birthday & anniversary weekend, part 1.

I would highly recommend to anyone getting married the day after your birthday. It has worked wonders for me, because before I was never that excited for my birthday, and now it feels like a celebration weekend. Admittedly, I have only had one so far, but this one was pretty great.

We started my birthday with a picnic in the park and Panera. Judging by how many times we have gone in the last month, I think it is safe to say this our favorite casual lunch place to eat. We went to a park down the street where we had never been before. It's lovely, but the ducks are weird. They ate none of our bread! We didn't like that much, but it was still fun having a picnic and getting to talk in the middle of the day on a Friday. Tim was very happy to stay home from work.

Later we drove to Laguna Beach to stay at Casa Laguna, where we spent our first night as married folks. We hope to go back every year for our anniversary, but it is ridiculously expensive, so maybe that will just be a dream. Thank god for babysitting money and etsy money and all the extra stuff I do to get money. We had an ocean view room, which was pretty amazing! From 5-7 every day is 'wine and cheese hour.' Every day they have a different array of cheeses, wines, fruits, and crackers. I tried manchego for the first time and I loved it. (So much so, that I am really missing Cortina's right now... October 15, hurry.)

For dinner we went back to Thai Bros., the place we had been together on our honeymoon. We also decided this was to be a tradition for every anniversary, and we were so serious about it, we had not been back since our honeymoon (even though the food was ridiculously good.) However, after eating there this time, Tim said we probably won't be able to wait until our next anniversary to go again. It's THAT good, friends. I could eat it every day, probably.

Walking back to our hotel that evening was lovely. Laguna in the evening is so beautiful. It's what Bethany would call 'The Magic Hour,' and it was so magical. Just check out this great picture. I'm pretty proud of it. We love taking walks together, and it was nice to know we had a whole two days left to just be together.