A Slice of Paradise

Jake and I went to the San Juan Islands for what I call a "mini moon" the day after our wedding, so keep in mind that these pictures below are over a year old {that's why I look so skinny young}.  We had already decided that we wanted to go to Italy for our real honeymoon, but it took a while to save {almost a year}, so we took a one week trip to San Juan and Lopez Island to celebrate our nuptials. I had never been before and it had been decades since Jake last went.  I don't think he remembered much and it seemed like it was the first time for both of us.

We arrived on Saturday after checking out of Hotel Andra, making a quick trip to Starbucks and then heading up North to catch the ferry in Anacortes.  Our first stop was Backdoor Kitchen! It was so good. Probably our best meal of the trip. Yummmm!

Jake's fresh salmon!

My vermicelli!

Enjoying our wine in the "garden"

We saw this gem on our way to dinner our first night. Pretty classy.

We spent a lot of time lounging in the pool and hot tub area each night at our hotel, Earthbox. That was kind of fun! We definitely felt like we were on vacation.

We also went to the Pelindaba Lavender fields which was amazing and so pretty! They lad lavender EVERYTHING! We even tried lavender lemonade which was delicious.

One of our favorite photos from the trip

We cut our own bouquet of lavender flowers which are now dried in our living room!

Lovely lake in the background and lavender lemonade

Love this one too!

Lots of lavender drying!

How it's made

Old Still

The next day, we went Wine Tasting! And we got to meet the camel {her name is Mona}. Thats right. A camel lives in Washington.  Read more about her story here.

San Juan Vineyards

The grapes

She is intrigued by us.

Coming closer!

And closer!

Me and my friend. I wanted to pet her but Jake said it's not a good idea.

Oh - I forgot about.... a funny story!  Well, maybe not funny. But, before we went over to see the camel, we did a bit of wine tasting at the vineyard {they have a small tasting room} and we saw two little boys cross the street to go see Mona.  I assume his parents were tasting wine at the winery. About 5 minutes later, we heard a blood curling scream {Jake predicted that the camel would bite one of the boys and we think it totally did!} So a group of bikers come walking over to the winery {you had to cross a busy street} with the two boys in tow and one of the boys was holding his hand really stiff and sobbing.  We still don't know the whole story of what happened.  The end. Wasn't that a good story? Well, it was over a year ago.

After that {or maybe it was a different day}, we went hiking to a popular whale sight seeing spot, but alas, no whales. After that, we tried the Duck Soup Inn which was really good. I highly recommend it.

The lighthouse in the background but no whales :(

Dinner at Duck Soup Inn

I don't have a lot of pictures, but we did drive around the island a bit. One of the weirdest things we saw was a goat in a diaper in a boat at Friday Harbor. I know, right? Weird.

Goat with diaper. What the heck?

Dinner on Friday Harbor, San Juan Island

Can you see the goat in the background?

After leaving Friday Harbor, we headed to Lopez Island for a couple days to stay at one of my friend's homes which she so graciously offered to let us use!

View from our deck

We did a lot of reading and eating since there is not much to do on Lopez, but it was so relaxing and it was nice to see how slow we could get our pulses.

We did go on a hike

I like this one!

Jake was obsessed with setting our camera in random spots and taking timed shots

Back at the ranch, we enjoyed the sunset from the deck.

Gorg!

We  took a 5 minute walk down to the beach for the sunset

To the left

Poppin' bottles ... and the cork went into the ocean

Not to worry... Jake retrieved it!

So pretty!

We love the San Juan Islands!

Happy Weekend!
Kim

Lopez Island on Dwellable

Back to Nature

Ahhh... nature

Jake and I spent our weekend up at Lake Connor -- his parents have their own special spot where their motorhome/trailer is always parked {except in the winter months}.  Unfortunately, I forgot to take pictures of the actual spot {its very cute and quaint}, so you will have to wait until I blog about this again...I promise to take more photos next time!!  I am not sure if I can classify it as camping because the camper (1) has a bed to sleep in, it's under cover and not in a tent, (2) had a shower and (3) had a toilet... so I guess it was "glamping"? What else do you call it?

We arrived Friday after work {we ate our Trophy anniversary cupcakes on the way up}. The cupcakes were delicious... the drive was so-so. Hello, Friday night traffic! But, once we arrived and got set up, we BBQ'ed Juicy Lucy's {they were delicious}. Since we had each already had a cupcake, we decided to pass on smores or banana boats until the next night. We did have a photo shoot at the lake, though.

Jake's parent's golf cart - it's how you get around the campsite

Friday night, view at the Lake

 I loved playing around with Instagram on Jake's phone.  I can't wait until I get my iphone.... next week! But I digress...

Love this filter!

On Saturday, we slept in, then went down to the Lake to relax petal furiously {not really, but sometimes} on the paddle boat.  We hung out on the Lake in the paddle boat for a couple hours and then went to our friend's daughter's 2nd birthday in Mukilteo. The weather was gorgeous and we had a great time!

Can you spot the angry ducking?

It only took us about 15476 tries to take this picture

Diamond in the rough

After that, we came back to the campsite, stayed up really late and talked about stars {you could actually see a lot of stars!! and Jake was trying to point out the little or big dipper to me}, ate smores and banana boats {I forgot how much I loved smores.} 

When we woke up on Sunday, it was August 5th which means it was our 1st wedding anniversary!! We were both very happy that we made it ;) through the 1st year {we heard it was the hardest?}.  We slowly made our way back to Seattle and relaxed for most of the day -- if I recall it was over 93+ degrees.  Around 7:00 pm, we went to Purple for dinner and took a ride in the Seattle Great Wheel.  You can read more about dinner and the Great Wheel here. 

Happy Wednesday, folks!

Happy 1st Anniversary

The Great Wheel

As you may or may not know, Jake and I celebrated our first wedding anniversary on Sunday, August 5th.  We went camping/"glamping" at Lake Connor for the weekend and we just really enjoyed nature and the Lake. I will do a post on that later this week.

To celebrate our anniversary, Jake and I had dinner reservations at one of our favorite restaurants, Purple in downtown Seattle. We both tried some amazing new Italian wines and had our favorite appetizer, feta walnut spread with pita bread. I could have eaten that for my entire meal.  I ordered Maine Lobster baked mac and cheese {I have had this before and it was amazing, as usual} and Jake ordered Pan seared halibut with spring vegetables and arugula pistou.  For dessert, we shared a Peanut butter banana pie.Overall, a great dinner.

We got a window seat!

We had been wanting to try the Seattle Great Wheel {it opened right before we went on our Italy trip} for a while now.  It was scorching on Sunday, so we decided to wait until it got dark and went after dinner instead of before dinner as originally planned.  We also are both afraid of heights and Jake thought it would be less scary at night because you can't see everything -- I think I would agree.. but I still want to see what it looks like during the day.  The Great Wheel was pretty entertaining.  I enjoyed it!