Belated Anniversary Trip

December 11 - 13

In October I asked our previous nanny (she quit in the beginning of the year because she got a full time offer) if she would be interested in staying with the kids one weekend while Kurt and I went away for an anniversary trip. We compared calendars and came up with the weekend of December 11th. Our anniversary is November 27th so it always falls right around Thanksgiving. This year our anniversary was on Friday, the day after Thanksgiving and on that day we were headed back to our camping trip at Dillon's Beach. 

For 2 months we tried to figure out what to do on our trip. We just couldn't decide. Kurt wanted to fly to Hawaii or Whistler (where we spent our honeymoon). I was much more practical and thinking a trip to Tahoe or the beach. I didn't think Hawaii or Whistler were weekend trips. After much discussion (and coming right down to the wire) we decided to head to Santa Cruz. 

On all of our previous camping trips we have had the dog with us and have not been able to visit Point Lobos because they don't allow dogs. Our friends have just raved about it and how neat it is so we thought this would be a great opportunity to check it out. We stayed in a hotel in Scotts Valley which is on the north side of Santa Cruz.

We got up Saturday morning (Kurt let me sleep until 7!!!) and headed out to Point Lobos. It is about 1 hour 15 minutes away from our hotel so we stopped in a little town along the way for breakfast. It was about 8:15 and we couldn't find a restaurant open for breakfast yet! Apparently this was a sleepy town that didn't get up and moving early, definitely not a town for Kurt (he is a super crazy early bird)! We found a bagel place and got bagels for the road.

We continued driving down to Point Lobos. It was a beautiful drive along the coast. That weekend there was a very high surf warning so the waves were really big. We stopped along the way at a look out and it was so pretty. 

Well, we finally arrived at Point Lobos only to discover that the park was closed because of the high surf! Ahhhh! Seriously? 

So we drove around a little bit and checked out a neighborhood. We found an awesome house that backed right up to the Pacific Ocean ~ A-MAZ-ING! It was only $7.3 million. We definitely contemplated buying it! (NOT!)

Down the road we found a really pretty view. The waves were just amazing. This spot had a cool little inlet thing that caused the water to swirl and crash and splash all over. It was very fun to watch.

One of the reasons we wanted to go to Santa Cruz was because I wanted to hike around in Nisene Forest again. If you remember from our Santa Cruz camping trip in May, I loved Nisene Forest. I definitely wanted to check it out again so we decided to head there for the afternoon.

Our trusty, dusty GPS directions completely got us lost. Siri definitely disappointed. It took us down this little road and told us to continue on even though the road had come to a dead end - uhhhh. So we had to improvise. I searched the internet for the bike shop that was along the road that took us to Nisene. I was able to find it so once we got to the bike shop, we knew where to go.

Along our adventure of getting lost, we discovered that this community had these little libraries everywhere. They were so cute. Put a book in and you can take another one out. Heaven for Kayla! We took pictures of the little boxes and text them to Kayla. She says she is definitely moving here when she grows up!

We finally made it to Nisene and it was just as beautiful as it was in May. Love this place! It is just so green and lush and peaceful!

This was one big tree root system!

This picture was for the kids!

That's better!

A pretty big leaf!

These branches were fluorescent green! They were so pretty! 

 And a trip to Santa Cruz just isn't complete without a stop at Pizza My Heart. Super yummy pizza. Kurt always jokes about driving to Santa Cruz just for the pizza.

While we were walking back into the hotel that night, a car pulled up behind us and made our shadows appear on this storage door. Perfect ending to our perfect day.

Sunday morning we woke up to the wonderful sound of rain. We stayed in bed, listening to the rain, relaxing and watching a little bit of tv (we only have Netflix and no cable, so this was a treat - although we don't know how people watch tv with commercials. They drove us nuts!). It was so nice to just veg. No one yelling that they were hungry. No one fighting with a sibling. No one whining to go outside to go potty.  Just the two of us and quiet. Ahhh, so nice. But we did miss our kiddo's so eventually we got up, got dressed and headed home. It was a great way to celebrate 16 years together!