Sea Creatures, Bicycles, and Butterflies!

{A smack of jellies at the aquarium}

That about sums up our awesome trip to Monterey Bay Aquarium and Santa Cruz this weekend.  We had a great time in perfect 70 degree weather without a cloud in the sky.

On Friday morning, we stopped at Dynamo Donuts as promised.  Their flavors are ever-changing, so we got to try Meyer Lemon Huckleberry and a sticky bun, along with the Apricot Cardamom donut we'd had before.  They did not disappoint!

{Me with an apricot cardamom donut...mmmm}

Our drive down the coast was so beautiful in the morning sun.  We got to Monterey just in time for the aquarium to open.  I was really impressed by the entire place.  It kind of made me feel like a kid again!  We saw sea otters, penguins, a giant octopus, the kelp forest, seahorses, tons of jellyfish, and much more.

{Cole as a baby penguin at the aquarium}

Two exhibits in particular were really amazing.  One was The Secret Lives of Seahorses.  The other was one that centered around pink flamingos but had a lot to do with climate change.

{Looking towards the Santa Cruz boardwalk on our bike ride}

After lunch at a beachfront restaurant and finishing up at the aquarium, we headed back up the coast to Santa Cruz.  The Dream Inn was just totally perfect--a 1960s beachfront hotel that's been updated with a modern design twist.  From our sixth floor balcony, we had a great view of the ocean, the boardwalk, and the cliffs to the north.  We could hear the waves even with our balcony doors closed!  It was lovely.

On Saturday morning after a delicious breakfast in downtown Santa Cruz, we rented bikes and headed up the bike trail on West Cliff Drive.  Aside from constantly having to dodge twin strollers and errant joggers, we loved riding along the trail, which runs right along the beach cliffs.

We rode up to the state beach, where there just happened to be a huge number of monarch butterflies resting in the eucalyptus groves there on their fall migration to Mexico.  It was such a peaceful scene, with tons of orange butterflies flittering between trees.

{Cole in the eucalyptus grove}

After checking out the butterflies, we headed back down the bike trail towards the boardwalk.  We saw lots of surfers out in the rowdy waves.  After a late lunch and some lounging on the beach, we headed back to the car and left Santa Cruz to meander back up the coast.

Stay tuned for part 2 of our trip--the places we stopped on the way back to SF!

To see the rest of our pictures from the trip, go here.

Dynamo Donuts

{image via}

Dynamo Donuts will be our first (and last) stop tomorrow morning before we head south to Monterey Bay for the aquarium and then back north to Santa Cruz for the night.  We've devoured these donuts twice now (both times with Sam, incidentally) and they are easily the best donuts I've ever tasted.  It's not just the imaginative flavors (Candied Orange Blossom, Maple Bacon, and Pumpkin Nutmeg, to name a few), but also the texture and freshness.  The Spiced Chocolate donut is simply not to be missed.  As we discovered last time, Dynamo also has an extremely cute back garden in which to enjoy your breakfast goods and coffee.

So great is Cole's love for donuts that she may have cooked up this road trip just to make a stop at Dynamo.  I wouldn't put it past her at all.

Spiced Up Brownies

For book club this week, I whipped up some Spiced Up Brownies, recipe courtesy of Smitten Kitchen.  It was a great excuse to use some of the Mayan Cocoa that Eileen brought for us when she visited in July.  That stuff makes fabulous spiced hot cocoa, so I was excited to try it in baked goods.

Oh man, these brownies did not disappoint!  I wouldn't change a thing about the recipe--just one part of my execution of it.  I really need a real double boiler, or at least a large glass or stainless steel bowl for the top part of a makeshift double boiler.  Last night, I was working with a rather small glass bowl over a smallish saucepan, and it made for some awkward whisking once I added sugar and eggs to my melted spiced chocolate mixture.

That was the only hiccup, though.  These babies are tasty.

Heavy Boots

{image via}

I started a book club, and our first book, chosen by yours truly, was a doozy.  I knew from reading the blurb that the subject matter--a nine-year-old boy's quest to find out exactly how his father died in the September 11th attacks--would be intense.  And it was.  It was also very difficult to follow in parts.  And I never had that feeling of wanting to just really devour this book, which was a letdown.

I have mixed feelings about this book.  I kind of think that the author, Jonathan Safran Foer, who wrote Everything Is Illuminated (which I did not read, but saw in movie form), relies too much on gimmicks to get by with this story.  He switches from narrator to narrator, throws in photos, creates sections with just a word on each page, etc. 

But then there are things I really like about his writing.  One is "heavy boots," the expression that Oskar uses when he feels sad.  It's so descriptive.  I want to incorporate it into my personal lexicon.

I'm excited to hear what everyone else thought about this book when we meet tonight.

"We've been aware there's some very serious vampire activity in this town for some time."

--Edgar Frog, from The Lost Boys

The Santa Cruz Boardwalk

{image via}

We're going down to Santa Cruz for the night on Friday, so of course I had to pull out my favorite quote from The Lost Boys, which was filmed there (although it's called "Santa Carla" in the movie).  We're staying at a hotel that I've been lusting after for quite awhile now, the Dream Inn.  It's the only Santa Cruz hotel that's actually right on the beach, and it looks to have an awesome modern design aesthetic. 

I found a treasure trove of  historic photos of the hotel and had to share a few. 

{The beach before the Dream Inn in 1960; image via}

{Newly finished Dream Inn}

{Miss California contestants frolicking in front of the hotel in 1963; image via}

I'll be back with photos of the hotel in present day next week.  What I'm hoping to see is most of the 1960s design elements preserved, with the right kind of midcentury modern updates to furniture, lighting, and decor.

Before we check in on Friday, we're heading down to Monterey Bay Aquarium for the day!  This is another thing we've been wanting to do since we moved here (we're slowly checking things off our mental lists, one by one...).  Not only am I super excited for the Aquarium itself, Monterey Bay is a known gathering spot for all kinds of sharks at this time of year. 

So yeah...I won't be getting into the ocean :)

My 'Hood

I wrote a Neighborhood Guide for Apartment Therapy--check it out here!

Let's Hang*

Alas, even with our larger apartment, I'm running out of surface space for plants.  So not long ago we picked up this glass terrarium from Flora Grubb (my home away from home) that hangs from the ceiling.

Planting and arranging the succulents was challenging, but I eventually got them in there.  They're doing really well and only require a few sprays of water every couple of weeks.

*Not just the title of this post, but also the name of a line of impossibly cute key chains from kidrobot on Haight Street.