Take a Break!

Hey you guys,

So just in time for me to have published a post about my deteriorating mental health last week... After this weekend, I feel like a new person. Truly.

So I talked before about how ever since October or so, my mental health has been declining. This has everything to do with the political climate and the fact that people are feuding everywhere and my poor little HSP heart can't take it (which, now that I mention HSP, I realize I still have yet to do a post on it. Or have I? I don't think I have, but I will get to it. Basically, just know that my brain takes in too much information and I am more affected than most people when it comes to emotions, sounds, textures, smells, etc. Basically all of the senses are overwhelmed). Point being, it hurts me to my core to see people being mean to one another or even for me to feel hate in my own heart, and I didn't realize just how much that can affect me until recently.

I was having a rough(er than usual) time in the few days leading up to my birthday, and I really wasn't looking forward to our weekend plans. Turns out I really should have, because they changed everything.

So a few weeks before my birthday we decided that that weekend we would take a mini trip to the coast to celebrate a bunch of things. February 7th-15th is big for us because the 7th is my birthday, the 14th is obviously Valentine's day but it is also the anniversary of the day we officially met and started dating (in 2013), and Patrick proposed to me on the 15th in 2014.

We unplugged from the world and left on Saturday morning. Our destination was Astoria, but first we stopped in Tillamook for lunch and ice cream. I had a grand ol' time learning to suck the ice cream out of the bottom of a waffle cone (because apparently that wasn't a thing I learned to do as a kid), got covered in ice cream, and shouted "Oh no!" many, many times.

When we got to Astoria, we settled into our river-view room and took a nap, and that night we went to dinner at our favorite Japanese place in town. Possibly the most interesting thing about Astoria this time around was that apparently during this time of year the sea lions make themselves right at home on the outcroppings of rock, the docks, and basically anywhere they can haul themselves up to... and then they bark. Forever. And ever. They do not stop barking. Apparently they do not sleep. But for some reason even though one would assume that the barking would drive me insane, I found them to be highly amusing and for the rest of the weekend Patrick and I would "Bork bork bork!!!!!!" to each other.

On Sunday morning we packed up and stopped in Seaside on our way home, where we meandered around the aquarium (taking lots of fish selfies) and fed the seals (a lot, because seals are the best and these ones will either snort or clap at you so that you will throw them fish), then stopped in and had lunch at our favorite place on the boardwalk.

Was the weekend super extravagant and long and filled with crazy adventures? No, but I don't want any of that. This was exactly what I needed; all of my favorite things with my favorite person in my favorite place. I woke up on Monday feeling refreshed and calm and simply happier than I've been in months. Apparently sometimes all you need is to get away for a few days to reset your mind, body, and soul.

October 2015 Favorites!

Hey guys!

So if you know me at all, you know that I watch YouTube more than I even watch TV. There will be days when I don't even pick up the remote, but there is never a day that I don't go on YouTube and watch whatever daily videos that I'm subscribed to.

Recently I've been noticing that a lot of YouTubers do a "Monthly Favorites" video. First of all, I am under no circumstances starting a YouTube channel. I don't have the patience for that kind of job, nor do I have a thick enough skin to deal with the kind of hate that goes on from subscribers, plus my social anxiety would likely make for a pretty boring channel. However, I do have a blog. It's not a big blog and I am by no means famous. I think like five people read my blog, and they're basically all family members. BUT the entire point of this blog is to let you guys into my head and into my life so that my family and friends back home know what's going on with me. If you follow me on things like Twitter and Snapchat, you may already know some of this stuff, but since most of you don't, I would LOVE to share some of the things that I come across that I fall in love with each month.

Let's do it!

THIS MONTH'S FAVORITES: 

These pillows!

I've been wanting new couch pillows basically since we got this couch because the ones that it came with were such poor quality that the seams started shredding within the first month we had them. Then we struggled to find pillows that we both liked and that weren't going to put us into debt (have you SEEN the prices on throw pillows?!).

Our couch is obviously brown so we needed colors to go with that and we just happened upon these pillows within a week or so of each other.

The greenish ones are from Tuesday Morning ($9.99 each) AND THEY ARE SO VERY SOFT OH MY GOODNESS. The design is a velvety texture and they're beautiful.

