Friday, we got up, got packed and then headed over to my dad's to drop off Rennie. She was not at all pleased to discover that she wasn't getting to go to the beach and my Dad had to distract her while we scooted out the door. After a trip through Starbucks, we were on the road by about 1:30 and arrived at our hotel around 3:00 pm. Our room had a beautiful view of the ocean and a small kitchenette (which = microwave + fridge + coffee maker), but Mr. Norris had brought along his French coffee press and a handy little hot plate so we were all set for cooking and our morning coffee. We ended up eating in, actually, for most of our meals and I suspect it saved us a pretty penny. Fortunate, too, because I ended up being so tired for much of the weekend that going out to eat seemed like a potentially miserable experience to me.

So we spent a lot of time in, resting and talking and looking at the beautiful ocean. At one point, he took out a marshmallow, stuck it on the end of a fork, and roasted it for me using the flame of several matches. I think it was the best roasted marshmallow I've ever eaten. The weather was perfect all weekend and the sky so clear that we could see the stars in all their fun constellations on Saturday night.

Sunday we got up and checked out, and then headed North on Hwy 101 up the Oregon coast to Cannon Beach. My very favorite candy store, Bruce's Candy Kitchen, is in Cannon Beach, and we'd hoped to stop by there but the place was unfortunately still under renovations. So we just drove on through since the town was crawling with a billion people and there was literally no place to park. (The previous day we'd driven an hour south from our hotel and shopped a bit at the Lincoln City outlet malls - we each found a few items but didn't spend long there.)

All in all, it was an enjoyable trip. There were, of course, things that we disagreed about and there were the occasional spats, but I think - in general - we are getting along well. The thing that was hardest for me over the course of the weekend was that I was tired. Really, really tired. And for me, tired = cranky. And my being tired and cranky frustrates me, and so I took it out on Mr. Norris - who, as I said, is saint-like - for lack of anyone else to take it out on. He did not deserve it and of course it was not fair and yet he just took it in stride and didn't take anything personally. He is a bigger person than me, that's for sure.

I guess now I can only apologize and work on behaving better in the future. Love's a funny thing: I guess you know you've found someone really special when you want to become more like them and less like your own cranky self.