Mother's Day

Sunday was Mother's Day, and Sue and Gord came with us to church.
 

Love being her mom! And Cora's mom! Cora was home asleep, after her closing night of Percy and the cast party. (This was the first cast party I didn't pick her up from at BJs - so weird! This time, she was the one giving rides home.)

We took Sue and Gord to Santa Barbara for the afternoon. 

First, we stopped in Ventura and did some shopping on Main Street.

After getting bento boxes at Violet's favorite Japanese place at the marina, we found an artisan ice cream place near downtown that was giving away ice cream to moms. Perfect! 

It was a lovely Mother's Day!

Violet's Beachy Birthday

Our beautiful, funny, creative and talented Violet is 15! Solidly in her teens, and enjoying life.

Her birthday wish was to go to Santa Barbara with us and Liana, and we were able to make it happen.  

Cora would rather not go far from home but since it was Vi's birthday, she agreed to come. It was lovely to spent time with her too. 

We started the day in Santa Barbara at Lilly's Tacos - cheap, delicious and filling.

We then went to the seafront, where Cora found some dead creature to inspect.

We asked the girls to pose for a photo, and this was the result. 

They were laughing because the distance between them and Cora was on purpose. 

I asked them to get closer together, not getting the joke, but they went further away. 

Poor Cora! 

We then suggested they pick up Violet, but she wasn't up for that, so they tried picking up Cora. This wasn't really what we meant.

We then went to the marina, and Violet's favorite bento boxes there from Sushi Go. It's become a thing for her, she loves eating it out by the waves further down the marina.

A cool car leaving the marina...

We then went to get boba and coffee at a place in the outdoor mall on State Street, closing out a lovely Santa Barbara birthday.

Favorite Places

Stace was off work from Christmas Eve through New Year's Day, which was fantastic. He kept busy, but we also got to spend some nice time together as a family. 

On Boxing Day, we took Violet to Vasquez Rocks, one of her happy places. We also go to talk to all of our family in England, gathered at Karen and Martin's home.

 

And on Saturday, after Stace helped at the tiny house, the three of us headed to Santa Barbara, just for the heck of it. First stop was coffee in Summerland, a new favorite after our mini vacation there in April.

We got tacos and then went to the marina for Japanese at another place we like. We ate, watched the water, and enjoyed the views of the lit boats.

We had ideas of playing fun, silly games together on Christmas, but it's always too full of eating and gifts. 

So, Mom and Dad came back over a couple of days later, and we had a snacky dinner and played games. One game involved a blindfold, a bag of gift bows, a bowl, a pair of tongs and a timer. The other involved putting all the bows on the coffee table, and working in teams to blow the bows across the table, into the bowls placed on the floor. It was fun and silly.

Santa Barbara Day

 It's been hot at home, so Vi and I went to Rincon beach, her favorite, on Friday afternoon. We forgot to take photos, but we saw dolphins and a sea lion in the surf. 

Over the weekend, Stace had to work Saturday morning (his turn on the rotation). He then was stuck under a hot car a lot of Sunday, so we rewarded him with a trip to Santa Barbara on Sunday afternoon.

We couldn't convince Cora to come, but thankfully Violet still likes doing some things with Mom and Dad. We parked near the marina, and walked down to the end of the breakwater.

We enjoyed Japanese food from the place we've been a few times now.

And for the first time, we noticed a sweet coffeeshop in the same building as the maritime museum.

We drove back down the coast and pulled in at the beach park in Summerland, which we discovered when we stayed nearby in April.

We noticed a sea lion on the shore, and some people told us it was sick from the recent algae bloom. They'd called the marine specialists for help. A quick search online informed us that hundreds of sea lions on the central coast are suffering this month.

Stace and Violet played with the frisbee.

We love living so close to the coast (relatively speaking).

Summerland Getaway, Part 2

The weather on the second day of our trip wasn't brilliant, a bit rainy and cool, so we avoided the beach and instead went into Santa Barbara. We went to the Natural History Museum for the first time, and enjoyed the various exhibits.

On a nature trail around the museum grounds, we learned about animatronic dinosaurs. 

What a nature trail, with a real and gorgeous creek! If we'd lived in Santa Barbara, we would definitely have been members when the kids were young.

There were exhibits on local history, native peoples, sea life, birds and mammals.

We stopped at a well-loved, highly regarded taco place for a late lunch, and ate well. We then walked around the 1782 Santa Barbara Presidio, the first complex of buildings in the city in

 

There's always time for boba - especially when the kids would have rather skipped the family trip. (In the end, she said it was a good few days away, thankfully.)

We walked around the wharf. The views are amazing.

And, we happened to be around town for the weekly "free Thursday evening" entry at the Santa Barbara Museum of Art. This was another museum I'd never been to, but with an artist in the family, and free entry, it seemed worth an hour of our time.

We then drove around Santa Barbara looking for a good spot to watch the sunset, but failed.