Last day.

Today's events included lunch at a cool brewery restaurant and a trip to Highland Park. We slid into the day with some good coffee and fun with the kids.

Bea in her early Courtney Love look with Archie

Hans and Franz -- Gus and Archie

Jeremy slaving over his FFL drafts

 I took some pictures of Chrissy's backyard. 

Bea went to a swim lesson, and when she returned we headed to Glendale to meet Jess and Lucas for lunch. I'm also including a great video of Lucas reciting the alphabet (except for "z" -- the bananas won over the last letter!!)

http://youtu.be/mcdiUY23aek

The place was great -- very child- friendly. The boys were not fans of loud classic rock.

And here's a collage of lunch.

After lunch Chrissy and I stopped at the store while Bob and Jeremy took the kids home. Then Bob and I went to see Lauren's new house in Highland Park. It's in an area of older homes with lots of charm. We met her husband and some friends. 

Here's just the adults.

And here's a picture of Lauren's new house.

We went for a swim when we got back from our visit and had pizza for dinner. Bed by 9:30 after a wonderful weekend.

Here's what we saw as we were packing the car at 5:30AM.

I see you, Sam, especially after a wonderful weekend with your friends.

Whirlwind day with children.

Today was brunch!  Chrissy had enough food to feed a small army. Bob and I watched the boys while Jeremy and Chrissy set everything up.

Gus was chillin'.

Archie was building.

And Bob set up a tableau with Godzilla carrying off Tinkerbell (or Stinkerbell, as the McDowells call her). 

The first to arrive were the Bronners. Sarah, Jess's sister, and her husband Evan have a cute 2-month-old, Reed.

Next came Jess and family. And I got to spend the afternoon with baby Arlo Sammy.

Here are some random shots of the afternoon. Here are Gus and Bob.

And Sam's good friend Will came, too! Here's Will and me and baby Arlo Sammy.

We also met Saul's new friend Casey -- what a sweet girl.

After the party ended, we cleaned up and then ended up at Dish for dinner. Bob and Archie watched some videos together.

And here is a great moment during dinner.

http://youtu.be/Dw7oD8hhPsk

Bed by 9:00.

From Santa Barbara to La Cañada

We had breakfast and leisurely packed for the next part of our adventure. We stopped at the Pierpont Inn for lunch-- lovely view and good lunch.

Dessert.

Then we tried get some wine at Malibu Vineyards, but the valet parking (!!!) was $14. Ridiculous.

We continued on, arriving at Chrissy's new home at 3:30. We visited a bit and then went to Jess's house to meet baby Arlo Samuel Palmer Zaks. What an adorable little boy! Jess and Camilo had just picked him up on Tuesday -- his birth mother was from Sacramento. Bob and I both held him and then visited with Lucas and Camilo. 

Lucas was also so cute!

We took a family shot.

Then it was back to Chrissy's for delicious steaks on the grill. Bed at 10:00.

A nap poolside...

This morning we decided to go back into Santa Barbara and shop. That bottom sign says, "Philli."

Fun statue!!

 We checked out a number of shops, and I found a cool hat that actually looks good on me! I also bought a Fresh Produce dress/cover up in a perfect color and cut. Yay!  On the walk back, we saw fire engines and police cars: one of the hotels that I had looked at had a fire in the ventilation system. We had just checked out the lobby earlier in the week...

By this time, lunch was on our minds. We drove to check out one place, which we decided against, and continued on to Boathouse at Hendry's Beach, which we'd visited in previous years. We sat outside on a beautiful Santa Barbara afternoon, and I swear I saw Dominic West come in with a very old gentleman. Oh, and I wore my new hat and dress.

I had a delicious blood orange margarita, calamari, and shrimp enchilada. Bob had beer and a mahi mahi salad along with sharing the calamari.

We must always include the double-fisted pose!

Afterwards, we walked along the beach and stuck our toes into the Pacific. 

And we saw a hang glider.

