...and then I found $5.

St. Lucia!

If Eric knew one thing about me, it was that I wanted to go on vacation. Badly. You might even say I was nagging. The original plan was to go to Europe, but then Macho tore his ACL and cost us around $3,000 in vet bills, so…. yeah. That was out.

And while it’d be awesome to go to Europe, just the two of us getting away somewhere is good enough for me! 

We snagged this deal off of Groupon actually and combined two of the 5-night stays so we’ll be there for 11 days/10 nights, leaving right after our 3rd anniversary (crazy). We’ll be staying at the Bay Gardens Beach Resort which has nothing but fabulous reviews on every travel site I look.

To say I’m excited is the understatement of the year! 

TL;DR: We’re going to St. Lucia and I need to get my bikini body fitness on immediately.

I’m back from the beach, and I’m not happy about it. Join me in my misery as I share with you a couple of highlights from my trip:

We caught sunsets.

We drove on the beach.

We played hide-and-seek. (And won.)

We saw the wild horses…

And the lone wild mule.

We saw FLIPPER(S)!

And enjoyed the water.

We found out how much Beamer loves the beach!

And how happy Macho was to be back.

We secured this year’s Christmas card photo.

And then we said goodbye.

My view now:

My view in 24 hours:

There’s just something about a week at the beach, where your only responsibility is to apply sunscreen regularly. It was a much-needed break where I turned off the TV (except for the Casey Anthony verdict), where I didn’t blog (sorry!), and where I didn’t touch my phone (except to delete my daily emails). I did, though, take some pictures of all the fun we were having:

Powell’s Market—one of the most recognizable roadside markets for regular OBX-goers

Macho LOVED the sand—and loved digging in it.

Macho LOVED romping in the ocean!

Macho LOVED leaping into the pool! (OK, so maybe this was the only time he did it, but I’m thrilled I caught it on camera.)

Macho also LOVED to sleep pass out after a fun-filled beach/pool day.

No shoes.

We kept off the dunes, except for that time when…

We ran the OBX Killer Dunes 2 Mile Run/Walk race. It was harder than I ever imagined. (This is also an uglier photo than I ever imagined it would be.)

We took lots of stairs to get to the beach…in floppy hats.

Eric rode in some killer waves.

I caught a sunrise!

We got a bushel of crabs, and one tried to escape.

Luckily he failed and we enjoyed CrabFest 2011!

I can’t wait to go back.

Check out these photos, and more, full-sized on my Flickr.

Ahh—finally, details of my San Francisco trip! I got home at 7am on Monday morning after taking the red eye flight and went straight to work. Needless to say I passed out immediately and have just now gotten around to editing my photos. 

We arrived at 10:30 am on Wednesday morning to a gloomy Bay Area. Umbrellas and coffee in hand, we braved the impending rain and took a quick tour around our block (Union Square area). The hills were steeeeeeep.

Next, we walked to Fisherman’s Wharf and sat down for a nice linner/dunch at Alioto’s. The food was nothing special but delicious at the same time because we were so hungry. We had a view!

Thursday was pretty rainy so we decided to hop in a Zip Car and zoom around town to see the sights. We came across some cool things such as the Palace of Fine Arts and the Ghiradelli factory, but unfortunately did not go in to get any chocolate.

After an exhausting day, we went to Michelle’s birthday dinner at Nopa. The menu was quite fancy and I ended up ordering homemade pasta with bolognese sauce. It was quite delicious, as was the wine we picked out. Afterwards we strolled up to Alamo Square to see the Pink Ladies at night.

Friday—another rainy day. What made this day worse than the others was the 40° temperature with nonstop rain and wind. A perfect day for a ferry ride to Alcatraz, so on we went!

After heading back to the hotel and getting ready, we went out for Thai at a nearby restaurant and out to The Burritt Room for some “specialty cocktails”. I didn’t really like them—too fancy for me—and ended up resorting to beer!

Saturday was the much anticipated Sonoma Valley wine tour! We had a private driver pick us up early in the morning. On the way, since we had yet to see a clear view of the Golden Gate Bridge, we asked the driver to stop at the overlook across the bay.

Our first stop in Sonoma was Gloria Ferrer—a winery known for their sparkling wines. Gorgeous!

After that we headed to Robledo Family Winery where we were served by one of the Robledo brothers, Luis. He was a trip to say the least and made our time there very fun and full of laughs.

We ended our tour at Petroni Vineyards. This one was a bit different as we sat at the owner’s kitchen table to taste the wine! Apparently, he rarely stays in this house so they turned it into the tasting room. Very cool!

Before we left, the ladies running the tasting offered to set us up with a reservation at Lorenzo Petroni’s Italian restaurant in San Fran—North Beach—voted one of the best! We took them up on the offer and headed back to the city to get ready for a fabulous dinner. (The only con to this dinner was the $60 of appetizers delivered to our table unordered and being charged for them.)

Following our dinner, we headed to 2 bars in the area. First, Rogue Ales Public House and then Rickhouse for some more specialty cocktails where I ordered a Berry Bramble—so good!!

Sunday morning after 2 of the girls left for their early flight, the rest of us headed out for a busy day of more sightseeing—it was finally sunny! We wanted to take advantage of the time we had and see as much as we could before leaving for the airport at night. First, we headed to Lombard Street…

And then to Crissy Field for an amazing view of the Golden Gate! Did you know that it is actually painted “International Orange” and not red? The International Orange is the color used for all bridges in the world that are the first bridges over a bay.

We saw the Painted Ladies in daylight…

We went to the Haight Ashbury neighborhood…

Finally, we ended our tour in The Castro district which may sound familiar from the movie “Milk”…

And rested our legs at Harvey’s—a bar named in honor of Harvey Milk. I’m fairly certain we were the only straight people there. It was a great time!

Unfortunately it was time for our vacation to end and we headed back to the airport for an overnight flight.

Check out the rest of my photos in my San Fran photo set on Flickr…