another year older

I gotta tell you, there needs to be some sort of rule that says you shouldn't have to go to work/school/real life on your birthday.  You should just have free reign to play all day and celebrate!   You know, if those sorts of things were up to me...

To start off Dave's b-day, I whipped up some superb scrambled cheese eggs and maple bacon (normally it's oatmeal, so be impressed ;) and then sent him out the door to brave the 405.

We had originally planned to grab lunch together, but what with some other things I had to get done that day (insert buying flowers - lots and lots of flowers), we decided we'd grab dinner together in Santa Monica after going to the temple.  By some miracle from the birthday gods, Dave got off work at 5:00 during busy season (what????) so we had plenty of time to celebrate.

We meet up at the temple (after I breezed through a freeway sans-traffic at 4:45 on a Friday night - another miracle) and lo and behold...it was closed.  Till next week.

What?  Fail.

A for effort, right?

We salvaged the night with a delicious dinner of tempura fried green beans (swoon), fried chicken, and Texas toast.  And topped it all off with an order of sticky toffee which they brought to our table and we both stared at it wondering why on earth we ordered dessert when we were already so ridiculously full from our meal. 

But it was Dave's birthday.  You have to order dessert on your birthday.

It was a lovely night and now this boy is 27!  I'm married to an old man.  Just kidding.  But it's crazy to think we met when he was 23 and now we've celebrated 4 birthdays together.  Time sure flies...

Happy birthday handsome man!

date night

Friday night was a simple night.

And it was the best.  

It started out with a happy discovery in the kitchen.  I found this new food blog the other day.  Her recipes were well reviewed, pretty simple, and looked delicious - a triple threat.  For dinner I decided to go out on a limb and try her grilled veggie and humus pizza...

Oh.

My.

Gosh.

It was SO good!!!

Honestly I had to stop us from eating the whole thing so I could take a few pictures.  It was that delicious.  I made homemade humus for the first time for this recipe and have already made it twice again over the weekend.  It's a new favorite around here (and so stinkin' easy).  Chickpeas have now become an overnight pantry staple.

After gorging ourselves it was 7:20ish and I had a hankering for a walk (and to burn a few pizza calories...).  Dave was sceptical because it was a little late, but I've been watching the sun lately and it definitely doesn't get full dark til 8:30 or so around here.

I won.  We walked :)

There is a darling little community sort of close to us that has a man-made lake in the middle of it and just a bunch of charming homes to wonder around that back up right next to the water.  We chose to meander around there with the rest of Valencia and all their dogs.  It was so fun to see everyone out  walking and enjoying the summer night.  

It was refreshing to get out of the house and take an evening stroll.  And on our way home we stopped by RedBox and picked up Hitchcock (which I've been wanting to see since it came out) and ate fresh strawberries for dessert.  

It was the loveliest, simplest night.  I'm down for spending an evening like this anytime.

adventure is out there

While the rest of the Tobler clan was off in the Midwest celebrating a certain brother's graduation from dental school (Woohoo Dr. Tobler!), Dave and I were determined to have a fun Saturday of our own.  We packed up a couple PB&H's, filled the car with gas, and headed out on the 126 West toward Ventura to go exploring.

On the way we stopped at a little honey farm just off the side of the highway that I'd heard about. 

Let it be known that I really hate bees, but I'm a sucker for honey.  We go through way too many of bottle a month (ok maybe like two), and Dave has just started to come round too.  We're honey lovers, and this was just the place for us.

They had a little tasting station where you could try all different kinds of honey collected from different plants like eucalyptus, sage, orange, cactus, avocado, wildflowers, buckwheat, and, of course, the classic clover.  Dave's favorite was sage, and I was a tie between wildflower and clover.  Who knew honeys could taste so different?  Both of us agreed, surprisingly, that orange was the loser - it was too bitter/herby for our sweet loving tongues.

After that we hopped back on the freeway highway towards the coast. Oddly, it was a beautiful sunny and warm day until we were about 3 miles away from the beach and then we hit a foggy cloud that didn't lift up the whole time we were there.  Weird, right?  Good thing we didn't come to get in the water.

We drove around the quaint little beach houses, and found a little park on the sand to eat lunch and roam around.

