California Vacation- San Diego and Santa Barbara

First off, we LOVE to travel. Traveling and food are our two favorite things-combining the two is even better! Our California vacation started from this amazing book we got for Christmas from Matt's mom called 36 Hours: 150 Weekends in the US and Canada. It is an awesome book that tells you the best things to do (and places to eat) in cities across the country if you only have a weekend.  So we took the book and off we went- San Diego to San Francisco in 8 days!  We went to:

San Diego, Santa Barbara, Montecito, Big Sur, Carmel by the Sea, Pebble Beach, Sausalito, Sonoma, and San Francisco

 

We flew out of Knoxville (which is a great little airport!), laid over in Charlotte and landed in San Diego at 10am on Friday morning. We rented a convertible...and ended up with an Eclipse Spyder... We laughed and enjoyed it.  San Diego was especially awesome because we got to see Jenn (one of my best friends from Charlotte who now lives in SD). It was great to see her and have a personal tour guide!

 

The best food we ate in San Diego has to be amazing fish tacos we had at this little place on water at Ocean Beach. These pictures were taken at the pier outside the restaurant.

 

Matt and I at the pier!

   

 

Sea lions and seals basking in the sun. This is where they come to have babies.

 

Ocean Beach!

 

 

Jen took us to the top of this mountain where we could see all of San Diego! It was really neat. Matt and I thought that this cross at the top was cool. The plot of land that is within that fence is privately owned so that the cross could stay there. Otherwise, the City would have to take it down.

 

Jen and Corey live 5 minutes from the beach at Sunset Cliffs...so of course we had to get a few pictures when the sun was setting. After our photo shoot, we headed to this delicious Vietnamese place where I finally got some pho! It was delicious!

 

 

 

 

We had a great day in San Diego. It was great catching up with Jen too. Saturday morning, Jen and Corey took us to a state park near their house where we could see more of San Diego. We also went to the Old City were we saw some cool old buildings, fun dancers, and ate delicious Mexican food. After lunch, we said goodbye to Jen and Corey and hit the road to Santa Barbara.

 

Jen had these great flowers in her yard- Birds of Paradise. Aren't they beautiful? Also, how cute is their house..just a couple of blocks from the beach!

 

 

 

We took the highway to Santa Barbara. We wanted to take the Pacific Coast Highway (the PCH per the locals :) ) but we also wanted to enjoy Santa Barbara for dinner so we took the quick route. We stayed at the Harbour View Inn in Santa Barbara, which is right on the main road, Cabrillo Boulevard. Our room had a view of the ocean which was very nice. Another nice surprise was that they gave us complimentary champagne on arrival. I told them that we were celebrating surviving the move and Matt's new job. How nice of them!

 

 

Once we got settled, we headed to dinner. Thanks to Yelp, we found an AMAZING dinner spot and it was right across the street on the pier. It is called Santa Barbara Shellfish Company. It was tiny and probably sat 30 people. After about a 45 min wait (it was only 6:00) and a delicious homemade bloody mary, we were seated! It was worth the wait. We got amazing soup, salad and crab!

 

I got clam chowder and a cesar salad

 

Matt got lobster bisque and cesar salad.

 

The menu board...we were seated at the bar (we loved it)

 

 

We both got the Rock Crab Special

 

 

YUM! The crab was huge!

 

 

Of course we had a post dinner photo shoot (Matt LOVED these, ha!)

 

 

 

Sunday morning we went to the Santa Barbara Mission. The 36 Hour book highly reccomended this and it was completely worth it! It was my favorite part of Santa Barbara. We attended the 9:00 mass and not only was the church beautiful, but the choir was amazing! We loved it!

 

 

 

 

 

 Pre-mass photo...another moment that Matt loved...don't we look exhausted!

 

Beautiful!

 

 

After mass, we went to breakfast in downtown Santa Barbara and then headed to Montecito. Matt read in the book that Montecito is where the good boutiques were and he wanted to buy me something pretty. Isn't that sweet of him? He picked out a great jacket for me...you will see me wearing it at Mission Ranch and Pebble Beach (pics coming tomorrow)! I love him soo much! He knows me so well.

 

Palm trees along Cabrillo Boulevard (iconic Cali right?)

 

The only pic we took in Montecito!

 

 Santa Barbara and San Diego were great! I think that the best part of San Diego was seeing Jen and eating the fish tacos. The best part of Santa Barbara was dinner and the mission. The jacket was pretty great too!

 

Tomorrow I'll post about our drive from Santa Barbara to Carmel by the Sea, when we drove through Big Sur! I'll also share pictures from Pebble Beach. These were our favorite places by far and I have a lot of pictures to share!

 

On another note, today is day 1 our mine and Matt's 30 day fitness challenge! Eek! I'll share more about that this week!

 

xoxo

Fran

Thursday night in the City!

I know I promised California pictures...but I havent had the time to download them from Matt's iPhone. So I want to share how AWESOME last night was!

 

Matt and I love living in downtown Knoxville! Now that we are back from our trip from California, the house in Charlotte is closed and my work travels are over, we feel like we can really cut loose and enjoy our time here. Last night was Symphony on the Square in Market Square and it was BEAUTIFUL outside. It seems like it has been constant rain here (except when we were in Cali and it as 85 and sunny :)) 

 Market Square is this nice park/retail area about 1 block from our house (see pictures below). The center of Market Square is this great grassy area (that Doo Jr. loves) and it is lined with delicious restaurants and charming shops. We ate dinner at Nama, our next door sushi restaurant that has half off sushi on Thursday, and headed over to Market Square to enjoy the symphony. It was packed!!  The Symphony was amazing and they played some great tunes from Les Mis but of course, they finished with Rocky Top!

 

This picture is looking down Market Square... Isn't it beautiful!

 

Market Square was packed!

 

I had to share this picture of the Tennessee Theater! Our condo is above the Tennessee Theater- the building that you see on the left side of the picture. We love it! Isn't it a beautiful place! We hope we have lots of visitors!

 

 Today is a BIG day! We are getting a new desk for our condo. This is going to fabulous since I am working from home. Also, I am cooking Matt a celebratory dinner to officially celebrate his new job, closing on our house and our move here! I'll share all pictures of our condo, dinner details and recipes next week!

xoxo

Fran

 

 

Welcome to our new blog!

Hi everyone! Welcome to our new blog! I thought that this would be a GREAT way to share fun details of all the adventures that we go on, our life in Tennessee and fun tidbits..hence, The Adventures of Mr. and Mrs. TDW! 

 

I am sure you are wondering who is Mr. and Mrs. TDW...do you mean MRW? I definitely mean TDW!  As most of you know, Matt and I met on a tennis court in Charlotte in the spring of 2011. I remember that day vividly! He hit the most amazing two handed backhands (haha- I am a tennis dork) and I knew it was meant to be! Anyways, it was HOT outside and the only thing I could think is "Well isn't he just a Tall Drink of Water?!" When I was telling my friends about him, we started referring to him as TDW and it just stuck! We started dating later that summer and the rest is history.  On March 8, 2012, my TDW proposed to me on the same tennis court where we met that day!  How perfect!

 

I am looking forward to sharing some old details with everyone as well, including our wedding, our move to Tennessee, and of course lots of developments about our pup, Doo Jr! I'll post pictures from our California adventure tomorrow!