mini moon

Gus and I went on a mini babymoon last Friday. With the arrival of his parents in town, we now have babysitters who are willing to stay overnight! We had such a good time, and Little Miss J did well with her grandparents.

After work, we headed to the Lafayette Park Hotel & Spa and checked in. We had dinner reservations at Artisan Bistro. Best part about the meal was the sous vide octopus, which had a sherry relish and marcona almonds. There are so many restaurants we haven't tried, but I would go back here just for that. Entrees were pretty good, but I'd be OK if I didn't eat them again. The second best part of the meal was the dessert, which was a peach tart with lavendar ice cream. The peaches here have been insanely juicy and delicious and I've been eating about a half dozen or so per week for the last several weeks, and I would imagine it is difficult to make lavendar ice cream that is not reminiscent of soap but the pastry chef here managed to do just that. After dinner we relaxed and managed to sleep in until the late late hour of 7 a.m. The curse of being a parent with a toddler that rises with the sun.

Saturday morning, despite wanting room service, I agreed to forego the 20% service charge and eat in the restaurant. I really wanted the eggs benedict with smoked salmon, but since I haven't eaten raw eggs for this entire pregnancy I figured why start now. Instead I had the lemon blueberry pancakes, which were pretty good - although they were not really a substitute for the lemon ricotta cakes at Hell's Kitchen in Minneapolis (which in the back of my mind I was sort of hoping for). Nonetheless, it was a relaxing morning with my favorite husband.

After breakfast, we decided to drive to the summit of Mt. Diablo. It was a windy road up the mountain with no guardrail, so given Gus's fear of heights I'm pretty sure we will never drive up there again - so it's a good thing we got some photos.

a selfie

the actual summit was in the visitor center

On our way home we did a little shopping at the outlet mall before relieving the grandparents from their babysitting duties. Little Miss J was so happy to see us. Her grandparents picked her up from preschool, and she had been sad for about 10 minutes when she realized we weren't home. But I guess Friday night she put herself to sleep and slept from 7:30 p.m. to 7:30 a.m., neither of which EVER HAPPENS when we are home. Playing with grandma and grandpa must have worn her out because she passed out on our bed before 6:30 p.m. on Saturday night. Gus managed to get her pull-up on without waking her.

We had a fantastic time on our mini getaway and it seemed like just what we needed to spend some time alone together. We were both, however, very happy to get home and see our little munchkin.