the beginning of our stay-cation

Danielle and are both off work through all of next week. It's sort of a "babymoon" -- like a honeymoon but a little vacation that you take before your baby arrives. (Since it's probably the last time you'll be able to relax!)

Day one of the staycation we slept in then went to H&R Block to do our taxes. Fun huh?! Actually, it sort of was and it definitely felt like a vacation. (Well once we were done with the taxes.) We had lunch outdoors in Palo Alto at a little French cafe (I had croque madame!) and that evening we went up to San Francisco to try to get last minute tickets for Wicked. We didn't get them, but we decided to grab dinner in the city anyway (nothing fancy but it was one of my favorites - Chevy's!)

Day two (today) we went to Sausalito. We had a nice lunch in the old Fort Baker at a place called Murray's Circle. Then we just sort of walked around Sausalito, ate some ice cream, and watched the boats. The weather was unbelievable and I think I even got a bit sun-burnt. All-in-all it's been pretty relaxing.

And it sort of made me sad that I had to take vacation days to enjoy stuff that's right in my own backyard. I mean, what's preventing us from doing this stuff on a regular weekend or even weeknight? We could easily leave work early one day to go see Wicked, but it just seems so much more stressful to try to do it on a work night. Why? I think part of it is that if we would have trekked up to SF on a worknight and not gotten the tickets we'd have been really bummed. But on staycation, we don't have a plan or agenda so it's easier to just roll with it.

It was nice to go to Sausilito on a weekday though. There was no traffic, no crowds, no stress.

(Oh, I also got to try out my new 70-300mm zoom lens but although it was beautiful in Sausilito, it was a bit hazy looking across the bay at San Francisco.)