Independence Day Weekend

How lovely to have a holiday fall on a Friday! This year, the 4th of July was on Friday, meaning I got the day off from work and then rolled into a gorgeous long weekend.

Mike’s cousins Maggie and Haley (and Haley’s boyfriend Aaron) came to visit us from Arizona, so we did something we don’t usually do: went to some San Diego tourist hot spots during the summer. Usually, like many locals, we lay low in the summertime. Let the “Zonies” visit the zoo and clog our beaches. We can enjoy them the rest of the year, when the weather is still beautiful but things are less crowded.

Our guests wanted to go to the beach on the 4th, but we are not totally insane and begged off. Instead they went, finding parking who knows how far away from the beach, and marveled at how crowded it was and how perfect the water temperature was. (They also came back sunburned and exhausted.)

We did take them to the San Diego Bay that night, though, to watch the fireworks. I’ve never done that, preferring to watch fireworks from somewhere less crowded (the roof of our house when I was a kid, then the patio of our house when Mike and I lived in Grant Hill). But it was really fun! We packed a great picnic dinner, Michaela was well-rested from a long afternoon nap, and we sat right on the water’s edge, watching four or five different fireworks displays.

The 5th of July saw us take them to Old Town for dinner at The Cosmopolitan, which we’d been past before but never eaten at. I really wanted to dine at Fiesta de los Reyes, but the two hour wait got me off that idea really quick. Good thing, too, because the food at The Cosmopolitan was delicious (among other things, Mike had the fried chicken and churros I had a porkchop, plus really flaky popovers with fig butter) and the courtyard we ate in was quaint. I can’t wait to eat there again!

We rounded off the touristy long weekend with a trip to Coronado today. We had brunch at a coffee shop that we’ve passed a million times but never eaten in (verdict: meh) and then walked down to the Del. We wandered through the lobby and past the shops, then out on the the beach. Our guests were dutifully impressed by the great cooling breeze and the massive sand castles someone had built, and Michaela had a blast digging holes and burying her feet in the sand.

Here’s to independence!