Honeymoon - Day Three (Part I.)

Wednesday
We woke up early on Wednesday, and Nick was feeling much better - YAY! I went for a run around town - SO beautiful! I wish I could run somewhere like that every day! Most of the run I could see the mountains, and the air was so dry compared to the KS humidity! After breakfast (OJ, egg/tomato/artichoke omelets, fruit, cinnimon rolls - YUM!), we packed up and drove the mile or so to our hotel - The Best Western Pepper Tree Inn. We decided to take a quick trip back up to the Solvang area. Nick missed the beautiful drive (we drove back a different way than we drove there) the day before because he was sickly and sleeping in the passenger seat. We retraced our steps and stopped along the way. After stopping for some lunchables (ha!), we reached Kalyra for our first tasting of day.

Kalyra did not have our favorite wines, but the atmosphere was great, our pourer was knolwedagble, and we finally were at a winery from Sideways! We also received glasses with our tasting and purchased a metal heart for a wall at our house.

Our next stop was Blackjack Ranch. Is it obvious that everything was GORGEOUS!?! Blackjack had some tasty wines, and some of them were a little bit pricier! We ended up buying a bottle of the Double-Down Syrah 2005 and a bottle of the Chardonnay Wilkening Reserve 2006. This picture outside of the tasting room is one of my favorites!

Our tummies were rumbling, so we stopped at the The Alisal Guest Ranch and Resort in Solvang. The food was good, but the view was AMAZING...

Wednesday may have been my favorite day because we packed in SO much! Check back for Part II. of Day Three!

Honeymoon - Day Two

Tuesday

We woke up before our alarm, so I quickly showered in order to start our day as early as possible. Our food arrived, and it was delicious! We had mixed fruit, egg/zucchini/mushroom casserole, and crescent rolls filled with jelly, and they were delivered to us in a basket! We ate them out on our private porch.

While we prepared for our day, we watched Sideways. Nick brought it with us because the area we were visiting included the wineries in the movie.
We snapped a quick photo before heading to Solvang, CA. Our first stop in Solvang was the vistors' center, and he helped point us in the right direction. We went to Lucas &Lewellen's tasting room first. We spent some time chatting with the graper grower's wife as she poured our tasting, and the grape grower himself came came from the vineyard. He chatted with us for a few minutes as well, and it was interesting for me to hear Nick "talk wine" with other knowledgable people. (Later in the week we bought a bottle of their Lucas & Lewellen 2007 Rose of Pinot Noir.
When we were done, we walked down to their other tasting room, Mandolina, to try the Italian varietals. Yummy! We enjoyed the wines here, and the ladies were nice and helpful! We also saw this book - So cute! I wish Callie could be a wine dog!

Nick really wanted to visit the Sideways vineyards, so we went to grab a bite to eat at a recommended restaurant - The Los Olivos Cafe - a restaurant from the movie! Nick and I enjoyed our caesar salad...little did we know it would change our day! It turns out that Nick is allergic to pine nuts - a fact we did not know until he had devoured them from atop his salad! I walked around the small town of Los Olivos, and Nick tried to overcome his reaction. His reaction was getting worse, so we decided to leave. I drove back to Santa Barbara, and Nick struggled in the car. We probably should have visited a doctor, but the benadryl helped enough to eventually help him overcome the symptoms.

While Nick was sleeping, I went for a walk. This is a picture of our B & B. Beautiful gardens!! Our room was around the left side. It had a private entrance, porch with table, chairs, and hot tub, and a great big room with a private bathroom.
I walked around State Street as well. It was a beautiful evening, but it was not much fun without my new hubby: (

When I returned from my walk, Nick woke up. We talked about dinner, and we decided I would go to a local deli. We also had the brilliant idea to look for a redbox, so that I could watch a movie while Nick recovered. The best part about redbox is that I did not need a local account, and it only costs $1/day! I rented...
...and when the local deli was closed, I was able to find us (expensive!) sandwiches at live culture downtown. We ate our sandwiches and began the movie...but I fell asleep a few minutes into it: (

RIP middle name

I just had my new social security card made, and it will read...

