Just when we didn’t think we could top that weekend, we did.

These last couple of months I’ve been engineering a plan with a couple of our friends, J-Lu, from Chicago. Last year was my KISA’s 30^th birthday, and naturally I wanted to make it a huge celebration. Which I did. I surprised him with a trip to Cape Cod and had a bunch of his high school friends rent a house with us to give him another surprise. Since he lived in Colorado for 10 years after college I then gave him a second surprise – a trip to Colorado to go camping. I told him a couple weeks prior for that trip since I’m not the best person when it comes to knowing about camping gear. Well, we had a second surprise for him during this trip as well and had our friends J-Lu fly out to Colorado to go camping with us. We did some back-country camping, hiked a 14’er, hiked out to some hot springs to camp, went white water rafting, basically did it all. It was a pretty epic 30^th birthday and it wasn’t even mine (oh, and that’s in addition to his birthday weekend in Chicago with his brother at a Red Sox game and also a fishing trip).

Well, J-Lu have been wanting to come out to SF since we moved out and we decided to make it happen. Coincidentally, one of the dates they were looking at was my KISA’s 31^st birthday, so we had to make it happen. We again planned an epic camping trip for him down in Big Sur. They also spent time in SF and Napa, taking in all the sites and drinking up all the wine. We got home from DC early Monday morning, and J-Lu was on our doorstep Monday night (we didn’t want the fun to stop). My KISA didn’t know about their visit, so when I went downstairs to let them up, he was closing the window upstairs and saw them. The look on his face was hysterical. He had been duped.

On Thursday we left on our trek to Big Sur and had some welcome companions meeting up with us on Friday – Dubs and B. Wils. We spent Friday doing a “leisurely” 11 mile hike that included climbing around some rocks on a secluded beach.

On Saturday we went to a jade beach in a quest to find some jade. I’m not really sure if we found any as none of us had done any research on what we were looking for. At the very least we found some pretty awesome green rocks. After that we went to see a pretty amazing waterfall that flows into the ocean. I mean, it’s pretty amazing if you’re into that kind of beautiful scenery. We then went to another cove. I proceeded to climb the rocks and go away from the group. It seemed like a great idea until I was climbing onto the front of the rock, surrounded by the ocean, and slipped on the wet rock. All my pores opened up and I proceeded to sweat and shake profusely. Thankfully I’d caught myself and ended up with just a scrape on my leg, but I decided my adventures out there were over.

We then had to bid adieu to J-Lu so that they could head back to Chicago. I was pretty bummed and was doing everything in my power to prolong their leaving. Dubs and I then went on a hike to distract ourselves from our loss by looking at more waterfalls. That night we cooked brats, burgers, and smores on the grill and I forgot J-Lu’s existence temporarily while I devoured more meat than a starving tiger.

Sunday morning we woke up and immediately packed up our tents to head back for the city. On the way back we stopped for breakfast in Carmel at one of the best breakfast joints I’d ever eaten at, called Katie’s Place. I convinced the table to order a second entrée for us all to share because they had pancakes with real maple syrup like my grandpa used to me. It was so good everyone hoisted me up on their shoulders as we left the restaurant. Or at least they should have. It was damn good.

On the way home my KISA made the fatal mistake of falling asleep on the drive home. Don’t worry, though, I was driving. I decided we really needed a bathroom break. In Gilroy. At the outlet malls. He thankfully didn’t wake up until we were off the exit and pulling into the outlet malls. I calmed him a little by pulling up to the Levi’s store first. He muttered under his breath while he grabbed a half a dozen pairs of jeans to try on. After he settled satisfactorily on a gray pair he conceded and wanted to know what stores I was looking to go into. This is when karma kicked me in the ass. I walked into J. Crew and noticed some signs on the table. Then the evil sales lady confirmed what the signs said and told me everything in the store was half off. Judging by all the stuff I’d bought you would have thought she’d told me it was free. Judging by my bank statement it wasn’t.

As I left, my KISA, who I should mention is the most incredibly great, thoughtful, considerate man I’ve ever met, told me he was in the sunglasses store. I walked in and saw some polarized Ray-Bans on the counter that he was looking at. Since I was still on my J. Crew high, it didn’t even faze me that he was buying himself a second pair of sunglasses, while his wonderful fiancé lost hers on the train when someone snatched them out of my…lap. Then, he told me he’d picked them out for me. I guess he had a discount coupon for there and knew how devastated I’d been that I’d lost mine. Did I mention how incredibly great, thoughtful, and considerate he is? Well, he is. I put on my new sunglasses as I skipped out of the store.

The Big Sur crew