It was exactly a year ago when my husband Roqi and I decided to go to San Diego for a weekend. And as we always think: why not stop and see something new on the way too? As some of you might know, we LOVE exploring new places (especially together and now as a family of 3). So we had a little stop at Mission San Juan Capistrano. I was dying to see that gorgeous mission that I heard so much about and saw so many pretty pictures of.

But with having a baby now, what’s the best way? We figured if we have him sleep on the road as much as possible, that should make it a little easier. So early in the morning we woke up, dressed up, and threw our bags into the car. While Brixton was still sleeping, we ca-a-a-arefully transferred him from the crib into the car seat. At some moment Brixton opened his eyes and you should have seen the look on our faces! Oh my… what a comical picture it was! One was swaying the car seat and another one was dancing around and trying to be a white nose machine making shushing sounds! Luckily he fell back asleep 🙂

So we hit the road which was a little less than 2 hours. We love having a nice hearty breakfast with eggs, bacon, hash browns, pancakes etc whenever we get a chance. It’s our little guilty pleasure and time to enjoy each other’s company, something special to share. That’s why before the mission opened for visits we stopped at Molly’s Famous Cafe. Yum!

The Mission opens at 9 and I highly recommend coming early because it gets pretty crowded later on. Did you know that one of the things that it’s famous for is swallows that migrate each year from Argentina to San Juan Capistrano? They call it “the miracle of the swallows”. There is even a little legend of how they made the mission their home. It says that once the mission pastor was walking along the street and saw a shopkeeper destroying the swallows nest under the eaves of his shop. The pastor got very sad that the birds didn’t have a home any more. So he said:  “Come on swallows, I’ll give you shelter. Come to the Mission. There’s room enough there for all.” And the very next morning, he discovered the swallows busy building their nests outside the church. How sweet is that legend, isn’t it?

We walked around the mission for a couple of hours for sure, exploring and admiring its beauty and character! Check out for yourself!

PS At the end there is a little “behind the scenes” bonus photo: you’ll find out how we took our family pictures of all 3 of us together when there was no one to ask! 😉

All the photos from this story were taken by us, we didn’t ask anyone. By the way even when someone offers to take a photo of us, we actually prefer to do them ourselves! So as promised here is our little “behind the scenes” moment 🙂

In the future I’ll write some tips on how we usually do that. Stay tuned!

And here is the “after”: