Frank & Emily: Balboa Park December Nights

Saturday was a busy busy day for Frank and I! We were planning on going to Torrey Pines for a walk, but decided to check out one of the three outlet malls near us. I really wasn't wanting to drive up to Carlsbad so it was between the Viegas Outlet Mall in Alpine or Las Americas Premium Outlet at the border. LAS AMERICAS OUTLET MALL is the largest and looked to be the nicest, so we headed south of the border! {If you've driven through the Carolina's you know what i'm talking about}. We should have been smart when we decided to go to Las Americas, we were not. The exit you take to get to the mall is the last US exit so right there makes it a busy one, and being the holiday's does not make it any better. We've already decided that next time we go down there we'll be going back roads.
Once we FINALLY got off the freeway we started getting a little worried that the picture of the mall was just a trick to get you there. The area wasn't horrible or anything, it just didn't match up with the website. After driving about a mile at the most from the off ramp we made it to the outlet mall. If you plan a trip to San Diego you MUST go to the outlet mall in San Ysidro! It was so nice, and HUGE. We were there a few hours and didn't even see the whole mall. Chelsea Premium Outlet's sure know where to put there malls to make good money. Las Americas Outlet is right on the border so alot of people coming from Mexico just park on there side of the border then walk over into the US and go to the mall.. shoot i'd do the same! ha I can't wait to go back there with money :] But we want to check out the other two outlets first.

When we got home we had planned to just sit back and relax with the dogs for the night.. well that didn't happen ha. I had heard about BALBOA PARK DECEMBER NIGHTS during the week, but didn't think much of it since I thought it was yet another thing we couldn't afford to do. To my suprise MIKEY had posted something about it on her myspace that I saw when we got home. She told me it was a free event they had thought about going to do. We heard about it at 4:00PM and it closed at 10:00pm, so at 5:00 we headed out to Balboa. We left the dogs at home since we wanted to check out the museums {they were all free for the two nights!}. We drove around the park for about 30 minutes trying to find a parking spot and gave up. Frank said we could take the bike out there since we could hook the helmets to the back seat so nobody could take them. So back home we went to change into our riding gear. This time we got a spot right by the entrance as soon as we got there.. it's nice to be able to fit into tiny little spaces!

We had a good time, and we were glad we made it. We both were happy we never paid to go to the museums because they weren't that great.. maybe it's because i've been to ones in New York and DC so my standards are higher?? Who knows, either way we were glad it was all free.

Some of my pictures didn't turn out that great, but here are a few from the night....

This was one of my favorite parts of the whole event, they had trees decorated for each state. Not only did that room small sooo good! ha All the trees looked so cool.

Texas