 

When the ocean air completely and thoroughly tousled my hair beyond help, we headed for Ventura's little downtown.  There were lots of fun looking eateries, boutiques, and more than a one street's fair share of thrift shops.  We strolled around and peeked in here and there.  Oh, and of course stopped for a little gelato.  What's a day trip without a little gelato?  And hazelnut and chocolate gelato at that.  My favorite combo.

On the way home we found the sun again (a few miles from the coast, so weird) and stopped at a little fruit stand in the canyon with the intention of picking up strawberries to make jam, but at $10 for half of a small flat, I wasn't impressed.  Don't worry, we still got a few macaroons as compensation.

And we called it a day when we rolled back in to our 80+ degree Santa Clarita.  Well deserved naps were taken (we're such party people) and a nice evening was spent together. 

Sometimes, these are my favorite kids of days.

golden birthday

David has been giddy for about a week over his plans for my birthday, but on Monday I thought he might explode with excitement. He came home from work and was about to tell me what we were going to do, and then decided not to at the last minute.  When do I need to wake up? What do I need to wear?  I asked him tons of questions, but he sidestepped all of them and said he'd wake me up when it was time and I could figure everything out in the morning.

6:30 AM Tuesday morning:
David: "Carly, wake up!  It's your birthday!!!"

I have to admit.  That was a little earlier than I had anticipated, but I have no qualms with starting the celebration earlier rather than later.  After giving me his (very thoughtful) gift (which I love, love, love.  Mine has a little 'N' on it) - he pulled out his phone, opened an app and gave it to me.  "And," he said, " we're going there today."  The app was MouseWait - he got us tickets to Disneyland for the day!!  If that's not the best birthday present ever, I don't know what is.

The park doesn't open til 10:00, but Dave was so excited (okay, I was too), that we hopped in the car at 8:30, grabbed some McDonald's breakfast and hit the I-5.  We really had some birthday luck with us, because somehow we didn't hit any significant traffic, and we made it to Anaheim by 9:50.  That must be some kind of record.

First things first, we ran right into California Adventure and hopped in the line to get a fast pass for the new racers ride in Car's Land.  That's right.  We waited in a 20 minute long line to get our passes to move ahead of the line later in the day...it sort of made sense.  Now that I think about it we ended up waiting in line for 40 minutes for that ride...we just split it up between the morning and the afternoon.  Good thing it was worth it.  The ride was way fun, you know, when we rode it at later that day at 4PM.

After getting that out of the way, we ran to start riding actual rides!  California Screamin' did not disappoint (as seen by my rockin' windswept do), and we rode Toy Story Mania for the first time.  We mean business in those 3D glasses.  Please let it be known that I almost beat David playing a video game!  This may be a first.  But he blew past me in the bonus round of the last game.  Didn't somebody tell this boy it was my birthday??  I don't think that should be allowed...

To be honest, the lines were so quick in California Adventure that we were done with everything we wanted to do by 1:00!  So we ran over to Disneyland and got me a birthday badge, because, hey, it's only your birthday once a year right?  Everyone might as well know it!

It also ought to be mentioned that we didn't have to wait for any ride more than 35 minutes the whole day.  Happy birthday to me.  Thanks Disneyland.

Right about this time our fast passes were up for the racers ride in Car's Land so we jetted back across to California Adventure.  I have to say, I've never utilized a park hopper pass as much as I did yesterday.  We hopped between parks 4+ times!  Yes, both our feet are very sore today.

P.S. Car's Land was kind of incredible.  Definitely worth going to see.  We were very impressed.  And the racer's ride?  SO much fun.  Not worth standing in line for an hour for, but using our 20 minute fast pass line?  No brainer.

Mom and Brooke showed up around 4:30 (having dropped everything to come hang out with us last minute!  We're so glad they did), so we jetted back over to Disneyland to ride a few of our favorites with them.

 Hats were tried on:

The Tea Cups were ridden:

Dave creamed me on the Astro Blasters (as expected):

And, of course, we had to check out the Matterhorn's new bobsleds - you're not (as) squished anymore!  Woohoo! :

We ended the night by meeting up with dad and going back to California Adventure for dinner (because, let's be honest, their food is way better):

And we called it a day!  And what a good day it was.  Thanks Disneyland.  Contrary to previous conclusions, you are, indeed, the happiest place on earth.