Light Up Your Life: A Holiday Special from the Bayfront Marin House

I used to balk whenever I saw Christmas decorations in stores before it was even Halloween.

Then I met my nephew, who--when he was four--opened his last birthday present of the day then said "When is my birthday next year???"

Why not celebrate something that you really enjoy as soon as possible?

We've been thinking about Christmas for quite some time now. And we've got a GREAT deal for our guests who are planning to spend the holiday season with us.

From November 27 through January 26, guests who stay two weekday nights (that's Sunday through Thursday) are going to have a sweet time at the Bayfront Marin House.

First, when you check in, you'll get awesome chocolate peppermint bark and s'mores from the amazing Claude's Chocolates (a local favorite--just ask our staff!) It's a great way to start a romantic getaway with your own sweetie.

After you've fed each other chocolate, you can enjoy our almost-famous happy hour from 5-7 each night. Lounge around in our hammock--or one of our relaxing porch swings--with a glass of our sangria, and a plate of our nom-noms du jour.

But the most fun is yet to come. When the sun goes down, the lights go up--over 2 million twinkly white ones, part of the illuminating Nights of Lights celebration in Saint Augustine. You'll enjoy the perfect vantage point on a FREE and EXCLUSIVE ride on the Inns of Elegance red train. It will pick you up right from our inn (we're one of only 5 Inns of Elegance, so there will be plenty of room on the ride), and take you on a gorgeous tour through town.

If you and your loved one don't feel all lovey-dovey after that, well, then there's really nothing more we can do for you.

But that doesn't mean we're not going to try!! When you check in, we'll give you a gift certificate good for two cups of homemade hot chocolate and chocolate covered biscotti from Claude's. It's our holiday gift to you--to THANK YOU for helping to make our first full year as innkeepers truly sweet for us.

We hope you'll join us for the holidays this year. The Trolley Treat Tour begins November 27 and runs through January 26 (with the exception of the week between Christmas and New Year's, when even Santa takes a break!!) Call us soon to book your stay!!

By the Numbers: Weddings on 11/11/11

A good friend of mine dabbles in numerology.

She can meet someone, add up the letters in their name, and determine if they will be best friends or simply acquaintances. She can tell you what numbers are "lucky" for you, and what months are the best months for business or love or adopting a puppy.

I, on the other hand, can't even split a restaurant bill five ways without the total either coming up short, or our group leaving a 45% tip.

But lately I've been thinking that the numbers are aligning for me to start looking at numbers more carefully. If you're going to study numerology, Saint Augustine is the place to start. Check out this post in wikipedia:

St. Augustine of Hippo (A.D. 354–430) wrote "Numbers are the Universal language offered by the deity to humans as confirmation of the truth." Similar to Pythagoras, he too believed that everything had numerical relationships and it was up to the mind to seek and investigate the secrets of these relationships or have them revealed by divine grace.

I've been thinking about numbers a lot lately, as we get more and more calls from star-struck couples who want to be married at our inn on November 11, 2011--which is 11/11/11 for the numerically challenged.

(If you're thinking about doing that yourself, you might want to consider a room for 12/12/12. We already have FOUR couples getting married on 11/11/11--and I think that's our limit!)

So why are couples choosing this date in droves? In my highly unscientific study (I simply asked two of the people planning a wedding with us on that day), this is what I learned: there are those people (read: women) who think that a repetitive date like 11/11/11 is so scarce (this particular date won't happen again in our lifetime--and after 12/12/12 next year, this won't happen again until 2101, when you can get married on 1/1/1) that it simply must be good luck. Other people (men, natch) think it's cool because 11/11/11 seems to be a date that even they can't forget.

I guess we'll find out on 11/11/12.

In the meantime, if you want to get married on a special date, give us a call at 904.824.4301. We have availability on 1/2/12, 10/11/12, and 12/12/12!

Outside a dog, Man's Best Friend is a Book

Groucho Marx said:

Outside a dog, man's best friend is a book. Inside a dog, it's too dark to read.

