McCurry Musings: Man, Oh Man

Did we have a good time, or what?! We just got back yesterday from our 2nd Anniversary trip to Santa Barbara and we had an amazing trip. It was just want an anniversary celebration should be - full of time together, reflecting on the past year, celebrating this amazing journey we're on, relaxing, eating and making memories. We loved every minute of it - and we've got the pictures to prove it!

Here is where we stayed: Cheshire Cat Inn. It was a super cute B&B, with lovely staff.

This is our room - they had balloons and wine waiting for us when we checked in, with a card that said, "Happy Anniversary!"

Here we are, just after arriving, so excited to be beginning our trip.

One of the first things we did to celebrate was to exchange gifts. We are attempting to follow the traditional gifts, so this year we did "cotton." I'll leave it to your imagination to guess what's inside those gifts. =)

The rest of that day (Saturday), we walked all around State Street, the major street in downtown Santa Barbara, and down to the beach. It was so lovely. We were truly struck by how beautiful that city is!

That night, we went out of our official celebration (truly, though, it is just an excuse for us to go to another really nice restaurant, since we already went to L'Opera on the 10th). The restaurant was called Bouchon's and was a VERY nice French restaurant. We had a lovely time there - Ian had the lamb and I had the duck. When we arrived, they had flowers on our table, and all the waiters wished us a happy anniversary. I know it's silly, but those things go a long way in making you love a place!

One of the cool things about this restaurant was their use of local Santa Barbara wine, which they paired with each course of the meal. We really enjoyed what they offered, as well as the hot chocolate cake (which came with a candle - another nice touch!) that we ordered for dessert.

On Sunday, we had a lovely quiet morning in (at this place, they bring you a hot breakfast to your room on the weekends - so we ate ours in our bathrobes on our balcony!) and then we visited the Santa Barbara mission. Ian has now decided that we need to visit all the California missions. He's been to the San Diego one and I've been to the San Juan Capistrano one - so 3 down, 18 to go!

After that (don't worry, the trip is only a little longer, so you're getting close to the end of this marathon post), we walked down to the beach again, this time heading out to Stearn's Wharf. The weather was amazing the whole trip, which meant we got to be outside a ton, which I loved and Ian tolerated.

We had another lovely (though more low-key) dinner out on Sunday night. Then on Monday, we had another morning in and decided on one final hurrah before heading home. Ian loves botanical gardens, so off we headed to the one in Santa Barbara. It was amazing and a great way to end our trip (actually, we technically ended it with margaritas and Mexican food before we got in the car, but the botanical garden makes us sound much more educated and cultured, so we'll stick with that). =)