Lauren Wilkinson Adams

The lady even shredded my card that read "Lauren Marie Wilkinson!" Goodbye, Marie. It was nice knowing you. I enjoyed how loopy you were when I wrote my full name, and I can promise I will still doodle you from time-to-time. Losing you is worth gaining Adams, moving to the head of the alphabet, and keeping Wilkinson.

(This post was inspired by my coversation with Julia:
Me - "We should have a party to celebrate me losing my middle name."
Julia - "We did. It was called your wedding."
Ha! I was just looking for another reason to have everyone together! Love you, J!)

Honeymoon - Day One

I decided to blog about the honeymoon first because I want to have all the pictures back before writing about the wedding. (The wedding was absolutely amazing, and I am SO excited to talk about it again! Hopefully pictures will arrive soon!)

I'll post one day of our trip per post. Keep reading to find out about our journey to wine country...

Monday

Nick and I spent ALL afternoon (after a nice pizza party with a few family members) on Sunday preparing for our trip, so we did not have to wake up TOO early on Monday. Judy and Butch picked us up (thank you!) about 8:15am, and we made our way to the Kansas City airport... We didn't have too much trouble making our way to Santa Barbara, CA by way of Denver, and we arrived in LA around 2pm to see our first palm tree...
We drove up the Pacific Coast Highway. It is not the most direct route from LA to Santa Barbara, but it is one of the most beautiful drives in the country. I could not imagine living there and driving by this every day...

(Not the greatest pictures,
but it is literally the ocean on one side and mountain on the other!)

One of my students recommended Neptune's Net, so we stopped there for lunch...

We checked into our bed and breakfast - The White Jasmine Inn - around 5:30, and then we made our way down State St. to check out the scene. I think we must have walked 5-6 miles! The view was beautiful!

We also wandered down to Santa Barbara's famous Stearn's Wharf. SO pretty...
We ate dinner at Left at Albuquerque. It was SO good! For dessert, we sipped margaritas - one grape and one mango!
We had only been in Santa Barbara for a few hours, but we knew the rest of the trip would be a blast! We returned to our B & B, hopped into our hot tub for a few minutes to share some wine (after a return trip to the store for a corkscrew!), and then fell asleep without setting an alarm!

pictures!!!

No time to write - since we are on our honeymoon! - but I had to share that some of the pictures are now online!!! Go to www.thehendersonpost.com!!! Thank you Zach and Sarah!!!

Honeymoon!

SO much fun! SO much to share and say...but we're packing for our honeymoon (and we have NO pictures yet: ( Boo!)!!!

Here are some honeymoon ideas...

Neptune's Net

Coastal Winery


Cold Spring Tavern


Franceschi Park


Farmer's Market


Downtown Santa Barbara

Urban Wine Trail


Wheel Fun Rentals

Final details!!

I forgot I started this post last week and never finished it - here it is!

The final details are well under way! I have SO many details to share, but I think I am going to leave a few of them to be surprises! Last Friday, I had my trial hair done at Avanti. I LOVED it! I won't show you the actual photos, but here are some of the pictures I took with me as inspiration!

After that, I had dinner with Mom, Dad, Claire, and Jane. It was SO SO SO fun! It was like old times at the Wilkinson's with Jane there with us! Then, Claire and I picked up some favor bags, and I started to put together the favors as we watched Bridal Wars. I thought the movie was actually kind of cute: )

I have made many, many phone calls and emails over the last few days, and everything is truly coming together! I'm SO excited! We have so many people coming that we had to book additional space - but the caterer is awesome, and she didn't seem worried about it at all when Mom and I met with her on Tuesday! Today Nick and I met with Hank who is reading the scripture, and we just returned home from our meeting with the pastor. I still have some small changes to make to the program, but it should be ready to print soon!

Tomorrow I am going to work a little bit on some of the decorations and type up the timeline, but I'm not sure what else I really need to do! I guess I need to consult the LONG to-do list - ha!