The purple ones are from IKEA. The pillows themselves ($2.99) come separately from the pillow covers ($9.99), which is cool because then we can switch it up later if we want to without breaking the bank.

High five, IKEA!

This food processor!

I've been wanting a food processor for a long time. We "had" a "food processor" (it was a blender attachment) and that just didn't cut it for me, so Patrick did a lot of research and ended up landing on a super powerful food processor with a crazy long warranty (I think it's seriously like a 30 year warranty), which, to us, is worth the price that we paid, especially since we have been on a low-carb diet and have been making a lot of our own veggie-rich food at home. We have used it quite a lot and we love it! Do you need any food processed? Come on over, I'll help you out.

This comic!

If you've read my First Anniversary Adventures blog, you'll know that I'm a little bit obsessed with my new signed comic from Patrick. I will seriously find myself wandering around the house and being drawn to it. I'll pick it up and put it down several times a day and I've probably already read it at least a dozen times in the 6 days that I've had it. There is even a new tattoo idea in the works based on the comic because it means so much to me.

This typewriter!

Seriously, who wouldn't love a vintage typewriter? If your answer is "no one" or "not me", I have concerns.

These bookcases!

We have two. The other one is in Patrick's office.

Patrick has a LOT of books and honestly, most of them aren't even on shelves. Thank goodness we have extra storage here because we don't have enough room for all of our books to be out on display (I probably only have about 1/8 of the size of his collection). His office was looking pretty insane because things that would normally go on a bookcase couldn't because we didn't have enough room, so we invested in our own sanity and bought a couple of bookcases from IKEA. Now I basically have my own bookcase and I'm thrilled about it. I have to show off my J.K. Rowlings and S.E. Hintons, you know?!

This tablet!

This item comes with a story. I have a hand-me-down tablet from Patrick, but I've been in the market for a new one for a while now because that tablet was heavy, took forever to charge, lost a charge really quickly, and just didn't run very smoothly. I kept doing my research and ended up finding a tablet that I really, really liked and was absolutely perfect for me and Patrick was planning on purchasing it for me for Christmas.

Magically one day we popped into Best Buy so that I could physically see the tablet and hold it and get a feel for it to make sure it was what I wanted. When we were there, we found that there were none on display and we had to ask the manager if he had any in back. He did, it was a "returned" item (or so we thought), and he brought it out for us to see. It was over $100 off of the original price because it wasn't brand new, in its original packaging, and didn't come with the accessories, but nothing seemed wrong with it and we jumped at the opportunity to save $100+.

Unfortunately when we got home, I found that the home screen image had somehow burned into the screen itself and we had to take it back (we hadn't seen it in the store because all we were able to see on the tablet was the completely blue "register" screen, and you could only see the burned image when the screen color was lighter, like if you were to open a white email screen). That's when I realized that-- duh!-- the item hadn't been returned, it had been the display item.

It turns out that that was the only one of that specific tablet that they had in store because Samsung had, for some unknown reason, done a very small release of these tablets and then discontinued them. I was disappointed because I felt that we had missed out on a potentially great deal (tablets are not cheap by any means)... Until we realized that they sold refurbished ones on the Best Buy website! We ordered one (for the same price we paid in store) and took a chance on a refurbished item. I'm pleased to say that I've had NO issues with it so far and obviously, since it's in this blog, I love it. Again, this is an early Christmas present.

This tablet case!

Please excuse the bendy lighter in the background. I like candles.

How cool is this case?! When I had finally settled on a tablet that I liked, I immediately started looking at cases. I knew that I wanted a folio case that came with a Bluetooth keyboard, because I truly use my tablet more than I ever pull out my laptop (unless I'm writing a blog post!), and I settled on this one. Then when we got the tablet a few months early because it was such a good deal, I knew I had to get a case. I'm the biggest klutz, and a tablet is NOT the type of thing you want to be clumsy with. The case has a magnetic, rechargeable, detachable Bluetooth keyboard, a little elastic tab to put a stylus in (which I happened to already have), a little prop up stand on the back, a magnetic closure, and the tablet screen turns off when you close the case. Cool, huh?! Again, this is an early Christmas present.

Gel polish!