There's plenty of light today, both in sunny Saint Augustine and at the Florida Heritage Book Festival. We're proud to host a great mystery writer at the Marin for the event--Diane Stuckart. If you find yourself outside of a dog, check out one of her latest books.

Or learn more about the Florida Heritage Book Festival at http://www.fhbookfest.com/.

Sand and Sound at the Pier

Today's Wednesday, and that means two things:

1. It's homemade ice cream night at the Bayfront Marin House (5-7)
2. It's free concert night at the Saint Johns County Pier Pavillion (7-9)

Really? Can you top that?

Tonight's musical guest is RhythmFish, and the ice cream flavor is raspberry cheesecake with dark chocolate flecks. Frankly, they both sound pretty good to me. And one sounds like a great way to prepare for the other! (Because this way, you won't get hungry during the concert!)

But you'd better hurry...because free concerts and free ice cream are only available Wednesdays in September. So, unless you're funk and lactose intolerant, you'd better hurry on down to Saint Augustine. There are only three more opportunities to check it out!

95 Cordova Gets 100 From Me

Although I work from home, and the hub works at the Inn (a mere 10-minute walk away...and that's if you have to wait for the light at King Street), we really don't have that much "couple" time.

Oh, we decorate for weddings together, and we pay the bills together, and late at night we sit next to each other, working on our respective laptops. But I'm not sure that any of that qualifies as couple time.

So today we decided to meet for a nice lunch. Mike chose 95 Cordova, the beautiful Moorish restaurant in the Casa Monica hotel. He ate there a few weeks ago for a lunch meeting, and he's been wanting me to go ever since.

The restaurant is exotic--with tall dramatic chairs and elaborate arches everywhere. The ceiling was burnished gold, and it seemed like every surface was decorated with a little sumpin sumpin. But too much is never enough for me, so I liked it just fine.

Since I was in a bit of a hurry (I had a phone call with the office at 1:30), Mike didn't get the coconut curry soup, and he probably is still a little miffed over that. So I can't report on whether that was good or not.

The waiter brought us some good chewy bread as a starter, with a drizzle of balsamic vinegar and house made pesto sauce. My grandmother is coming to visit us in October, and the bread alone made us both say--almost at once--that we'll have to bring her to this restaurant (she loves bread!) It was excellent, and probably would have gone great with a bowl of curry soup.

As it turned out, I didn't need the bread, as my curry chicken salad ($12) came with little wedges of pita. The salad was delicious, although the write up had said it came with apples, dates and cilantro, and I don't think I had any of those things on my plate (many people would say that these are all just cheap filler, and they would be happy that every chunk in the salad was pure white chicken instead). I did enjoy the candied nuts on top of the salad...they added a nice sweetness to the spice.

Note: if you order this because you want a lot of greens with your salad, don't. This is pure chicken salad, like the kind you put on a sandwich, and there were just a few tiny greens underneath it for looks. Again, this was fine with me...it's the chicken that's the good part anyway!

The hub enjoyed meatloaf, made with beef and homemade sausage ($15). It was topped with mushrooms in a rich sauce, and bottomed with a HUGE pile of mashed potatoes and then an artful spray of green beans. The waiter said it was his favorite dish on the menu (the hub and I always compete to see who gets the heartiest "Oh, good choice, sir/madam" from the wait staff.) Why a heavy meal like meatloaf is a very good choice on a sweltering day, I'm not sure...it's possible that the waiter knew that Mike was paying the bill.

The service was very nice, and it was a great (and quick) getaway from the daily grind of the home office. The menu had lots of yummy looking desserts too, I'll have to check them out on the next trip!

A Behind the Scenes Look at the Bayfront Marin House

The hub and I dreamed about owning a bed and breakfast for 14 years, finally buying the beautiful Bayfront Marin House last September 1 (our year anniversary is coming up, if you wanted to send flowers!!)

