Octo-fun!

The past couple of weeks have been so much fun! Dustin and I skipped town for a quick trip to San Diego. I had a work meeting Monday through Wednesday (the 26th-28th) so we thought why not go in for a fun weekend together prior to my meeting?! So we arrived on Saturday AM bright and early...the benefit of the time change going west. Dustin and I had a great 2 full days exploring the city without really having any sort of plan to begin with. We literally got our rental car (which was a Smart car by the way- HA) and looked up via Google what places for hikes would be good to go to. I knew I wanted to spend some time in La Jolla so right away a place called Torrey Pines State Reserve popped up. It was the perfect place to start our trip. We hiked up to the top trail and got to see awesome views of the pacific. While we were there we got lucky chatting with a girl from the area who recommended a cute place for lunch, The Stratford Cafe in Del Mar. While we ate lunch we got to chatting (again) with some other San Diego folk and they told us that besides going to Mt. Soledad (the highest point in La Jolla) we should definitely hike up to the highest point in San Diego- Cowles Mountain. So we did both! What beautiful weather we had all weekend!!! After our hiking adventures we headed back to Hotel Indigo...although it was a new hotel and definitely was experiencing some growing pains, they had great staff and an awesome 9th floor terrace bar. We spent part of both our evenings up there hanging out and enjoying the fire and relaxing ambience. That Saturday night I will be honest and say that I drank a few too many glasses of vino...we waited a little too long to eat so by the time we got to this great tapas spanish restaurant called Sevilla there in the Gaslamp Quarter I was ready to eat anything in sight. Of course there was a long wait and so we sat at the bar for quite awhile...we even ordered a really good appetizer, but it was time to eat some food. I know the biggest loser would be proud knowing that after we walked out of the nice dinner spot after finding out our table would take an additional 30 minutes or so, we walked right into the nearby Subway and ordered a footlong!!! I know pretty bad huh! I have to say it was darn tasty ;-)
We hit the hay and started Sunday with a breakfast out at the Broken Yolk. We decided for our second day (last full day) we would continue to hit all the spots we could....we visited Coronado island and enjoyed a little beach time, went to Cabrillo Monument, Sunset Cliffs and then enjoyed lunch at George's at the Cove back in La Jolla. We went to Seaport Village and also saw the SS Midway. It was a full day and we were both exhausted when we got back to the hotel. After a late cocktail on the terrace, we hit the RA sushi for dinner. The Viva Las Vegas roll was amazing and soooooo tasty..I crave it as I write this!

On Monday morning I tried to sleep in some while my awesomely committed hubby got up and proceeded to run a little over a half marathon! By the time we were ready to check out it was time for lunch and for my Dustin to head back to Austin. Funny enough down the street from the hotel where my work meeting was, was the San Diego brewery we had been told to go to called Karl Strauss. This was one of the restaurants, not the actual brewery, but it was good enough for us!

San Diego! For more pics click here

9th Floor Terrace at The Indigo Hotel

Pacific Ocean Cliffs

Freezing water on Coronado Island

My hottie wave maker...

Looking back over to San Diego from Point Loma

It was sad having Dustin leave me to go back home, but my meeting the next couple of days was really fun and I got to catch up with some work friends I rarely see. We even got to go to Miramar, Ca, which is the famous "Top Gun" flight school and where some of the movie was filmed. We enjoyed dinner at the Officer's club and we even got to talk to real fighter pilots and see some of the aircrafts up close and personal. Very cool....

Nicole & me "lost that lovin' feeling"

I got home on Wednesday evening and just 3 days later it was Halloween! Dustin did an awesome job on his costume going as The Joker and I went more gossip magazine-ish and went as The Octomom :-)

Fun Jack O' lanterns

My little pumpkin

We had a great night at our street block party and thankfully I did not overdo it with candy. In fact, tonight I decided to try a new banana bread recipe. I went for a higher fiber version. It was definitely a little dry but I think if I had put in a little more egg beater or used real eggs it would have been pretty perfect.

The recipe I used was this...

Flax Banana Nut Bread

2 cups Whole Wheat Flour

1 cup Ground Flaxseed

1 tsp Vanilla

1/2 tsp Salt

1 tsp Baking Soda

1 cup Splenda (granulated baking)

2 eggs

4 ripe bananas mashed

3/4 cups Pecan Pieces

Mix together, Bake at 350 for 40-50 minutes in greased loaf pan

Happy November!!!