Our Mini-Moon!

I am trying so hard to be a better blogger lately.... I missed writing on here! It drives me crazy to go "out of order" when I have a million things about the house and the wedding to update everyone about, but for now, "out of order" is better than nothing, right? :)

More wedding updates will come soon (I think subconsciously I'm delaying writing them since I'm hoping to get our photos back from our photographer to accompany each post) but in the meantime, let's talk about our MINI-MOON!!!!

Since we knew our big honeymoon wasn't going to be until two months after the wedding, we wanted to go away for a couple of days right afterwards to be alone before heading back to "real life." I'm so glad we did - it was so nice to have this little vacation for just the two of us, especially right after the craziness of the wedding weekend! 

We wanted to go somewhere relatively close-by - we didn't want to get on a plane, and we didn't want to go somewhere where we would want to sightsee and explore... all we wanted was to lay around! Since I was a little girl, I have always loved the Ojai Valley Inn & Spa (I even briefly considered it for the wedding), and when Ram reminded me he had never been there, I knew it was the perfect place - relaxing, beautiful, and only an hour drive away! 

We drove up the Monday afternoon after the wedding and stayed until Wednesday night - just two nights, but it was so nice! When I made the reservation, I mentioned it would be for a little honeymoon getaway, and when we checked in, the hotel had graciously upgraded us to a beautiful suite, and left us a little surprise!

I took some photos of the grounds, but they do not do it justice - it is STUNNING there. Everything is so green and lush, the buildings are just impeccable - I stole a few photos from their website to share. Look how beautiful!

We basically spent our entire time there laying by the pool. Since it was the middle of the week, the pool was virtually empty and the weather was PERFECT - 75 degrees and sunny with a gorgeous breeze. #godblessyoucalifornia. We read books and swam and ate fruit & melon skewers. It was heaven.

On Monday night, we went to one of my all-time favorite restaurants, Suzanne's. It's the best restaurant in Ojai and everything was delicious. The OVI concierge had made our reservation for us, and when we walked in, the hostess greeted us by saying "You must be our newlyweds!" and took our picture on the patio with all the lights!

We ate shrimp dumplings and mushroom soup to start, followed by chimichurri-marinated steak (Ram) and goat-cheese stuffed shells with grilled shrimp (mine - yum). We were so happy!

On Tuesday night, we visited their world-famous spa - Ram got a massage and I had an Orange-Honey Blossom Body Wrap. Afterwards, we were driven by golf cart back to the restaurant area (I was literally still wearing my spa robe!) to partake in the hotel's "S'More's Package," We sat by their beautiful fire-pit on the patio and were brought an enormous platter of marshmallows, graham crackers, Hershey's, and Reese's! It was heaven. I literally told Ram that I had died and gone to heaven. 

 

While we were there we also visited the main town area and walked around, bought books at a GREAT bookstore our friend Rachel recommended called Bart's Books, ate dinner our second night at a little Italian spot called Osteria Monte Grappa... it's just the cutest little town.

The entire time we were away (and most days since then, if I'm being honest), we have kept just holding our left hands up to show each other our wedding rings. It feels CRAZY to be married - everything is exactly the same, but also so different :) 

It was a fabulous mini-moon and we can't wait to go back! So happy Ojai is just an hour away!