Artwork for a starry night by Geoffrey Chandler.
We did it. We celebrated our 1st Anniversary with style and pizazz.
It all started this morning with getting up at 9:30 to dress and head down to the dining room at the hotel for some *light* breakfast before getting a couples massage down in town. We sat at the bar, since that was the easiest, and got some juices and toast. For some reason, that felt especially grand and extravagant. That we’d sit at the bar just for juice and toast.
Then we drove down the hill into downtown SB and found our little spa for massages. I have to confess: I’ve never actually had a massage before today. It was pretty great. She did some work on me, let me tell you. I’m a little sore. But, I hear that’s okay, and it’s not any soreness that’s too bad, you know? More sore like when you work something, not sore like when you injure something. So, I feel like she was pretty good at what she does. My neck/shoulders and my hips, y’all. Those are my problem spots.
So, that was awesome. Had a great time. It was a full breakfast after that at a little diner that was nothing fancy and perfectly delicious, and then we snagged a pair of sandwiches for later in the day on our way back up to the hotel. It was fucking HOT today…so hot that we decided against going to the beach that early in the day. Good thing too since it was still too effing hot later when we finally got down there…which is to say it would have been much worse had we followed through with our initial plan and gone straight to the beach after massages and breakfast.
Instead, we took a badass nap. Liz hadn’t slept all that well the night before, so it was a much needed snooze. I slept for most of the time, too, because I’m a lazy piece of shit 😛
Once we were up, we packed up for the beach and took off. It was around 4:30pm at that point, and we stopped by the drycleaners to pick up our threads for dinner that night and then went straight from there to the beach with the dogs. It was soooooo pretty down there. Hot as balls, like I mentioned earlier, but so freaking pretty. And it’s an awesome beach down there in that it’s off-leash for dogs, and there were dogs EVERYWHERE. We set up our little blanket right next to the dude in 22 Jump Street that plays Channign Tatum’s best friend, randomly. We met his dog Snowman, a husky or malamute who was very skeptical about this whole “ocean” thing. Very sweet. Visited us several times.
Both Coops and Coco were *awesome* at the beach. No incidents. No even getting standoffish, both just wagged their tails and said hi to the dogs that came up to them, and any people passing by. Coco got wet because she didn’t realize that the ocean could move like that, and Coops go wet because we made him. We hung out for about an hour, and then the bear called “too hot” and we left. It was perfect timing, actually, because we got back to the bungalow just in time to get ready for dinner.
So, right as we were about to leave LA, Liz asked me if I was going to bring my suit I wore at the wedding. I hadn’t even considered it, and she was like “yeah, wouldn’t that be fun? I’ll bring my party dress from the wedding, you can bring your suit, and we can just get the drycleaned somewhere in Santa Barbara.” Well, that shit was genius. We did it, and it was such a …I don’t know how to say it really except that it just really brought me back to when we got married a year ago. Wearing the same clothes, similar weather, having dinner together…it felt like Maui.
Dinner was a lot of fun, it was beautiful out. I had filet, and Liz had the risotto. Both were delicious. We had something special waiting back at the room, but we still decided to try some dessert. It was sorbet, which a couple extra truffles from them on the house, which was really sweet. Damn straight it was sweet, we payin’ enough for this shit, you feel me?
We went back to the room and grabbed the pups and went down to a little place on the grounds where we knew they had a hammock set up and chilled down there in our PJs for a bit and watched the stars. So much brighter up here than down in LA. Less light pollution, you know? Then we got into our El Encanto robes and sat outisde on the patio of our bungalow and opened the bottle of champange we’d brought and ate the chocolate covered strawberries they’d put in our room for us while the pups fell asleep.
It was glorious, guys. For reals. This place may be waaaaaaay too expensive for folks like us…but it is a magical place to the two of us. I proposed to her here…it’s only an hour and a half away from where we live, but it feels like another world. It’s beautiful, and we get to be here with our dogs. It’s a slice of heaven, and I’m so glad to have spent our first anniversary here.
Tomorrow, some breakfast in bed then some pool time, and then back home. Looking forward to all of it 🙂
Good night, y’all!