1st Year Celebration

So, it has taken me a week to write about my adventures but they are still just as amazing as they were a week ago. As I have mentioned before, Dom and I went to Mendocino/Fort Bragg for our first year anniversary celebration. We rented a beautiful loft surrounded by redwoods that sits on top of an art studio. The whole house was beautiful with its vintage barn look. I am getting ahead of myself though, let me start from the beginning.

Dom got Friday off and so our celebration started Thursday night. We decided to exchange gifts then since what I got Dom was too big to bring in the car. He opened his first. Here is a video of the fun. :)

I got him a Djembe if you didn't know what it was he pulled out of the box. His roommate had one and he always played with it. He said he was waiting to ask for one for Christmas but I though he deserved it now. I covered it with one of my quilts and when he said, "You got me a quilt?" I thought he thought I made him one. He laughed at me later for that. :)

I was next and so excited about presents. Dom wrapped it when he came home and when he came out of the office I just laughed. He did an amazing wrapping job that I was quite impressed with but he accidentally wrapped it in Birthday paper. He said that he was half way done when he realized what he did but it didn't really matter. Here is my video.

Dom got me pearls!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! The clasps has diamonds in it and is the shape of a star/flower. It looks beautiful and vintage/antiqueish, which I love. Here is a better picture of it that Dom has taken:

Now in the video Dom said, "He will explain that later." He was talking about the writing on the box, which said, 3/7/09 1st Anniversary. Now I have always wanted a pearl necklace. I think they are elegant, classic, and beautiful. I always pictured my dad giving me one on my wedding day or my husband presenting me with one on some special occasion. Well I never told my dad but I did tell Dom shortly after we got married that I loved pearl necklaces and wanted to own one someday. Well they had one in the shop and it just so happened to be his favorite piece and so he had it put on hold for me a year ago and planned on giving it to me for our first anniversary!!!!!!!!! How perfect is that? Needless to say that I love them and am so happy. :)

After our wonderful gift exchange, we packed everything for our trip and went to bed early. We left at 7am Friday morning since the drive was supposed to take 5 hours. We took his parents route to Mendocino which took small highways through beautiful scenery. I drove the first three hours while Dom slept and then we switched. I got about 15 min. of sleep in before the road got too bumpy for me to even stay in my seat. It turns out that one of the little highways is in the middle of nowhere and ends up going down to one lane on a horribly paved road.

Whilst making a blind turn on this horrible paved, one lane road someone was coming the other way a bit too quickly and was cutting in the inside (where we were) and Dom had to slam on the brakes and the guy swerved and barely missed us. He ended up sliding off to the side of the road and would have gone over the edge except his car got stuck on one of the road reflectors and it stopped him. The whole thing could have been much worse.

Well we parked our car and put on the hazards and went to go see if he was alright. We get to the car and out steps this white, freckle faced Rastafarian. I am not even kidding. He had the massive head wrap, wreaked of weed and talked just like Bob Marley. We tried to push the car out but it wouldn't budge and so our new friend began to ask God to, "Send love from a broda wit a truck." I am pretty sure that Dom and I were praying that God would do the same thing so that we could get out of there and sure enough less than 5 min. later two hillbillies come around the corner in a truck.

They stopped and said they would help and with big smiles on their faces said we could "burn one after." They tied a rope to the car and pulled it out. We were all relieved but the hillbillies were anxious to receive their payment. As they were working out the weed deal Dom and I hopped in the car and took off. This experience was one we will never forget.

We finally arrived at the cabin and it was even more gorgeous than the pictures. We were so excited to be staying in this beautiful place. We headed into town and had some lunch after seeing our cabin and later we went to Fort Bragg and walked around the beach and through downtown. We came back later that night to a little coffee house which had live jazz music. It was kind of different. There was a piano, a mandalin, and the drums. It was great to listen to. Here are a couple pictures:

That says Happy Anniversary. :)

The next day we barely made it to the Skunk Train. It a train that was built in 1920 and you can smell the engine before you can even see the train, that's why it's named the Skunk Train. It takes you an hour and a half into the Redwood Forest and stops to have lunch at this little campsite and then brings you back. It was very pretty and there was an open car that you could walk out onto and take pretty pictures. That night we decided to do the fancy dinner for our anniversary since we would be on the road home during dinner time the next day, our actual anniversary day. We went to this gorgeous French Restaurant that over looks the water and had live music. The food was unbelievable and the dessert was even better. We spent the night talking about our past year of marriage and what we learned about love and how it met and differed from our expectations. It was very romantic and encouraging to know that we love each other so much and we made the right decision.

I bought this dress for our rehearsal dinner and ended up wearing something else but I knew that I wanted to wear it for something special and chose this occasion a year ago. I was so happy to finally wear it for my handsome husband. :)

Our last day was spent sight seeing. We went to Glass Beach, which ended up being a total dud so I am not even going to show a picture and then Russian Gulch Park and the Point Cabrillo Light House. I loved the light house!! it was so cute and they reconstructed one of the Lighthouse assistant's houses to 97% accuracy. I love historical things like that. We bought a Point Cabrillo Christmas Ornament for our souvenir, since we got an ornament on our honeymoon too. I think we will start a tradition if we can.

After the sight seeing we had our honeymoon lunch over looking the water. On our honeymoon we had a little kitchen and so we bought and made all our own food. We had the same lunch everyday, bologna and cheese on a asiago cheese roll with chips and snacks. I got all the stuff again for this trip and surprised Dom with the meal. He said I was thoughtful and cute which is pretty much what I was going for.

After this we went back to the loft and packed up and left. We took Google's original route home and made it there in 4 uneventful hours. All in all, this was a perfect trip. I couldn't have asked for anything better. I enjoyed celebrating with a wonderful man I am proud to call my husband! :)