During those 14 years, I did all sorts of things that I thought would be helpful to me in my new career. Things like:

• trying a new breakfast recipe every time we hosted a large group of people. I made breakfast burritos on Cinco de Mayo, French toast on Bastille day (it's best if you use Mexican vanilla and soak the bread slices overnight). I made homemade granola, muffins of all shapes and flavors, waffles, scrambles, omelettes, and maple-syrup baked bacon. Most of the time, these experiments were awesome. However, I'd like to take a moment to personally apologize to the family members who were forced to endure a batch of asiago scones that could have been used to build a retaining wall (I improved as I went along--the scones were an early venture into fancy breakfast baking).
• peppering my Christmas and birthday lists with cookbooks of every type. I got recipe books from bnbs around the country; I got all of Williams Sonoma's books on breakfast. I dug out all of the church cookbooks I had gotten in my hope chest (where I found a bunch of family recipes--thank you Mammy for submitting your raised cake recipe in 1972!!) I also got lots of good dessert recipe collections--The Mrs. Fields I Love Chocolate Collection, Semi Homemade Desserts, Ben and Jerry's Ice Cream Secrets, etc.
• yelling at Mike every time we made a bed together, insisting he learn how to make hospital corners and keep his pillows EXACTLY even with the pillows I fluffed on my side of the bed. (Note: the key to always winning this "discussion" is to fluff your pillows first, and then let the other person try to match yours).
• keeping an extensive idea book. Every time my job sent me to a high end hotel, I always tried to "steal" two or three great ideas that I could use someday in my own high end bnb. For instance, one of the hotels I visited had free postcards for people to fill out and mail, complete with a picture of the hotel on them (I'm working on the artwork for that now). One of them left little notes for us about our special occasion--which is why we now do that (assuming we know about it--we always love it when guests tell us if it's their anniversary or birthday!) We're still working on implementing all of the ideas...but they're all carefully preserved in my little book!

Anyway, for years (14 years, in fact) I worked on perfecting my skills to be a perfect, skilled bed and breakfast owner.

And then I bought an inn that was so large (15 rooms) it came with a complete staff. A staff with mad skills, who put my little amateur skills to shame!!

That's how I became the head gardener at the Inn (no one else wanted to do it, and they were all too busy anyway). And head blogger. Other than those two areas, they completely leave me in their dust (or lack of dust--you should see these women clean!)

Which is why it was a huge surprise to find myself cooking a whole oven-ful of bacon strata yesterday. The whole story is that Mary, our amazingly talented cook, went to the Inn at o'dark thirty, only to realize that the oven (pretty necessary for bacon strata), didn't heat up!!

So she called us in a panic, and the next thing you knew she was bringing the casserole pans over to my house. And dropping them off.

Other than making desserts, and strawberry soup once or twice, it's the most cooking I've done for the Inn (and technically, I still haven't made breakfast for our guests--all the strata were already made, just not cooked).

We took the strata back to the Inn at 7:55 (the first guest was eating at 8). Three of our staff came out to the car, all wearing oven mitts (I'm telling you, these ladies are always a step ahead of us!)

And the crisis was averted. (And a financial crisis was avoided as well...the appliance repair company--the amazing Appliance Technicians--fixed the oven for under $100!!)

Back to business as usual--the Eggs Benedict were completed this morning without any excitement!!

Gimme Some More: The Ice Cream of the Day in Saint Augustine

Today is National S'mores Day! (Read more here: http://www.holidayinsights.com/other/smoresday.htm).

In honor of that, we're serving up Gimme Some More Smore ice cream tonight at the inn.(As a reminder, we're serving Mike's homemade ice cream every Wednesday night in July and August).

Last night, we took graham crackers and covered them in chocolate, then froze them and broke them up into bite-sized pieces. We then swirled these into a chocolate ice cream, along with massive amounts of marshmallow and caramel. I tasted it this morning, and it's pretty darn awesome.

If you're in the area, stop by our dining room tonight for a taste. We can almost guarantee that you'll want us to Give You Some More!!!