Carmel!

We have some good news to celebrate in this house. Ryan's too modest to tell anyone himself, so I've taken that task upon myself—gladly! He passed all four sections of the CPA exam!!! Go Ryan! It is a tremendous relief for all of us. And with our first Saturday alllll to ourselves, we booked a nice hotel and headed two hours south to Carmel-by-the-Sea.

I admit - I had my moments during our get-away when I plotted writing this post along the lines of..."Top 10 Reasons a Romantic Vacation with a Baby is not Romantic nor Vacation." But by the end of the trip I felt so happy and refreshed that I'll keep those Top 10 reasons to myself. (But ask me if you're interested!)

We stayed at La Playa Hotel, built in 1905, which is walking distance to downtown Carmel as well as the beach. Perfect location. They even had a crib waiting in our room. This morning we ate breakfast on the terrace overlooking the gardens and ocean. Trenton really loved the pancakes. The whole restaurant knew when he was ready for another bite ("Wa-ah!") and when the bite was headed his way, because he laughed at every bite. It was so funny!

A woman at our complex gave us free tickets to the Monterey Acquarium. We loved it and agreed it would be a blast to take our kids there when they're older.


Last night for dinner we ate dinner at a little Italian place called Little Napoli, which I read reviews of on yelp.com. Delicious.
We watched sunset at the beach, which was my favorite part of the trip.


Trenton and Ryan made friends with about a hundred dogs this morning at the beach. The kid LOVED it.