Santa Barbara

For Christmas, my mom wanted to do a family trip instead of big presents...so she rented a house down in Santa Barbara for us for a long weekend at the end of March.  It was Mom & Kenny, me & Aaron, Christopher and Kate.  The original plan was to rent a minivan to drive down there but the morning of, there was some fiasco at the car rental place and they didn't have a car big enough for all of us - so we all piled into the Pilot for a cozy 5 hour drive.  We had to strap all of our bags to the top of the car and it wasn't as roomy as some other vehicles might have been but at least we were all able to go together and we got to save some money.  Huge plus.

We left Friday around noon and honestly, didn't have any plans for the entire weekend.  No where we had to go.  We had some ideas of what we wanted to do but nothing set in stone.  We were just playing it by ear.  We got down to the house late afternoon/early evening.  The house was gorgeous!  Spanish style with beautiful tile and really nice appliances & fixtures and all the furniture and decor looked like it was right out of a Pottery Barn catalog.

                  

        

        

We enjoyed the balcony, the warm afternoon sun and some adult beverages for a bit while we decided where to go for dinner.  The boys ran to a convenient store for some necessities and just couldn't pass up these shirts!

We walked down to the pier for dinner.  We really wanted to try Brophy Bros but it was over an hour wait and we were hungry so we went to Chucki's Waterfront Grill right by it instead.  It was decent food, but NOT worth what we spent.  Oh well, the company was good.  We walked back to the house and ended up turning in pretty early.

The next morning we really wanted to go to Sambo's for breakfast.  In the garage we found some sweet bikes so we all rode down there.  It was about a 40 minute wait for a table so we rode around for a while.  Mom was so cute on her bike, she said it had been decades since she'd been on a bike.  She did great...you know that old saying....  

The Huffy kids

I don't take many selfies, but when I do, I'm on a bike and I almost crash. J/K

 I like this one though with Kenny in the background and the palm trees and everything. 

Cute Ma

Our bike gang on the pier

Breakfast was sooo good!  Definitely worth the wait.  I had a California style eggs Benedict.  Delish!  After breakfast we went back to the house and sat on the balcony and drank mimosas, listened to music and played "Heads Up" (a fun game we downloaded on our phones).  

This little pig was a girl's pet and she walked him every morning on a leash and even had a stroller for him!

Pumba was his name!

Rockin' out! 

We eventually got ready and headed down to State Street for some cruisin' around.  We hit a few shops and a few bars...one was this Irish pub. 

One hundred thousand welcomes 

We could not collectively decide on where to eat so that turned into putting dinner off until we were starving.  We found a little Mexican restaurant, Los Arroyos, that seemed like a hole in the wall but the food was awesome.  Definitely a good choice!  After dinner, we caught a cab back to the house.  We attempted to play a game but we were all pretty tired.  Early night, again.

 Woke up on Sunday to Mom pretty upset.  Red wine had been spilled ALL OVER the white pottery barn couch.  I knew Kate and I were the only ones drinking red wine the night before.  I was ready to take the blame for the wine even if it ended up being Kate.  When I got up to the living room, I realized it was me that spilled it because it was where I was sitting the night before.  Phew that it wasn't Kate but shit! I felt horrible.  It was A LOT of wine.  It was also all down the wall, which of course is painted with a FLAT white paint.  We started looking for some cleaning stuff but there wasn't much. We sent the guys to the store for vinegar, Oxiclean, magic erasers and to BevMo for some Wine Away.  Christopher and Kate were smart and just headed out.  After some different unsuccessful attempts at getting the wine out with Wine Away, vinegar and sunlight, Mom desperately threw one of the couch covers in the wash with Oxiclean.  It came out!!!  So everything went into the washer.  Thank goodness for Oxiclean (that Billy Mays sure knew what he was talking about) and for Mr Clean Magic Eraser for getting the wine off the wall!  We were ready to paint the wall and buy a new couch for this place.  Crisis averted! Time to go enjoy what was left of the day.

We hit State Street again.  We kind of split up for shopping and lunch. Aaron and I ate at a questionable sushi place.  We met up with everyone a couple hours later at a place called O'Malley's.  Fun little bar and we played Heads Up again.

  We headed back to the house to get ready for dinner (we had made reservations for Brophy Bros that night). Christopher and Kate had gone back to the house a little earlier than us and they said the landlord came by when the couch cover was drying on the balcony but they didn't think she saw it and she never said anything. Eek!  As we were getting ready, she came by AGAIN!  We talked to her for a while, and I was trying to divert her attention away from the couch.  She left and never said anything.  A little while later, Mom got a text from the land lady that just said, "it was nice meeting you, just a reminder, don't put the couch cover in the dryer" Ummm, yikes!! Guess she did see it!  Mom just replied that we had spilled water and we were drying it out.  We were all kind of annoyed that she just dropped by in the first place, that didn't seem very copacetic. We brushed it off and headed to Brophy Bros for dinner and it was fabulous!!  Highly recommended!  Good food and good booze.

Cute little wooden boat that I thought Aaden would think was cool

That night, we just hung out and the next morning we got up and got packed up.

Our cute matching bags that mom got us girls for Christmas.

As we were loading the Pilot, the lovely land lady stopped by AGAIN.  She was perfectly nice and didn't mention the couch or anything.  And if I do say so myself, the couch ended up being cleaner than when we got there! We hit the road late morning and hit up this place named Cody's for breakfast.  Good food! 

By the time we got home, we were ready for a diet and Betty Ford. Such a fun weekend - wish it was longer!