What we didn't see was the tar-like substance in or near the water. After a scrubbing, this is what remains.

We went back to the inn and sat by the pool. I've been trying to re-read The Dante Club before school starts, and I finally finished it! Then I promptly took a nap.

Thank goodness my mouth wasn't hanging open...

We had wine and cheese for dinner compliments of our hotel. We then walked back to the Blue Agave for our final margarita in Santa Barbara.

http://youtu.be/F8ZPUKM_4rU

Walking back by the beach, we got back after 8:00 and saw a hummingbird on the way home.

Asleep by 9:30.

Hump day

This is our third year coming to Santa Barbara, so we're content to do just a few things old and new on various days. Today we decided to drive up to Santa Ynez and maybe check out Solvang again.

We got on the road after 10:30 and stopped at one of the vista points along the way.

It's very dry in this part of California -- lots of signs cautioning the fire danger.

Our first stop was Dos Carlitos, a restaurant mentioned in the hotel brochure about the Santa Barbara County wine country. The place was great!!! We sat outside, and our server was charming as well as efficient. We split some excellent calamari along with equally delicious house margaritas.

We now call this Bob's double-fisted perv shot in honor of Phil, the Brit at the Amsterdam bar who coined the phrase. 

And then we had really yummy shrimp empanadas.

I was pensive.

We didn't think we should have another margarita each, so our server suggested splitting one -- this is what we got.

Mini-margaritas!

We went into one of the shops and chatted with the owner. Then it was off to Solvang, a Danish-style town.

 Bob actually got talked into buying TWO shirts made of bamboo!!

We drove back to Santa Barbara to rest up for our romantic getaway dinner at Col Spring Tavern, a former stagecoach stop along a mountain pass. I got a little dressed up for the occasion -- what a mistake. The drive was harrowing: hairpin turns while driving into the blazing setting sum glare. And the place was -- tired- looking. Our entree, the house special wild boar, was dry and tough. Ugh.

What a disappointment.

We got back to our inn by 9:00.

Walking and walking

We both slept well and had a good breakfast. This was our view as we ate.

We sat by the pool for a while and then took our time getting ready for the day. We decided to walk into Santa Barbara and check out the shops.

As we walked by the train station, we stopped to look at this amazing fig tree.

It's a peace tree, designated as such by John and Yoko Ono.

it was actually planted in the 19th century.

Cool!

We looked at some shops and then decided to try a Mexican restaurant, Los Agaves, highly recommended by Trip Advisor. As in Amsterdam, the description was somewhat misleading. We walked a mile to get there only to find it packed, self-serve, and hot. Not exactly what I was looking for.... I'm sure the food was great, but I was looking forward to a margarita along with my food. Oh, well. We trudged from there to Enterprise Fish Company, where we had an okay (but filling) meal. We had a little trouble finding place, but it turned out to be in the same building as the Reagan Center -- if I had taken the picture Bob wanted me to, we could have found the restaurant 5 minutes sooner...

We walked back to the hotel --Bob napped while I tried to finalize our plans for the weekend. I called Chrissy, and we had a weird conversation. She told me she'd get back to me in 2 minutes, and in  two minutes she texted me that Jess and Camilo had a new baby boy, Arlo SAMUEL Palmer Zaks. I cried. So now we get to meet a newborn this weekend!!

How exciting for the Zaks!  Jess had been unable to successfully conceive a second child, so they have adopted Arlo, who was born in Sunday. They were hoping to keep it a secret until we arrived on Friday afternoon, but it didn't happen that way!!

So after that momentous bit of news, we decided to celebrate and to try the best margarita in town, according to some google website. This time, the assessment was correct! The bartender was great -- very friendly and good at her job. She even gave us a free drink (a mistaken order)!  The lighting was cool too-- don't know why I didn't take pictures!! Anyway, there was also a band. I enjoyed some guava margaritas, and then we walked back to the inn. Bed by 9:00pm.