5 year Anniversary Beach weekend

First, let me clarify, we actually celebrated a weekend early. Our actual anniversary is May 7.

Day 1 - Friday. We left our house about 10am and headed to the coast. Neil had never been to Hearst castle before so we decided to stop there on the way to our hotel. I didnt buy tickets in advance which turned out to be a good thing. On the way over we stopped in Paso at EOS winery. My aunt had suggested I get some of their wine. When I saw the vineyard I knew we had to stop. So we stopped and tasted about 7 of their wines. All of them red and one port. The lady was so nice. We told her it was our first time tasting and she went all out for us. There was also an older couple there tasting at the same time that were members of the wine club. They had some good stories for us. :)

Afterwards, we headed to Hearst Castle. It is so beautiful and the views are breathtaking. Neil loved it. And God was so good to us. We didnt have to wait for a tour, we got great seats on the bus ride up and down the hill and just had a fantastic time.

We got to Avila about 5 so we freshened up a bit before dinner. We loved our hotel. Our room was ocean front. We could hear the waves, it was very nice.

Then we went for dinner. Again God just showed us favor. It was super crowded and as we were going to put our name in for the patio seating a girl came up and said they werent staying and so we got their table. Out on the patio - it was a gorgeous view and the food was so super yummy. It was a great relaxing night.

The next day we walked 5.5 miles round trip via the bike trail to the little farmers market that they have year around. We picked up some cheese to go with the wine we had purchased at the vineyard. Once back at the hotel we headed up to our hotels sun deck and had wine, cheese and crackers. We layed out up there and just had such a cozy, relaxing time.

For dinner we headed to a restaurant called Jockos. We had been told by several people it was delish. We were not so impressed. In fact, both Neil and I found it to be very random. It was in the middle of nowhere (Random!), when we got there we got seated right away which was nice cause it was so busy. The lady brought us water, a pickle-olive-carrot medley dish, salsa, cream and a basket of crackers. We didnt know what to do with the salsa or medley dish nor did we order anything that required cream. Random! Then the waitress started doing weird things like setting another table with all kinds of ordered food with no one at the table. Random! Anyways, the food we had the night before was way yummier than this food (and yes, we ordered filets both nights) and we just left thankful for the "experience".

The next day was checkout day. First we went to a local store to get coffee and breakfast for Neil. Then we drove up the coast following the 1. We stopped at a great little restaurant with amazing views. We had been there before on a previous trip and were so glad to have found it again this time. I highly recommend it. It is just north of Big Sur.

We had a great trip and love that we got to celebrate our 5 years of marriage!