Fun with Family!

We met up with Ann-Marie and family in Santa Barbara on Saturday, and it was so much fun! I'm so glad we live close enough now that we can do things like this. In addition to Santa Barbara just being fun in and of itself, it was the Spanish Fiesta Days (or something like that). VIVA LA FIESTA! (and if I could do the upside down exclamation point I would have put it at the beginning of that sentence).

We started the day at the Botanic Gardens. California botanic gardens are different from Ohio botanic gardens. Each has their own beauty, but I think sometimes I forget that California is actually a desert, especially in our cool climate here on the coast. The girls had a blast finding lots of lizards-I missed those little guys when we lived in Ohio! It was a nice place to walk through, undisturbed by crowds and traffic.

A rare shot of "Mom". I'm usually behind the camera. Bree was into jumping off every rock. Needless to say, getting around took a while.

Looking at lizards

This is how taking our family pictures usually turns out-Emma posing nicely while Bree tries to escape

Then we headed to the pier and rented a SURREY!! WOOHOO!! We were hot stuff as we coasted on the trail! It was so cute having Cameron and Bree in the front basket with their little helmets on, then Emma grabbing onto the bar for dear life. We yelled out VIVA LA FIESTA to everyone nearby and rang the bell a lot. We even got filmed. We were having so much fun-we KNOW some people decided to rent one themselves after seeing us. We should have been their advertisement. Most people got a kick out of seeing the triple row one being used-most people were just on a single row surrey. My bum still hurts from the bike seat. But that was a fun experience! Everyone should do it sometime!

After some lunch it was off to the zoo. Even though we were spoiled and grew up going to the San Diego Zoo, I still find animals at any zoo just as fascinating. It wasn't crowded at all, so it was nice not to have to worry about the kids wandering off or getting lost. We just moseyed (spelling??) our way through the zoo. Probably most fascinating to watch were the California condors. There were a few of them in the netted area, each with numbers. The signs talked about their wing span and we were disappointed that they were just sitting on their little perches. After waiting a while and watching we decided to head out, and just as we did, one of them opened up his wings. It was like he was saying, "what's up?? you getta load of this??" Then another one did it. It was fun putting dialogue to what they were doing. But, yes, impressive wing span. And then Bree got bit by a goat. Her fault for putting her fingers too close. It didn't break the skin, but it left a mark! We made up for it, though, by taking the kids to the most coveted spot in the zoo. Nope, no animals, just an astroturf covered hill that they could slide down on pieces of cardboard. Who knew?? We could have spent hours there. I think we decided that we're doing that one day with our dream house.

We went to Palazzio for dinner after the zoo-it came highly recommended! It was really good, and I'm excited to try some of the other recommended spots next time we go down there. Then we went through the mercado to the stage set up for the festivities! The kids all got some eggs filled with confetti. There was confetti EVERYWHERE. Ann-Marie said it was worse the day before during the parade. But on every corner were these vendors with crates of eggs that had been broken, emptied, filled with confetti, then a piece of tissue paper was glued over the open edge. And people would come up to you and crack them on your head, spilling confetti down all parts of your body. All the boys got me pretty good. I think Ann-Marie was glad I was getting the brunt of it instead of her :) I was feeling confetti go down my back (and even further) all night.

At the stage a group started playing, so we sat down in the front with all the people dancing around in front of us. Cameron got up and stole the show. The kid was ROCKING OUT and everyone loved him. I'm talking doing the worm and everything. He was "that guy" in the middle of the circle. HE'S THREE, for crying out loud! We were laughing so hard at the things he was unexpectedly doing. Bree eventually joined him, but all she knows is girly ballet pointy toe things, so her dancing looked a little out of place, until she started imitating Cameron. And she did not want to do it alone. It was so cute-she came up to Dave and yelled, Come on Dad! and he wouldn't, but she wouldn't take no for an answer!! So up he went to dance with his little princess. So cute. And of course we had left the camera in the car at this point. Dave got a few shots on his phone. But it was a blast. After they stopped playing we just walked around to some of the shops before getting frozen yogurt and heading back to our house for Sunday.

You can't get any girlier than this store. It was lined with hot pink with zebra print carpet. And the stuff in there was so affordable! The girls got some pink rhinestone heart and butterfly clips for super cheap, plus there was a 10% discount for the festival-VIVA LA FIESTA! This pic was taken through the window, but the girls were wearing some awesome tiaras-they didn't want to take them off!

Spending Sunday with everyone at our house was so great. Besides my brother and both mine and Dave's parents, we've never had any family at our own house. Ever. I loved it. We had a fun birthday dinner for Ann-Marie, mud pie and all!! Jaymie (Collins' sister) and her family came over too, so it was so much fun.

Such a fun weekend-can't wait to do it again!!