California Trip: Day 4

If you've missed the previous days of my trip, check them out here:
Day 1 
Day 2
Day 3


Day 4 was going to be our least adventurous day.  This is the day that we had planned to check out of our hotel in La Jolla and check into our hotel in Santa Monica (about 2 hours away).  


Usually, we just grabbed something quick to eat in our hotel room for breakfast every day (like crackers).  Today, we decided to take a quick walk just a block down the street to a Panera for breakfast.  I was actually not feeling well AT ALL this day, and Panera was SUPER hot inside, so this was not the most fun breakfast.  

  Saying goodbye to our hotel - The Grand Colonial (behind us)

After we ate, we stopped at a little store to get some soda for Laura and some water for me before we left.  We got back to the hotel room, and I actually took a little nap before we had to check out.  I'm telling you - I was not feeling so hot!  We checked out around 12 and headed on our way to Santa Monica!

On the road!

We stopped on the drive up there and grabbed some quick lunch at a Subway.  Luckily, our hotel room was ready for us to check in when we got there.  In Santa Monica, we stayed at The Georgian.  It was this mega cute hotel very close to the beach (literally, across the street).

The view from our hotel!

After we checked in, we decided to walk across the street and walk down the the Santa Monica Pier.  I'm telling you -  we were this close to the beach and the Pier.  It was AWESOME!!  The Pier was so cool.  It had some shops, a lot of outside vendors, some theme park rides, etc.  It was just an eclectic mixture of things, but it was all really cool!

First view of the Santa Monica Pier!

The Pier!

Anyone remember this from the movie "Big"??

They even had an area of the pier when you could do trapeze stuff!! If I wasn't pregnant, I SO would have wanted to do it!

Looking at the beach from the pier.

The blue hotel is ours!  :)

It was SO PRETTY!!

After walking around for a good bit, we decided to eat at Bubba Gump Shrimp.  I had been wanting sea food the whole time we had been gone, but hadn't gotten any yet.  We ate at a Bubba Gump Shrimp when we went to the beach with the Parker's a few summers ago, and I loved it.  Laura wasn't too sold on the idea (she had never eaten there before AND she's not a big seafood lover), but she gave in for me.  :)  Plus, we were hungry, and there weren't many more choices on the Pier.  We enjoyed taking our time eating dinner and took a good bit to walk back to the hotel.  We called it a pretty early night and got some rest for the next day.

See these houses beyond the parking lot?  They are HUGE and literally built right on the beach.  We asked our waiter about it, and he said they're just personal homes.  He said one home last summer rented out for a month - and cost ONE MILLION DOLLARS!  How crazy!

My dinner!

 Laura's Dinner

Up on day 5: a cheesy touristy tour of Los Angeles!