Santa Cruz Weekend

*A forewarning - I'm finally getting caught up on a lot of pictures/posts that I have had on the back burner and I finally have the time to write, so there will be posts of events from the last month that I can finally get up!*

 (All pictures, excepting the sandwich, are courtesy of my friend Hilary, who did a great job documenting the weekend)

The first fun event to recap was a lovely ladies weekend celebration for my friend, Jenny, who just got married this past weekend to an amazing man (yay!).

To celebrate the impending wedding, her great friends planned a weekend of relaxation and fun at a family house in Santa Cruz. While I didn't know many people going in, I had such a great time getting to know people and take a lovely break about 3 weeks before the end of the school year.

The first night we went to a great mexican restaurant on the pier, where the view was beautiful and the food (and margaritas) were tasty. I haven't spent a lot of time around the beach this past year, and it was so nice to look out onto the bay. After dinner, we went to the classic, "Mariannes" - the iconic ice cream place in Santa Cruz (that I had, despite living a year in Santa Cruz, only visited once).

The next day, two of the ladies and I went for a beautiful run on West Cliff (where I always used to run). I was worried about keeping up, but they took it easy on me, and after 3 miles, I sent them ahead while I cooled down. I had an 8 miler planned for the next day and was worried about doing too much the day before (the fear ended up unfounded, by the way, the 8 miler was wonderful). The weather was just perfect in the morning - cool but crisp blue water and sky, and the sound of the crashing waves was just perfect for relaxation.

We worked up an appetite, so headed to "The Buttery" for delicious sandwiches and dessert.


I had this great vegetable sandwhich (I think it's the one in the picture above, though this picture is from their website). It was full of roasted vegetables and goat cheese, and was divine.

After a few more ladies arrived, we decided to walk down to the lighthouse, which was a short half mile or so from the home.

Here we snapped a few pictures and enjoyed the scenery until the weather took a turn and a drizzle forced us home .

Obviously, we worked up a bit appetite, so it was only right to stave off hunger with some fondue! It's been such a long time since I've had this, so it was so much fun to have.

We started with cheese (bread and salami were our dippers), but were careful not to get too full for the next part....

Dessert! You would not believe the spread that was set up for us - fruit, rice crispies, even peanut butter balls and cream puffs. It was so amazing and was hard not to eat everything in sight! It was the perfect sweet end to the evening.

The next morning, I took off early to get to my run (and burn off that fondue) - such a great weekend.