful shells, including several whole sand dollars!

And those of you who know me well can only imagine what my heart felt like when we spotted this scene (be sure to click on the images to enlarge)...

A lifeguard passing by assured us that is was just a dolphin having his breakfast and since the surfer didn't seem too concerned we figured that must be the case.

The rest of the morning was spent working on a sandcastle and just having a great time hanging on the beach. 

We headed back into Coronado to grab some lunch at a great Mexican food restaurant called Miguel's in the courtyard of the El Cordova Hotel. I had fish tacos for probably the 5th time on the trip (delicious!), Dave had some sort of yummy enchiladas and Spencer got a quesadilla. Oh, and Dave had the most amazing margarita we've ever tasted. It put my girly fruity margarita to shame. We also stopped for some yummy ice cream for Spence and me, and a coffee boost for Daddy.

We spent the afternoon on the beach near the famous Hotel del Coronado. The boys were brave and tried boogie boarding. The water was SO cold that I just couldn't bear to get in past my ankles. Seriously, freezing. But they went for it. According to Dave, after a few minutes you're numb anyway. Spencer had his heart set on taking surfing lesson while we were in San Diego, but all the places we checked into were for ages 6 and older. Plus, since he technically can't swim yet, it just didn't seem like the thing to do this time. He had a grand time boogie boarding though! Here's an assortment of beach frolicking/boogie boarding photos.

When the boys had had enough of the surf, we noticed a group of people who looked like they were having a sandcastle competition. We walked over and found out it was a team building exercise for a company. We watched them awhile, then the boys felt inspired to do a little sand art of their own. Dave started making a big head and Spencer said it would be cool if you could see his brain. Yes, that would be cool!

Then Spencer was buried inside of a rocket ship!

No idea what we did for dinner that evening - I should've taken notes! Maybe just PB&J's at home. It was an absolutely fabulous day. If we visit San Diego again, I'll definitely plan for more time in Coronado. I'll close with three more pictures from the day that I just love.

Ahhhhh...relaxation. The beach is my happy place. Recharges my soul.

Sweet (not so) little footprint.

My guys.