Santa Barbara A.K.A. Mary's House

We went to an Anderson Family reunion in Santa Barbara, California. We had a great time! We stayed in a house that had 4 bedrooms and a loft. Em's kids stayed in the loft which was super cool. This loft was essentially a closet. It had a huge ladder that took up the entire closet and took you up to what was probably an attic that had been made into a huge bedroom. Our bedroom had a little nook of a room off of the closet that a bunch of toy trucks in it. John was in love. There were several times when he asked to play in his room. Have at it kid! The house also had a pool, a pool table, a Foosball table, a trampoline, a hot tub, and nice patios to sit out on and enjoy the weather. There was also a cat that came with the house. Emma and John loved that the house came with a cat. I didn't share that same excitement. The owners had a spray bottle to spray the cat with if he was bugging us. I think I was the only one bugged. So if I saw the cat, he got sprayed. Everyone else loved on the cat. The owners also said that we should keep the doors shut at night because there are baby skunks that would come in the house. According to the owners, the skunks didn't spray. I wasn't interested in finding out.

Here are the highlights of the trip:

On Sunday after dinner, Mary brought out 13 boxes of oreos for another test tasting. Again, most flavors were gross. The basic flavors are good and the rest have no purpose being on a store shelf. The most surprising finding was that Josh likes watermelon oreos. Everyone universally agreed that they were gross.

Every time I turned around John had a cookie, gummy bear, swedish fish, M&M, or chip in his mouth. Mary even bought fruit loops cereal for the kids. They loved it. In fact today (back at home) John found fruit loops on the floor at church and you could just see he yearned to eat them. He knew that they were on the floor and we don't eat food off the floor. I caved and let Emma and John eat them. I know, I know, I am so nice to let my kids eat random food off the floor - I deserve a medal for mother of the year. Emma got to drink orange soda and that made her year. (On a side note, Emma was pretending to give Aaron money for the movies. He asked for money for candy and popcorn. She asked if he would like some money for a water. She has no idea people buys sodas.)

We went to the Channel Islands. We took an hour long boat ride out to the Island. Emma was pretty sea sick (as was I). So we sat in the back of the boat and hoped to not puke. We hiked around the island. We probably hiked for a mile, which is pretty good for a 2 year old and a 5 year old. Then we had lunch and played at the beach. Emma played with Amanda in the water and John just dug in the dirt. This boy was so content to just dig in the dirt the entire vacation. Aunt Mary bought some John Deer tractors and he was in heaven to have tractors and a shovel. Ben and Mary filled his swim shirt up with rocks and he would stand up and they would all fall out. John just laughed and laughed at this. So they did it a lot. Aaron swam out to a reef and looked at all the fish and stuff there was out there. This was a pretty brave thing since the air temperature wasn't super warm and the water was probably 60 degrees. He enjoyed the swim and adventure. The rest of the group hiked and then hung out on the beach with us. On the boat ride back, we gave Emma Dramamine to help with the nausea. After I gave it to her, Emily explained that the side effect was drowsiness. She wasn't kidding. Emma fell asleep just about as soon as she sat down on the boat. I couldn't wake her to get off so we transferred her to her car seat. She didn't wake up when we got home. Emily read her a book after we supposedly woke her up but she didn't remember it later on. It probably wasn't until half way through dinner that she was truly awake.She still slept fine that night.

The kids had a lot of fun swimming in the pool. It was a bit cold for my tastes, but the kids didn't even notice. There was a surf board in the pool that they played on and Aunt Mary bought blow up toys. There was a huge cube and a floaty thing and water cannons and more.

John dug in the dirt in the yard all day every day. He was in heaven. Every once in a while I would have to chase him out of a bird bath.

Emma commandeered Aunt Mary's phone and iPad and called, texted and facetimed everyone in the house a bajillion times. She also played games on the iPad.

We tried our hand at paddle boarding and kayaking in a harbor in Ventura.  I could paddle board in the harbor ok. Out in the ocean, I was getting sea sick. It didn't take much for me to tap out and head for dry land. Out in the ocean we could get pretty close to a buoy where seals were just lounging around and pushing each other off the buoy. As we would paddle past boats in the harbor we would pass a seal on the dock. It turns out that this trip inspired Aaron. He now craves kayaking. He wants to go a lot at home now. He has taken Emma once since we have been home.

We got to play games as a family. Grandma Lindy was a good sport and participated in one where she had to pick her nose and do the chicken dance. It made for some awesome video.

We went to a farmers market and saw how the granola half live. We got to try some unusual tomatoes and other things that were delicious.

We also went into Solvang and ate Danish food and looked at shops. Grandpa was nice to watch the kids at the park for us. It was pretty hot out so Grandpa earned his stripes that afternoon.

When it was over I really didn't want to leave. It was nice to just relax and enjoy family time together. We got to play tennis, basketball and go for walks. Oh, Aaron woke Ben, and Katie got up on her own and with Uncle Brian, they would go play basketball at the crack of dawn on vacation. It was a nice trip to just enjoy each others company.