Life is Good: Weekend Recap

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To celebrate our first year of marriage, Matthew and I spent the weekend in Half Moon Bay, which is only about an hour from home.  I have no idea why we never thought of going there before.  The city is right on the coast of California and has some of the most breathtaking views I have ever seen. 

We stayed at the Ritz Carlton and from the moment we pulled up to the gates, it felt like a fairy tale.  The property is so beautiful!!  I guess I don't stay at fancy hotels enough or something, but I was totally floored by their customer service.  Everyone was so pleasant and took great care of us... I don't think we opened any door or lifted a thing on our own during our entire stay! 

Confession:  Before Matthew even proposed, I secretly wanted to get married at the Ritz Carlton in Half Moon Bay.  I even made an appointment to view the premises by myself and told all my close girlfriends that I found the perfect place to get married but wouldn't divulge any details lest they "steal" my spot (yeah, I'm crazy)...  Obviously we didn't marry there, but I am more than happy with how our wedding turned out.  Maybe we'll have our wedding renewals there one day....

Our room had a fire pit which was perfect for the cold summer weather on the coast. I think the warmest it was all weekend was 55 degrees!!!

Vino definitely helped in keeping me warm!

We had dinner at the hotel's restaurant, Navio, and it was by far the best dinner I've had since our honeymoon! 

Pan-seared scallops over some sort of delicious bread pudding thing... Sorry, I'm not a foodie so I don't really know all the cool foodie terms :)  So sad we only had one each... I probably could eat 20 of them!

I ordered the Crispy Skin Loch Duart Salmon and everything just seemed to melt in my mouth with goodness.  Matthew ordered the New York steak, which I took a picture of... but he was being silly and flipped-off the camera (sometimes he acts like he's 12), so I didn't think I should post the picture here.  He seemed to enjoy his meal, but I was too busy nom-noming away and having taste bud explosions in my mouth to notice what he was doing on the other side of the table.

The best profiteroles ever for dessert with complimentary chocolates.

We had a late dinner and I was pretty tired from the long week, so I took a nice relaxing bubble bath in our room.  I stupidly didn't bring any books, so I was reading off of my iPhone while in the tub... I was SO scared I was going to drop that thing that I gripped my phone with both hands the whole time.  Yeah, not so relaxing...

Matthew surprised me with by booking a segway tour along the coast.  I rode a segway around San Francisco once for a work event and didn't crash, so I was feeling pretty confident about my skills. 

The views were stunning:

(We couldn't get a good shoot, but if you look closely someone had written "Life is Good" in the sand)

Who knew standing on a machine making oh-so-slight shifts with your body weight would make you so tired!?!  We were pooped after riding on the segways, so we spent the rest of the day hanging out at the hotel... but not before munching on the most delectable Crispy Fritto Misto:

The next day, on our actual anniversary, we decided to have lunch at our Rehearsal Dinner location:

They seated us at the exact same table we sat at a year and a day before.  When we first discovered the restaurant in Feb '09, we sat at that same table, too.  Coincidence?  I say it's kismet.

Rehearsal Dinner 8/7/09 - photo by 5footperspective

Sooo... we didn't save the top of our wedding cake because we left for our honeymoon the next day and I didn't really have time to wrap it up so that it was freezer-ready.   However, I love the idea of it, so on the way home we made a pit stop at our wedding cake vendor and bought a cake in one of our wedding cake flavors, Almond Pound Cake with Raspberry something filling:

Mmmm.. still just as good.  A heavenly way to end an equally heavenly weekend.

The Biggest Little City in the World

my only iPhone picture from the weekend

This past Sunday, for America's birthday, the hubs and I travelled three hours North to visit the "biggest little city in the world".  Why?  Who knows.  I needed to get away for the weekend and with the limited vacation I have left for the year, we needed to go somewhere not too far.  Plus, we planned it pretty much at the last minute, so the only city with hotel vacancy during the holiday weekend was Reno.  At first I wish we had gone somewhere nicer... maybe someplace that didn't leave my clothes and hair smelling like a box of Marlboro (gross... I hate the smell of smoke), but we surprisingly had an AMAZING time and I wouldn't change anything if given the chance to do it over again.

The Great International Chicken Wing Society Cookoff was right outside our hotel that weekend so of course that was the first thing we hit up!  Yum yum yum! I heart chicken wings!  The streets were lined with dozens of booths selling samples of their delicious wings along with lots of other goodies.  Here is the photographic evidence of the fun:

[Crap! I lost our camera!!!! I'm so bummed... I think we might have left it on our hotel room. So sad.  We bought that camera on our honeymoon because our "waterproof camera" didn't like the water.  So, there are no pictures to show.  I suck, sorry.]

[imagine a picture of me sipping a HUGE cup of OLL (orange-ade, lemonade, and lime-ade concoction) with buffalo sauce all over my face]

[imagine a picture of matthew holding up a delicious buttery corn on the cob]

[imagine a picture of a huge line of booths with lots of people milling around]

There was also a super great live band that played my favorite mix of country and pop - I'm talking songs by Lady Antebellum, Alan Jackson, Lynyrd Skynyrd and even Katy Perry.  We stopped to check them out and encountered some fascinating people in the crowd:

[imagine a picture of women scantily dressed dancing very wildly on the sidelines]

[imagine a picture of sweaty, funny looking guys mouthing words to the song being played by the band in the background and dancing in front of the stage]

Later that night, we went to a nearby hotel for dinner and walked passed a seemingly inebriated man yelling at me... or so I thought he was.  I looked over and it turned out he was screaming at someone on the other end of his cell.   I don't think he was having a very good gambling day.  Did you know that Reno was ranked as the #2 Drunkest City in America?  Gambling will do that to ya.

The rest of the night was spent low stakes gambling, carnival game winning, and late night eating.  What's more patriotic than that?

Hope your 4th of July went well (and you didn't lose your camera like my dumbass did)!