As you can see, I clearly got the best colors available. They're so pretty!

I have gotten super lazy about doing "girly things". I don't do my makeup more than once a month, I haven't been painting my nails or toes, and I almost never do anything with my hair other than put it up in a messy bun. At 23, I'm already tired of how tedious it is to be what society considers to be "feminine". That's not to say that I don't like doing these things, it's just that I have better things to do. So I haven't painted my nails or toes for at least six months (longer, I think, probably more like 9 or 10) because I hate when it chips and I have to remove it or pick it off almost immediately, which means my nails get gross and dry and they peel, and I hate waiting for it to dry. Long story short-- I don't have the patience to paint my nails every 4-7 days-- sometimes more often.

What I do have time for, apparently, is going to a nail salon to chat with some of the nicest women I've ever met so that I can get my nails done with gel polish! It's fun, relaxing, and I get my nails done!

I've been waiting to try gel polish because I know it lasts for a crazy long time and I have to say, I am so glad I did.

When Patrick and I were in Vancouver, WA this past July, I went for a massage and I made Patrick go for a mani/pedi. He ended up finding a super cute little salon in Vancouver and it's definitely worth the drive! So this time around when he finally had time for another pedicure, we made an appointment for me to have gel polish done on my hands and toes. I'm in love with it.

The third day I had the polish, I carved an entire thirty pound pumpkin and did lots of dishes by hand (as a result of the pumpkin carving) and still the polish didn't chip, which normally it would. I'm so glad I decided to do this and now I'm considering investing in my own gel setup, however the polishes aren't very cheap so in order to have a variety of options, it may be better to just go to the nail salon so I don't have to spend hundreds re-stocking my nail polish collection.


That's all for this month without making this post too crazy long! Stay tuned for my November monthly favorites sometime in the first week of December!

First Anniversary Adventures!

Hey everyone!

The title says it all; here's what we did on our first anniversary!

I was actually really anxious the night before and I had a hard time falling asleep, so when I was woken up at 5:45am by a huge crash in our closet, I had only gotten about three and a half to four hours of sleep. We keep our walk in closet open at all times because we keep the cats' litter in there and I've been feeling lately that my side of the closet is quite heavy and might collapse (Patrick has clothes on his side but I keep things like photos, purses, my sewing machine, etc. up on top of the shelf, adding extra weight). Worried that one of the cats might be underneath the collapse, I jumped out of bed right behind Patrick and ran to the closet.

Thankfully our shelves did not collapse like I thought and no kitties were harmed in the process. In our old apartment I didn't like the shower rod in the master bathroom so we replaced it with one of those extendable ones. When we moved out, we brought it with us. For a while I couldn't think of what to do with it until one day I decided to put it up pretty high in our closet as an extra storage rod for all of the hangers that we don't use on a regular basis. Then when Patrick bought me one of those hanging organizers with cubbies for all of my yarn, I stuck that on there too. The other day I decided I was going to try to move the bar up slightly so I loosened it. I didn't have enough arms to hold the rod up and also move it up and tighten it, so I tightened the bar back up-- just apparently not well enough. So the floor of our closet was covered in hangers and yarn. Who knew that yarn was so heavy?

At this point I was too wide awake from the craziness to go back to sleep, so I just stayed up.

After Patrick and I did our morning routines (which are comprised mainly of a lot of catching up on social medias), we decided to do presents.


My gift for Patrick
My present to Patrick was a nightmare to get done, honestly. We had decided to stick to the traditional gift list that has been around for quite a long time and go with the given gift material for our first anniversary: paper. I struggled with an idea for him until I realized that puzzles are totally made of paper and Patrick LOVES puzzles, so I ordered a custom puzzle for him. I chose my favorite photo of us that was taken on New Year's Eve 2014 by our friend David Bedno and after a fiasco regarding pixels per inch, I went with Ravensburger on a whim. I had originally planned on going through a smaller, less known site but they rejected the image I uploaded and I had to scramble to find an alternative.

I truly thought that our anniversary was ruined after yet another fiasco in which my bank account was overdrafted. Because our accounts are linked, Patrick can see my account info but since he knew I had ordered his gift, I asked him not to look at my bank statement so he wouldn't ruin the surprise. Unfortunately that is unavoidable when your account is suddenly -$5!

