hanging out at the beach & nye ranch

After we visited the Mendocino Botanical Gardens on Sunday, we checked into our motel, got comfy and ate some yummy Mexican food for dinner. We asked the lovely people at our motel's front desk if they had any recommendations for easy beach access. A quick drive down Main Street took us to a pretty nice little beach to hang out and play in the sand. We weren't brave enough to enter the water, it's pretty cold still! But the sand was nice.


Oh and I almost forgot, we got ice cream! Super awesome ice cream at this place called Cowlicks. I managed to not get sand in it.



I love Northern California beaches but I could definitely do without the excess seaweed. Ew.





JC was having fun playing with the sand. It was the first time we let him just go to town in it.





I still spent a good amount of time trying to keep sand out of JC's mouth. Keyword: trying.



So I loaded up this post with pictures from the beach on Sunday because we were so excited to see Nye Ranch on Monday we neglected to take any pictures. Blog fail. Charles took some videos but I look pissed off in most of it because he was taking too long, inmyopinion. So if you want to see pictures, visit their site.

Buuuuut, we did visit Nye Ranch on Monday and it was pretty awesome. To be completely honest, we weren't "blown away" at first. In fact, it took me a couple of days to fall in love with it. The house is older and pretty "rustic". But it has SO MUCH room for people to sleep which is really what we want the house for. And it's on the beach. And they will let you have a wedding there. Check, check, and a BIG check.

After coming home and thinking about it, we decided to make it our venue! I cannot even halfway express how incredibly exciting this is. I know we can make this house super cute. I say "we" but Charles has already bowed out of this responsibility. Luckily, I have really creative friends/family (I'm talking to YOU Kristen!) who I know will have tons of great ideas. I'm not sure if we will have the ceremony on the deck overlooking the ocean or actually on a bluff at the beach. Both are viable options, I guess it depends on how "rustic" we want to be. It's not a short walk to the beach and it's through a grassy walkway so we'll have to see what we are willing to put our guests through. By the way, did I mention that they have ALPACAS. Three of them to be exact. We are currently in process, talking to the owner of the house so we can get a date set. But the plan is for the beginning of May next year. SO EXCITED!!!! To quote JC, we are "happy happy happy!"