Birthday Getaway: Lincoln City

 Joel and I took at little one day mini-vaca mid week to celebrate my birthday a day early.

We stayed a night in poor man's Las Vegas at the Chinook Winds Casino in Lincoln City.

    

Unfortunately, the room we booked was having some work done on it, so we had to stay in a smoking room :( 

But the manager gave us a discount and free buffet for two. 

So even though we had planned to eat dinner elsewhere, we couldn't pass up a free buffet ;)

P.S. I could probably start a blog dedicated solely to pictures of my husband
 giving me a weird look because I'm trying to take a picture of our food. 

After dinner we went for a walk on the beach at sunset.  

 I wanted a nice picture of myself on my 28th birthday...but every selfie I took, I looked soo tired, because guess what? I was!! So here's some goofy pics and a pic of how I felt about my selfies. 

The next morning we had breakfast at the Seafood Grill at the casino.

We had a great view of the ocean from our seats.

 I really liked the dining ware they served our food on.

Joel had a seafood omelette, and I had monkey style pancakes.

Usually I enjoy a savory breakfast, but I couldn't pass up salted caramel sauce with pecans and cinnamon sugar cream.

After checking out, we did some damage at the outlet mall, and then headed to beach to walk around some more, and try to burn off some of the calories we had consumed!

I finally wore the sequinned pineapple shirt I got at the H&M in the Forum Shops in Las Vegas.

Joel & I were both pretty tired, and as much as we love exploring, we also love our home.

So we came home early to enjoy the nice weather in our own backyard.

Joel made a delicious dinner, we played cribbage, and I actually painted my nails!

The Everett Oasis is coming together nicely.

I am very blessed to have such a wonderful husband.

It was so nice time to spend with him and to have a day off in the middle of a busy week!

I have a couple of more birthday posts to come, because I like to celebrate birthday week :)

Celebrating Our 4 Year Anniversary

Joel & I celebrated our 4 year wedding anniversary this past December.
To celebrate, we tried out a new restaurant in downtown Salem, called "Davinci's Ristorante".
I was a little nervous because we had never been before,
 and Salem isn't exactly a mecca of fine dining, but I was very pleased with our choice!

I stole this pick from someone else, but isn't this bar gorgeous? We had a reservation, but we arrived a little early, so we had a drink at the bar before being seated. There was a live pianist playing Christmas music, pretty chandeliers, and candlelight .

 It was a very cozy and romantic atmosphere.

We were seated upstairs. This was my partial view from our table. 

"It's a Wonderful Life" was playing silently on a large sheet next to us. 

I was too embarrassed to ask someone to take a picture of us & to use my flash, so these aren't the best pictures, but you can see the pretty lighting in the background! We were served complimentary flat bread with olive oil. 

Joel had a steak, and I had the lobster risotto. Both were delicious!

To finish the night, we shared a creme brulee. It was actually the first time I've ever had it! Oh my goodness it was divine! This is kind of a silly comparison, but, you know how Disneyland smells? Like baking sugar, waffle cones & all things wonderful? 

Well this creme brulee tasted like Disneyland :)

After a attending a couple of Christmas parties, we got away to the coast for a couple of nights to relax and celebrate our anniversary more. It was quite stormy, but we still walked every where from our hotel. We just bundled up in our rain coats :)

We watched Christmas movies, ate some good food, walked down the board walk, did some last minute Christmas shopping and relaxed. Oh, and Joel gave me an early Christmas present to snuggle with! A lovely "doe" blanket from Nordstrom. I was so surprised! It is so soft, I love it.

I think this makes up for doing pretty much nothing to celebrate last year!

Oh how I love him :) It's been a great 4 years!

Christmas Gathering 5: Oregon Coast

I should probably be writing a post on a reflection of my year, but instead I'm going to continue on with my Christmas journeys.

OK, if I'm honest, Christmas gathering number 5 was somewhat of a "mini vacation". My Father-in-law and his wife invited us to stay a couple nights with them at their time share in Lincoln City. This a a view of part of the room.

Here is the view from the room. It was beautiful and stormy. We hot-tubbed in the rain, and joked around about how there was probably not any guests vacationing that were not from the North West, because who in their right mind would visit the Oregon Coast in December? Only us crazy North Westerners!

We had dinner at the Chinook Winds Casino buffet.

A good portion of the next day was spent sitting through a time share presentation... it was long.

We went to a cute restaurant in Depot Bay for lunch afterward: Tidal Raves.

I had red curried bbq shrimp on top of cooked vegetables and a risotto cake, it was delicious. I also had a Two Towns "Naught and Nice" hard cider.

Joel had fish tacos and didn't appreciate me taking his picture while he was eating :P

This was the view from our window.

After lunch I FINALLY got to finish up my Christmas shopping at the outlet stores, but first we made a stop at one of my favorite stores, the Christmas Cottage. It is all sorts of wonderful as you can see. Filled with beautiful Christmas ornaments and decorations. We bought some ornaments for ourselves to commemorate the year as well as a few for gifts.

We woke up early the next day, on Christmas Eve, to have one last breakfast with Joel's Dad overlooking the beautiful ocean and then packed up, made one last quick stop at the outlet malls, then drove back down the highway to prep and pack before heading out again to our final Christmas destination.

It's been a heck of a year, as always. I started this blog, my husband I both finally finished school and got teaching and coaching jobs, and my brother and sister-in-law gave us our first nephew on my side of the family.
Here's to many more years of hectic holidays, babies, and traveling! Here's to new adventures :)

Happy Wednesday & Goodbye 2014!

Lincoln City Beach Trip

I talked my husband into going to the beach for a day this past weekend. We went to Lincoln City and the weather was beautiful! 

We ate lunch at the famous "Mo's" and afterward walked down onto the beach. There were tons of seals lying on the beach just across the small channel! I have never seen seals this close up before outside of an aquarium!

They kept popping their heads up out of the water and floated there for a bit. It was almost like they were enjoying watching all of the people on the beach just as much as the people enjoyed watching them!

Me & the hubs :) It was really windy out--when the wind was blowing it was chilly but the sun was so bright it was still hot out when the wind stopped.

What I wore: Shirt: Old Navy // Shorts: Old Navy (old) similar // necklace: birthday gift from hubs, same one here //

We just sat & napped on the beach and watched all the different things happening. There was a guy Parasailing--is that what you call it?

 Toes in the sand

Napping!

We got ice cream before going home at this super cute little shop.

I think mermaids are real.

Glorious Chocolate Peanut Butter Ice Cream!

So here's where I share my story about white shirts & spilling. A few years ago before Joel & I were married we went to Lincoln City for the day & I wore I white shirt and I spilled coffee on it when we got there. So we had to go to the outlet stores so I could buy a new shirt. Then the next weekend I wore a white shirt to church and I spilled coffee on it on the way there. So we have a rule that if I where white I'm supposed to bring an extra top haha. I thought I was so prepared because I brought my "Tide-to-go" pen, but this spill was beyond that. I was so proud of myself because I hadn't spilled all day and I was almost done with my ice cream, but I didn't say anything out loud because I was worried about jinxing it. Well I guess just thinking it jinxed me because the ice cream started to melt and I spilled on my white shirt!

Oh well, at least we were on our way home when it it happened! Next time we go to the beach I am NOT wearing white!! Or maybe I just shouldn't drink coffee & eat ice cream? It was Karma for eating calories I shouldn't have!
Happy Monday all!