Home from our Babymoon!

As a surprise, I booked a nightlong romantic package at the Casa Monica (http://www.casamonica.com/) in downtown St. Augustine. I thought we needed a few days just to get away from it all and reconnect before the baby comes. It was the best idea ever.

We dropped off the pugs on Thursday morning and drove down to St. Augustine beach for lunch at Panama Hattie's, and of course, we had to drop in on Rita's for frozen custard. :)

We took a nice drive into downtown St. Augustine and checked into the Casa Monica. The concierge informed me that he had "good news and bad news." The bad news: there would be stairs. The good news? Due to a conference, they had to upgrade our room and so we would be staying in the honeymoon suite, complete with two floors, a private hot tub, and a private blacony all around the upper level. We tried to contain our ... um.... disappointment. ;)

There were a dozen gorgeous red roses waiting in the room, and within 20 minutes, champagne and chocolate covered strawberries were delivered to the room. We decided to enjoy the room and the view before our reservations at 95 Cordova. This is definitely going to be a restaurant we visit again. Everything was absolutely amazing. We split a fried green tomato with goat cheese appetizer, and the DH had their coconut crab bisque, the walnut & goat cheese crusted rack of lamb and creme brulee, while I had chilean sea bass with cilantro & balsamic reduction and the chocolate lava cake. Food, service and ambiance were all phenomenal.

It was late, so we went back up to the room and filled up the hot tub. Obviously, I couldn't enjoy it fully, but I did get to stick my feet in by the vents, which was great.

This morning, we got ready and went down to the restaurant for our included breakfast. Again, the food was incredible. We put our bags in storage and took a leisurely stroll through town to the bayfront for a horse carriage tour of the city. We had a great tour guide - she was witty and very well-versed in some of the low-down secrets of St. Augustine. It was very cool, and definitely piqued my interest about Henry Flagler and how the city really got going. Something to check out at the bookstore. After visiting all the sites, we wandered the shops again, and then headed north on AIA.

We had gotten great recommendations for a little place on the intercoastal called Cap's, so we headed there. It didn't look like much from the parking lot, but what a treasure! We spent almost two hours, watching the water (we saw dolphins swimming!), enjoying each other's company, and having a nice, long lunch. I got a little sunburned, despite the shade from the tree, but other than that, it was just a perfect few days.

Oh, and even better? We got home to find the approval for our fence in the mail. The company came out today to finalize everything and it will be up next week!