10th Wedding Anniversary

This last week Chris and I celebrated our 10th wedding anniversary (hard to believe it's been that long...). Chris gave me this beautiful sapphire and diamond band as an anniversary gift and we both took a week off of work and we went on vacation! We spent the first few days at my Dad's, visiting with family. Carson had a blast playing with his cousins (check out his blog)! After a good visit with family, Chris and I left Carson with his Grandparents and took off on our own for four days - our longest trip on our own since Carson was born!

We headed to Santa Barbara - stopping and shopping along the way. We had lunch at Matador Restaurant - a tapa bar and steakhouse. It was really yummy! We shared a pitcher of Spanish Sangria - so good!


After eating lunch and window shopping along State St. in Santa Barbara we stopped in on a whim and got pedicures - after all we were sporting sandals most of the week in warm and sunny Southern Cal! Chris joined me for a pedicure (can you believe it!?) while I got both a manicure and pedicure.

We stayed at El Capitan Canyon - a luxury camping resort just north of Santa Barbara on both Thursday and Friday night. It was nice, but not exactly the romantic retreat I was hoping for. I think it would be cool to go back and do family camping at this resort, but it lacked the privacy and intimate setting I was hoping for on an Anniversary weekend. The cabin itself was nice - it had a kitchenette, a jacuzzi and king size bed (a bit too hard for my taste) but it was really close to neighboring cabins and just didn't have the romantic air we were looking forward to. Despite being a little disappointed with the accommodations, we still had a good stay.

On Friday we got a limo to take us around Santa Barbara County Wine Country. It was wonderful! It was so nice to be pampered and have the opportunity to drink without worrying about driving - I think this was the first time Chris and I have ever been wine tasting where one of us didn't have to be a designated driver!

Here is a picture of my fun purple toes in the limo!


We had a lot of really good wine over the weekend. Our favorite wineries were Alma Rosa (excellent whites and pinot noir), Dierberg (really good pinot noir and syrah), and Andrew Murray (super-yummy syrahs - and a lot of them!).





After spending Friday touring wine country we moved into Solvang (Dutch capital of the USA) for some shopping and a little more wine tasting. There were a ton of little shops, a lot of Danish bakeries and more Dutch paraphernalia then I've ever seen before in my life. We had a good time just walking around Solvang on Saturday. We checked into the Inn at Petersen Village located conveniently in downtown Solvang (I found them on priceline and got $100 of the nightly room rate!).

After checking in at the Petersen Inn we went to a romantic dinner at Brothers' Restaurant at Mattei's Tavern. The tavern used to be a stagecoach stop way back when and is one of a very few really nice restaurants in the wine region. We had a really nice dinner and opened a bottle of very nice wine (a 2003 Silver Oak Cabernet Sauvignon) that we brought with us. We were very excited about the wine. Here Chris and I are posing with the Silver Oak Cab:





Dinner on Saturday night was one of the best meals I've ever had. The Silver Oak was by far the best bottle of wine we've ever shared (and the most expensive). The tavern was very romantic, the service and food excellent, and it was just an overall really great night.

Unfortunately, the week had to come to an end. My Dad was nice enough to bring Carson back to us on Sunday in Santa Barbara - saving us several hours on the road and giving us a few more hours to look around Solvang and Santa Barbara. We had lunch on Stearns Wharf with my parents before heading home.

Slideshow of our trip:




More pictures at: carsonharris.net and our picasa web album page