California Coast

 About a month ago Blake and I went to California for our anniversary. Year six to be exact. I have always wanted to drive up the California coast on the 1, and we did just that. We started in L.A., but sadly I didn't take many pictures there. We walked around the Grove, went to dinner at Chateau Marmont, and then went for a walk/jog through Beverly Hills in the morning before breakfast. We were on the look out for famous people everywhere, but the only star we saw was Randy Jackson from American Idol at dinner at Chateau Marmont. Can we even count him as a celeb? Where was Jennifer Aniston?

We then got on the road and headed up to Santa Barbara. I made sure we rented a convertible because where else would we do that?!

Blake's college roommate, James, opened a brewery in Santa Barbara and of course we had to go see it. It was awesome!  

Then we laid by the pool/beach for a couple of hours.

Our room! 

Night out with James and Megan!  

View from breakfast. The Biltmore was gorgeous.

On the road again headed to Carmel. 

Of course we made a lot of stops along the way.

Big Sur

We felt like tools in our red convertible. Tourists were taking pictures of it. Haha! 

We made it to Carmel, and had dinner at the Inn at Spanish Bay and heard the bagpiper at sunset. 

We stayed in Carmel Valley at the Bernardus Lodge. It was a really cool wine resort that was a 20 minute drive into town. 

I loved all the succulent landscaping! 

The next day we did the 17 mile drive of Pebble Beach and Carmel which was beautiful. 

Lone Cypress

Carmel by the Sea was the cutest town ever. So quaint. I loved all of the old cottages. We had lunch at Cassanova, and walked around window shopping. 

We extended our trip by a day because a high school friend of mine, Cameran, got us front row tickets to Dancing with the Stars so we headed back to L.A. I absolutely love that show (I know), and couldn't have been more excited. I got my hair and makeup done at the hotel before so I could feel camera worthy! We weren't allowed to bring phones in so this was the only picture we had of the night which was before we left. 

We had so much fun! It was all so overwhelming. They had everyones names on paper taped to the back of the chairs and ours were front and center. Before the show started we were able to dance out on the floor for three songs. So fun!! Of course the next night when we got home we had to watch the show again and pause every time we thought we saw ourselves. Haha! 

Right side of the screen below. 

Blake on the far left. 

We had to stand except for commercial breaks and we couldn't hear anything that was going on on the mic. There was A LOT of clapping...

It was such an amazing experience to see how they do it all live. Thank you, mom, for watching pooh bear and teaching her where Jesus lives. Love you!