July 2009 - Fort Bragg :)

We were bitten by the travel bug again! It was our last weekend with just Lil Miss so we decided to hit the road! Neither of us had ever been to Fort Bragg so we hopped in the truck and headed up north. This was my first home-brewed coffee in MONTHS ... I think I drank about 1/4 of it LOL

We left early and drove up the 101 through wine country and it was SO pretty! We stopped in Ukiah for lunch at a brewery ...

But some things made me a little nervous ... like the sign that said "EARTHQUAKE WARNING ... This is an unreinforced masonry building. You may not be safe inside or anywhere near this building in an earthquake." - O_O

What made me MORE nervous was the amount of times the word "ORGANIC" was used on the menu ... thats when you know you're in hippie-land ... when the label on the mustard has ORGANIC in front of EACH AND EVERY ingredient ... O_O

So we got the hell outta there and continued on to Fort Bragg. We first headed to Glass Beach ... it was pretty :)

We walked along the bluffs ...

Some REALLY nice pics! I love this one :) It's nice sometimes to be away with just Lil Miss. We're able to give her the attention she DEMANDS and still have energy left for each other! It seems like she does better when we're OUT and doing things like this with just the 3 of us.

Which is not to say that there weren't MANY meltdowns ... because there were ... but they seem more manageable when we outnumber her ;-)

Glass Beach was nice, but it wasn't terribly beachcomer friendly. There wasn't exactly a "beach" persay, just LOTS of little rocks and LOTS of BIG cliffs. So we decided to head on down the coast to our hotel. I did my homework and was able to find a SUPER inexpensive place to stay with a nice big room and a private beach! And it didn't break the budget :) We're totally staying here again!

The beach and hotel were SO nice in fact, there was a WEDDING ON THE BEACH! It was so simple and so beautiful it made me tear up :) DH too, we talked about how "us" that was and if we'd known of this place we SO would have had our wedding here!

It was a little chilly and a little overcast, but we still had a great time walking in the waves. I don't mind weather like this, it makes me feel at home, reminds me of where I grew up :)

DH did great taking pictures, he got a bunch of really cute ones of Lil Miss & I


:)

While she played in the sand, we took a few moments to have some couple time and share a glass of wine ...


lol, her smile make me laugh, she's already at that "ok, really? ANOTHER pic mom?" lol

Then she decided she was ready to get out of the wet clothes and it was AWESOME because we were RIGHT at our hotel!

So many things I could say here ... but I don't want to have to put an "R" rating on this blog LOL

We had an AWESOME dinner, Lil Miss did so well!

and their beer was SOOOO GOOOOOD! We had the sampler :)

and she had JUICE! lol

and I had a shiny face! lol

After an amazing time at dinner we went back to the hotel and settled in. We brought some sleeping bags to make a bed on the floor for Lil Miss and she was OUT in about 5 minutes :) then DH and I could have a little more time to ourselves :) :)

So I have to tell myself that I'm NOT a terrible mother for enjoying the time I HAVE to be away from my daughters. It would do NO ONE any good if I just sat around and did nothing fun just because they weren't able to be with us. There's that pesky Mommy Guilt rearing it's ugly head again ;-)

Again, the fog, but it was still pretty in it's own way


the rocky coast up here is just beautiful!

:)


Then we grabbed some sandwiches at a little sandwich place to take to the beach. We saw a beautiful beach down below where we were driving so we pulled off the road to find it. It was beautiful warm blue sky's where we parked ...

then we followed this path through this like FOREST to get to the beach and it looked like this ...

LOL, still pretty, just a little LESS warm than ya know, 100 feet away where the sun was lol

But we put up our umbrella anyway and settled in with our sammiches and a beer ...

And we had our lunch and everything was lovely ...

And the waves crashed and it was lovely ...

and Lil Miss played in the sand and it was lovely ...