50th post. Woot.

It really has been a fun month for us out here. Having a car has allowed us to get out and see Northern California beyond Napa Valley. Don't get me wrong, I could hang out in Napa for days and days, but variation is good. Last Saturday, we drove down to Monterey, which is directly north of Carmel and Pebble Beach (famous golf course, no?) and had a lovely time. There were some scenic vistas, and some beaches and a very disappointing lighthouse (Dan apparently has a thing for lighthouses...learn something new every day. I just told him that under no circumstances will we be collecting mini lighthouse figurines) Anyway, we went to the Monterey Bay Aquarium, which is apparently the Number 1 aquarium in the country. Booyah Baltimore! I'm not sure who exactly ranks aquariums, but whatever. They had lots of fun things - fish to touch (Dan was totally the only person over 6 years old who was excited about touching starfish and the like), jellyfish, sharks, and OTTERS. So cute. I would like to have one as a pet, if possible. I think an otter and two cats = happiness, no? Of course, after being in the aquarium for over two hours, I was pretty much done being around shrieking (both with happiness and unhappiness) children. So, we took a lovely walk around Monterey's Cannery Row, which is a long set of old cannery buildings, that are from the 1930s-1950s when Monterey was a huge sardine canning town. No, seriously. Happily, in Monterey, some of this space has been converted into lovely wine tasting rooms in which there is, you know, wine and NO children. Ahhh relief. It really is crazy that no matter where you go in California, there is wine. Wineries on mountain roads, where the wine is actually grown. Winery tasting rooms on main streets in small California towns so that people can actually buy some wine in case they never travel on said mountain roads. Wineries on city piers. Wine wine everywhere. We're enjoying it. We went to two places, bought a couple of bottles and very nearly bought a gorgeous photograph. Please see: http://www.betterphoto.com/gallery/gallery.asp?mem=74968. In non "look how awesome my life is" news, tomorrow is Dan's birthday! He's going to be 26 and he's a little sensitive about how that age is closer to 30 than 20. So, definitely remind him as much as possible. We're smack in the middle of going out to a few dinners for his birthday season, much like we did for mine and we've had some amazing meals. A-m-a-z-i-n-g. Good thing he's sick and can't really taste anything. Ha! In other news, I finished the last book I was reading, "The Stone Diaries." Huzzah, I'm up to 4 out of 100! The author's style was great (her name is Carol Shields) and I got all wrapped up in the story. Have you ever read a book and at the end, assumed the characters are real people you could run into at Safeway or something? That's what her characters felt like. Wait - or is that just me being strange? If so, please still be my friend. Anyway, I'm onto my second book for the month (the goal this year is two books a month - one off the list and one non-fiction) which is called (please no freaking out) "Marriage, A History" and is really interesting. It's just a topic interest people!! OH also - I realized that I haven't been to see a movie in the theater in awhile (I went to see "I Am Legend" while I was home with Meghan and B Drake, but before that, I couldn't even tell you). Does anyone have any recommendations? Also, someone please pick a number between 1 and 100 for my next book off the list. (And by someone I mean probably Meghan, since she's the only one who reads this)