Apparently Ravensburger does a "test charge" and charges you the full amount of your purchase immediately after you purchase it and then they cancel the charge. The point of this is to make sure that you have the funds in your account, however I was not made aware of this and I thought that the money had been taken out of my account and that was that. I didn't notice that they had put it back in because it took the bank several days to cancel  hold on the funds that they charged and then cancelled. Then when the puzzle was actually shipped, Ravensburger re-charged me, but I had thought that the charge had already gone through and I had less in my account than the value of the purchase so my account was overdrafted. To say I was livid was an complete understatement because Patrick had seen the charge from his favorite puzzle brand and clearly knew that he was getting a puzzle for our anniversary. However, he didn't know that you could order custom puzzles and was completely surprised by his gift regardless!

*Though I'll include this statement in my Facebook post because I don't believe either of these people read my blog, I wanted to give a huge shout out and a million thank you's to David Bedno, who graciously allowed me to have the full-sized image of the photo he took of us, free of charge, when I know full well that he would have been completely within his rights to charge me the rights to use his work. A second thank you to Christopher Grafton, who was ready and willing to re-size the image to the specs that the first puzzle company required before I had to switch companies! 

I'm sure I'll post a photo of the puzzle when we've finished it, but here is the custom tin with the puzzle inside! I even got to name the puzzle, which I named "I Love You Always, Forever" after the Donna Lewis song. I change my the description on my Twitter account to a new quote that I like every single Tuesday and last year, the morning of our wedding, I changed it to "I love you always, forever" in honor of our wedding later that day. I thought it was an appropriate title :)

Patrick's gift(s) to me
Patrick's presents to me were just as complicated if not more! He had the perfect gift idea for me but didn't know if the item would get here in time so he got a backup present as well, therefore I got two presents!

Patrick's first gift to me (my "backup" present) was something he knew that I've been wanting for years-- a manual typewriter! I am now the proud owner of a Smith-Corona Super Sterling manual typewriter! It is is complete working condition and even comes with its original owner's manual, correction tape, and the original key to lock the box. I'm so in love with it! It's heavy and it smells old and it's just absolutely perfect. He had to hunt down an antiques store after we moved here because he simply hadn't had time to do so while we still lived in California and then he had to hunt down a working typewriter in the store. To find one in 100% working condition with all of the original parts is a rarity, to say the least. Bonus: It's a pretty color, yay!!!!!

"Happy first anniversary!"

I definitely need some practice with it to learn to use it a little faster but it is perfect and gorgeous and will be fantastic for things like the hand-made cards I tend to make. Why use teeny tiny stamps with letters that look like typewriter letters when you can use a REAL TYPEWRITER?! Excuse me while I go write all of you letters. Expect snail mail, people.

My second gift, the original gift Patrick had been planning, came with quite the story behind it. To date, I think it's the most special thing anyone has ever given to me as a gift simply because of the effort and thought put behind it.

Many, many months ago, I was scrolling on Tumblr and I ended up finding the most incredible set of images. It was a full post of the images from a stand-alone comic called "Hearts for Sale". The story was so simple and beautiful that it brought me to tears. I tried to find where to purchase a physical copy of the comic with no luck-- to my devastation, they were no longer in print.

Patrick remembered that comic and got in contact with the author herself-- in Germany, no less-- and she had a single copy printed just for him. They were both nervous that it wouldn't get here in time, but thankfully it did and I am now in possession of a signed copy of the most beautiful comic I've ever seen and the only printed copy in its edition. Even now I'm getting choked up remembering the lengths that Patrick and this complete stranger-- thank you Julia!-- went to in order to give me the perfect anniversary gift. All day yesterday I kept going to it, picking it up just to hold it, and the putting it down. I must have read it a dozen times (with the binding hardly even cracked so I can keep the integrity of the pages).

You can read the Hearts for Sale comic HERE and you can purchase the eBook format HERE. Prepare to cry. 

