California!

We had a great trip to California! We dropped the kids off last Friday night with my parents. I hate that I get so much anxiety about leaving them. I should be excited about a little getaway, but I can never truly enjoy it until I'm to my destination. The build up of leaving them is almost too much to handle!

 

I mean, how could you leave this face?!!?

 

 Or these!?!? Although I didn't miss having a few days of not having to hear, "What Does the Fox Say" on the Ipad. If you've never watched this, it's a sight to see. I'm not sure whether it's ok or it's just plain weird, but the kids love it. My poor dad even learned that there's a "What Does the Sock Say" and "What Does the Squid Say"! Too funny!

 I didn't miss the cold weather either!

 We had a 7 am flight out of Birmingham Saturday morning, and by noon, we were in California, and by 2, we were on a boat with a drink in hand! Ha! Gotta love my sister. She had our schedule filled up!

 We started with a duffy boat ride around Newport Harbor. It was SO fun! It's a little electric boat that Andres drove around. I even took a turn driving and I have to admit, the driving was a little boring! The scenery was amazing though, the weather even better. I mean, who doesn't love looking at million dollar yachts and houses in 75 degree weather?!?!

 We spent a few hours on the boat, then headed to their house for a bit before heading out to a fun dinner in Newport where we managed to order the strongest drinks in the history of strong drinks. You know when you only have to order one drink the whole night that it was a good one! :)

Unfortunately, I was starting to not feel great Saturday as the day went on. I thought I was just tired from having to be up at 4 am that morning, but in the middle of the night Saturday night, I came down with a fever. It was terrible! I decided I better head to a doc in the box Sunday morning in case it was the flu or something. I never get a fever and I felt just terrible! However, it was nothing but an upper respiratory virus and my 85 year old marine doctor told me to tough it out. So, that I did. I dosed up on Tylenol, took a little nap, and made myself not totally miss a day in California!

That afternoon, we headed to Laguna Beach. I just LOVE Laguna. Lots of little shops and galleries, beautiful people, and the beach! Oh and lots of beautiful houses on the hill to look at!

 Normally I would not have worn a t-shirt out, but I just did not feel good!

 A stop at Sprinkles cupcakes made everything all better!!!

 Trey and Shondra got there Sunday night and we all just decided to stay in that night. They were tired from traveling, and I just really wanted to rest up so that I would be good to go for the game the next day!

Monday morning, I woke up good as new. No fever thankfully! Joel started not feeling great though so that was a bummer. You know how men are when they are not feeling good!

Carrie had told me that she had a flag pole out front of her house and I thought it would be fun to replace it on Monday morning with an Auburn flag and not tell her. She hates Auburn! She went to Alabama and is totally the black sheep of the family! Her reaction was priceless! I wish I had gotten it on video! She was a good sport though and allowed it to stay for the day!

 We went to downtown LA for lunch before heading to Pasadena. I was glad we did this so we didn't have to worry about food once we got there (and I'm glad we did eat because we sure didn't eat anything else the rest of the day!).

 We arrived in Pasadena around 1 and Joel and I immediately went to get our picture made at the Rose Bowl sign!

 We did a lot of walking, a lot of visiting different tailgates, tiger walk, and running into friends!

 I walked in with Nick Marshall's mom and talked to her. She was really nice and told me that Nick told her he was ready! 

 Not the greatest picture, but you get the point. The stadium had great views all around it. We had heard horror stories about this stadium, but it was actually ok!

 The game was a great game, but unfortunately, Auburn lost it with about 30 seconds to go! So heartbreaking! We had it the whole game. Oh well! We were proud of Auburn either way. It was a great season and we were so happy we got to see them to the end!

We had a terrible time getting out of Pasadena that night. Then, all 4 of our cell phones died (mine actually did before the game even started that day!). We got lost, had to stop twice for directions, and finally made it back around 1 am I think? It was a long ride home!

We couldn't get a flight back to Birmingham on Tuesday, so we stayed an extra day (darn!) and drove up to Santa Barbara on Tuesday. I've done the LA/Hollywood/Beverly Hills thing before and I just wasn't too interested in doing all of that again, so I thought this sounded like a fun day trip! We picked up our friends, the Powell's, and drove the mini Cooper up the coast to Santa Barbara. We ate lunch at a fabulous place on the beach before going into downtown Santa Barbara.

 This was the first sort of overcast day we had out there. It was still pretty, but not the crisp blue sky we had had the rest of the time!

 One of the reasons we wanted to go to Santa Barbara was to go wine tasting. They have a bunch of tasting rooms in downtown and we visited three of them (thanks to my friend Danielle who lives there for giving us tips on where to go!). We had such a fun time trying wines and hanging out. Since it was a Tuesday, the tasting rooms weren't busy so we had a lot of one on one time with the people that worked there and learned so much about wine!

 At one of the places, there was a beer tasting flight and the guys got it. I thought the way they served it was so cute!

 The last place we went to, we were able to strike up a conversation with the owner and the next thing we know, he is calling this really hard to get into restaurant nearby telling them that a group from Alabama was on their way and they needed to have a table ready for us! Awesome!

We got there and had the best brussel sprouts I have ever had! Yes, you heard that right...brussel sprouts! Ha! My mom would be SO proud.

 The atmosphere and the meal were just a perfect end to a perfect day.

Our flight left on Wednesday. It was a sad goodbye leaving Carrie and Andres. I hate living so far away from them! They were so gracious to open up their home and let us stay with them, plan our social agenda, and have the fridge stocked! :) I hope we get to go back and visit again very soon!

But it was really nice getting home to these, now very very much spoiled, little monsters!

My parents survived keeping 3 kids (my niece included!), but I think they were pretty ready to give them back! Harrison was attached to my mom and really wanted no part in seeing us when we got back. Hudson was really excited to see us though! It was really sad going back to work the next day after 3 weeks off. We are still trying to recover and get caught up on sleep, but it was totally worth it! SO glad we went!!!