Since my Dad is British, we usually recognized Boxing Day each year.  So, Happy Boxing Day!

It was a happy one for me, although I didn’t do anything traditional.  I didn’t sleep all that well in the hotel, although I’m not exactly sure why.  I haven’t been sleeping well the past few days.  And last night I had a nightmare.  I haven’t had one of those in a really long time.  It was really nice, though, to wake up in a bed where I didn’t have to worry about making or washing the sheets.

Much to S’s dismay, we actually got up at around 8.  We wanted to get to the Continental breakfast before it closed for the morning.  S insists that they purposely make the hours for the Continental breakfast really early (especially for a weekend the day after a holiday) so that nobody actually comes?  I don’t know… sounds like a conspiracy theory to me.

For breakfast, I had two packets of oatmeal,

and a mini chocolate muffin.

After breakfast, we checked out of the hotel and went to downtown SLO.  It was a really cute little place with an interesting combination of small, mom-and-pop shops, and some large chain stores (Gap, etc.)  There were a lot of store fronts that were empty where stores had gone out of business and closed, which was a sad reminder of the difficulties a lot of people are having right now.

There were beautiful trees and a little stream running adjacent to the city mission.

The city was a nice combination of nature and city-life.  It was beautiful.

We were totally in vacation mode.  We stopped to relax on a bench and just take in the sights.

The mission was beautiful, too.

With a cute fountain out front.

After walking around for a little bit, we went to Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory!

I got some fudge, and S got chocolate covered marshmallows on a stick.

One thing that I really want to do with S is make s’mores.  He has never had one!  He didn’t even know what a s’more was until I recently told him.

After we were done exploring downtown, we started our drive back up north.  We stopped many places along the way – first was Morro Bay.

The beach was beautiful – we threw around a football for a little while on the sand.

However, it started to rain, so we took a quick picture, hopped back in the car and kept driving.

While we drove, I snacked on some dried apricots.

We finally stopped for lunch at McDonalds.

I left my camera in the car so didn’t take a picture of my chicken caesar salad and fruit and yogurt parfait.

We were exhausted by the time we got home.  It had just been a one-night, two-day trip, but we were both happy to get back.  JB and Mendy were happy too Even though it was such a short trip, it was wonderful and I think it was exactly what we needed.

I made a quick snack of cottage cheese cheesecake pudding, raspberries and angel food cake.

And finished it off with the last of my eggnog ice cream.

It is good, but definitely nowhere near the Sugar Cookie ice cream good!

Now I’m off to bed.  Hopefully no more nightmares tonight…