The front cover

The signed inside of the front cover

The back cover

After we exchanged presents it was still quite early. Patrick had planned on going to Fred Meyer (a store chain here) to get new drip pans for our stove, however since I was awake I decided to go with him. There we bought several random things including a zip up sweater for me (a real knitted sweater with pockets and a zipper-- how strange and lovely!), a salad spinner, the drip pans we needed, Benadryl, throat lozenges, a few different types of salad and dinner condiments, etc. Like an old married couple, we love just walking through stores and looking at stuff!

When we left from there, I wasn't feeling all that well and I decided to take a nap to catch up on sleep from the night before. I've been having a lot of what seem to be allergies or the start of an illness/cold for the past couple of days and I've been sneezing and sniffling like crazy, so I took a Benadryl and climbed into bed.

We've been on a low-carb diet for the past few weeks and I have been very, very strict about my diet. I feel that I'm the type of person that has to go "all or nothing" in a diet change because if I feel like I'm eating "bad food" (replacement junk food like Atkin's "candy bars" and sugar-free candies and "replacement" bread) then I'll want other bad food and junk food, so I've been sticking to the basics-- a lot of fresh fruits and vegetables, unprocessed meats, etc.... basically stuff that hasn't been processed and no "sugar free" sweets or anything like that so my mind isn't tricked into thinking it's not on a diet because that was the downfall of my will power last time we tried to go low-carb. However, I've been skipping the "cheat days" that most people tend to have once a week but I gave in to one day of extravagance for our anniversary. Today it's back to the grind, but yesterday  after my nap I woke up to Zoup! Bless his soul, Patrick got my favorite Zoup! soup, Chicken Pot Pie, while he was out during my nap. It was perfect on that cold, rainy day, especially after I've been sneezing non-stop for over 24 hours and my throat was a little raw!

Ever since Patrick went to that antique mall to get my typewriter he has been wanting to take me there, however he didn't want to take me before I opened my present in case I figured out his present idea or directly asked for a typewriter myself while I was there. Now that I had opened my gifts, we went to the antique mall to mosey around and check out what they had. It was all really cool!

When we got home, I pulled our my typewriter in order to learn how to use it while Patrick took a short nap. Later he took me out to dinner at, and I quote, "the best Italian place in town", Giovanni's! Since we've been laying off the carbs and today was the one cheat day I allowed myself, of course I ate as many carbs as I could stomach! It was all quite authentic (at least, much more so than Olive Garden or Strings-- or even Mamma Mia's or East Side Mario's, for all of you Livonians out there). I don't even like red sauce but the red sauce on Patrick's dish was incredible. You could even see the hand-pressed fork marks on my hand-made gnocchi. We were both super impressed-- and super full!-- by the time we got home.

The decorative map above our booth at the restaurant

These were the BEST mozzarella sticks, in my opinion. Patrick was indifferent.

My gnocchi (tied for first place as my absolute favorite pasta dish... the other is pierogi and, as a Pole, that's basically my bread and butter) in a delicious parmigiana cream sauce. You know something is good when even I don't put salt on it!

Patrick's cannelloni

Our dinners came with salads (not pictured but definitely devoured) and delicious garlic bread!

Across the street from Giovanni's is the Beaverton Bakery. In the window of their second floor, we have Betty Boop doing a Marilyn!

Awesome clock just in front of the Beaverton Bakery

Although dinner was delicious, it's back to the diet tomorrow! Today was absolutely amazing and so much better than I had ever imagined. I loved celebrating such a special day with the most important man in my life and I couldn't have asked for more! 

First Wedding Anniversary!

Hey guys!

Most of you probably won't remember this off of the top of your head because we announced the big news over two months after we had actually tied the knot, but today is our first wedding anniversary!

I have to say, the first year of marriage wasn't as rough as people tend to say it will be. We definitely had our fair share of sickness and health (and also richer and poorer)! In the last year we've dealt with a lot-- Patrick's leg injury, lots of travel, living in a place that made us miserable, the loss of a kitty and the gain of another one, losing my childhood home, watching an 18 year friendship crumble, worrying about sick family members, moving to a different state where we know a total of four people, my hidradenitis: small disasters, large disasters, and little victories, the list goes on and on.

