A Whole Year

Us at a stop while driving Big Sur

Yes, it has been a whole year since we got married! We made it! We have enjoyed out time together and look forward to many happy years to come.

This year for our anniversary we were thinking about renting a beach house for a weekend up in Stinson Beach. That was until we had to take Mika to the emergency room and pay $800 because she had eaten some moldy food left out in the garden here. So, the next plan was just to go somewhere for a couple of days and we still wanted to go to the beach so we decided on Carmel. If you don't know where it is, it is by Monterey and Big Sur (between them actually). It is the most picturesque town you'll ever see, at least in the town area, other parts were just normal. It made me feel like I was back in some English countryside village. The place we found to stay, because Nathan insisted on a beach view room, was a block from the beach and we could, of course, see and hear the beach from our room. It was wonderful. The weather while we were there wasn't super great, it was overcast most of the time, but it wasn't warm and it wasn't cold.

The view from our room

We went to some really nice and expensive restaurants while we were there and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. We left on Friday afternoon and left the puppy at home, though we should have brought her because Carmel is the most dog-friendly place you'll ever go. We checked into our hotel/B&B called the Sandpiper Inn and then promptly went to dinner. We went to Flaherty's, a fish house, on the recommendation of one of Nathan's co-workers. It wasn't amazing but it was pretty good. Then we relaxed the rest of the night. The next day we wandered around the town and found some interesting shops. Most of the places are art galleries or boutiques where you can buy a t-shirt for about $120 or so. But, we did find a candy shop that sold British candy and bulk candy so we of course bought plenty to snack on for the rest of the day. We ended up going back for some more later, though only a little more for us, because we decided we should get a thank you for Ben, Nathan's brother, who was taking care of Mika while we were gone. We also stopped into this shop, I don't know what you would call it, but it had a lot of spreads and things. They were mostly out for sampling so we tried just about everything they had there and Nathan decided he had to have some of this garlic tapenade, which was really good. I was partial to the apple butter myself, but we decided we could have the tapenade with some crackers for lunch and so we did.

Carmel Beach

We went to the beach that afternoon but it was still cloudy and the water isn't quite as warm in Northern California as it is in L.A., so we just walked along the beach. There were some people who braved the cold, like two guys, and others who had on wet suits and were trying to do a little bit of surfing. Mostly there were a lot of people playing with their dogs and we had a good time watching them and wishing Mika were there with us so we could watch her run around. We drove down to Big Sur, with is arguably the most beautiful coastline, and the highway runs right along it. We made some reservations at a place around that area and were pleased with what we found. Our table was right by the window and we could see out to the ocean while we were eating. Apparently you could see whales out there sometimes, but I we weren't that lucky.

Some of the Big Sur coastline - blue, blue water

A funny sign at the restaurant we ate at

We also drove up to Monterey and went to the famous aquarium there. There were lots of fun things to look at and there was even a shark! While we were watching the big shark, there were lots of little tiger sharks, we were thinking about how Cameron would be freaking out right now and kind of wished he was there. One of the fun things we did while we were there is see a feeding/training session with the sea otters. The trainers did tricks and played with them and those things are just so darn cute you can't help but have a huge smile on your face. I think Nathan said his favorite part was the jellyfish exhibit. They just have something majestic and peaceful about them, despite their evil, stinging nature. We also got to touch some bat rays, like mini sting rays, while there and that was fun.

My favorite house in Carmel - they had lots of fun ones