But the one thing that I know I can say for sure is that, like any good couple would, we stood together in the face of everything that came our way. Every relationship and every marriage is different, but I know that we did what was right for us by eloping. If I'm honest, I actually love the cliche that comes with "We got married in Vegas," because I know that if only one Vegas marriage succeeded, it would be ours.  We are stronger together after this first year of marriage than we have ever been and I have never been more happy or more in love.

I want to thank those of you who have stood by my/our side during this very long process. Through announcing that I was moving to California, announcing my engagement, and announcing our elopement, I have heard nothing but joy and well wishes from almost all of my family and friends. Of course, some of you (and others, of course, who won't read this) were disappointed that you weren't able to attend our ceremony, but I've thought a lot about it and I know that it was the right decision for us.

Most of all, I want to thank my husband, Patrick, for being there to hold my hand through every walk of life. I obviously couldn't have done this without him because, well, without him there would have been no marriage in the first place.

So, without sounding even more like a sappy love story, I'll end this blog here with a statement that sums it all up:

Patrick, I love you more.

A (belated) Monterey Valentine's Day!

In our most recent adventure, Patrick and I headed to Monterey!

Patrick had a business trip that lasted from February 8th, which is the day after my birthday, through February 14th, which is a holiday for everyone but is also extra special for me and Patrick. Two years ago on February 14th, Patrick landed in Michigan and we met in person for the first time. We consider this our anniversary!

The day we met, we went out to a fantastic dinner at the Westland Char House, which is sadly closed at this point.

For our first anniversary, we spent the day in Disneyland! The day after, on February 15th, Patrick proposed to me at Princess Breakfast in Ariel's Grotto in front of Ariel!

As you can see, February is a big month for us, and for him to have had to spend even any time focusing on work or away for work during those days was a bummer! Thankfully, we were able to get away for a couple of days to a place I've never been before-- Monterey!

We left on Sunday morning and drove home on Monday night, and we both had a blast! It was a really relaxing mini-vacation and it was great to be able to get away and spend some quality time together. Little did we know, the 2015 PGA Tour was in Pebble Beach this weekend, which made the tourism pretty heavy, and on top of that we completely forgot that President's Day is a thing and that a few random people get the day off, so it was a little busy EVERYWHERE!

On our first day, we hit up Cannery Row and the various shops there. Later, we headed to dinner at Whaling Station Steakhouse. Unfortunately, I was sick for this entire trip, so I joked with Patrick that my dinner "had a really great texture!" but in all reality, I couldn't taste any of it. Thankfully, I took leftovers back to the hotel and I was able to snack on them the next day when I could taste things, and even heated up they were delicious.

The beach view from Cannery Row

The next day was the one we were most excited for. We went to the Monterey Bay Aquarium! Patrick bought season passes for both of us, since it saves you money if you go just twice (which we're sure we can do!) and it supports a fantastic organization that really does great things for the environment.

One of the many beautiful pieces of art in the aquarium, many of which, like this one, are made of plastic materials to demonstrate how well plastic holds up and won't degrade in the environment.

First stop, the jellies! The jellies were the best part of the aquarium in our opinion. They had so many different varieties, and the way the exhibit was set up was fantastic. If we had had the time, I would have stayed there the entire day just sitting on the ground and staring them. They're so soothing to look at-- like a beautiful lava lamp created by nature. It is definitely the type of place that I could forget the time in.
Want to watch the Jelly-Cam? Click here!

These three jellyfish were knotted together-- I wonder if they ever untied themselves!

Each of the varieties of jellies were so unique and beautiful. Some didn't even look like jellies! Some seemed to have an electric current running down their "spines" (more like the white bits of a peeled orange, still squishy but definitely different from the rest of it), some looked like giant pillows, and some were so tiny that it felt like you could put them in your pocket and carry them home.

Next on our tour were the octopuses! There is an exhibit called Tentacles, and as interesting as they may be, they freaked me out a little bit. Honestly, I'm shocked that I didn't spend the trip in a constant state of panic, since the ocean (and really any body of water, even the giant tanks) terrifies me, but it was all just so fascinating that I couldn't help but find myself in awe.

Please don't flash the octopus.

We also saw tons of other various sea life, including otters, cuttlefish, tiger sharks, penguins, and a sea turtle! The otters were adorable. I nicknamed them "sea kitties" and decided that they all needed hugs. They were so funny showing off for the crowd by swimming in circles and playing with their toys. They really are just big babies that love attention!

Sea kitty! He's swimming laps, belly-up!

Playing with its toys!

The bubble aquarium! This is where the sea turtle was kept, among many other creatures. The sea turtle likes to ride the waves of bubbles!

I have no idea what this is, but it looks cool.

There were areas in the aquarium where you could exit and go outside to look at their pools and see the ocean.

The "Finding Nemo" tank, as we like to call it. We saw Nemo fish, Dory fish, Bubbles fish, and even Gill fish!

Seahorse!

We don't have very many good pictures of the penguins because we got there right at feeding time and we got pretty bad seats, but what we got to see was awesome!

A whole school of fish! It was so neat to see them travel like this.

The only shark that I found acceptable because it looked like it was smiling. 

I just love birds, especially this one. I love seagulls and pigeons. 

Mid-way through our visit, we stopped for lunch at the restaurant that they have in-house, and we got a table overlooking the bay. It even came with binoculars so you could look at everything that was going on. We saw tons of people standing up on surf boards and paddling around with a paddle, people in kayaks, seals, and sea otters!

Our view from our table at the restaurant!

At the end of our visit, we made our way to one of the bigger touch pools. Earlier in the day I'd touched a sea cucumber and two different starfish, but the really big exhibit had stingrays. They're actually not harmful to humans, especially since the aquarium clips their spikes so they can't poke or scratch you. Then, you just pull up your sleeve, put your arm in the water, and wait for one to swim under your hand so you can stroke it. So cool! I'm really surprised that I was brave enough to do it!

One of the starfish that I got to poke

!!!!!

The aquarium was fantastic, and I really recommend going (just not on President's day, which is a school holiday and therefore apparently the perfect day for every child in California to go to the aquarium). The pictures and my description do it no justice!

After we started to get tired of the crowds and had visited every possible exhibit, we did a bit of souvenir shopping and decided we were done with the aquarium for the day.

How could you not want this adorable pink penguin? And then how could you not take a selfie with it? I really try to abstain from buying stuffed animals since they take up so much room ad have very little use (especially for an adult) but I could not resist. It called to me. From three different stores.

We then made our way over to a wine tasting bar that was recommended to us by our upstairs neighbor (which, if you follow me on Twitter, you'll know that we have stopped resenting due to the noise and actually become friends with), who is in Monterey most weekends because his family runs wineries up there! I, of course, abstained from the wine and enjoyed my ice water (from my new water bottle that I got for my birthday!) but I did enjoy some of the fruit, nuts, and cheeses that Patrick got with his cheese platter-- even a cheese with lavender and espresso, how weird is that? We sat at a small table overlooking the bay and we saw a total of FIVE seals just laying on rocks and sun bathing! It started out with only one seal, and it was really amusing to watch the rest of them flop up on the rocks to nap in the sun. There was even a disagreement between the original seal and another one who wanted to share the rock he was resting on. They ended up sharing, but the original seal was not happy!

Our view from our seats at the wine bar!

❤

Can you spot them? There are four seals and a seagull in this picture!

Patrick was happy!

After the wine bar, Patrick and I headed back to the hotel so that I could nap (vacationing while sick is exhausting) and later we headed out to one of my absolute favorite restaurants, Bubba Gump's!

Man, that sure is a nice red jacket

My favorite is coconut shrimp. What's yours?

Patrick is the sole reason that adult bibs became a thing, and no one can convince me otherwise.

Though we had initially planned on staying another night and heading home in the morning, Patrick and I were by no means tired at 9:30pm, so we decided to skip the night at the hotel and opt for driving for a few hours so we could have a night at home, something that Patrick has very few chances to enjoy this month due to travel. We're really happy that we decided to get a head start on things so that we could relax on Tuesday and not have to worry about doing a bunch of rushing around to get everything ready for when he leaves on Wednesday.

Overall this is one of the best trips we've taken, even though I was sick! Everything was so relaxing and calm and nothing was set in stone, so we had no obligations and we did everything at a leisurely pace. I can't wait to go back, and since it's not even half as far away as Disneyland, I have a feeling we'll be able to take quite a few day trips up there in the future!