3 day weekend 3 years in the making

We all know how important it is to steal time away with your spouse whenever you get a chance. We also know that's so much easier said than done. In the last three years, Andy and I have taken time however we can get it....a rare babysitter for a date night, a date night "in" once the kids go to bed or even just dropping kids off at the church nursery for an hour...we will take what we can get.

But a whole weekend away by ourselves hasn't happened since before I was pregnant with Graham.

We were so grateful that Andy's parents were up for a challenge (and it was a challenge), of watching our kids last weekend for three days so we could do just that.

We made a pretty quick drive 3 hours north to Santa Barbara. We had never been there before but had only heard good things.

We are not so much fly by the seat of our pants people.

We had spent hours on Trip Advisor and YELP planning every last minute of the 3 day weekend.

Starting with lunch at 3 Pickles where Andy said he may have had the best sandwich of his life.

Then we headed straight to our Segway tour.

Texting instructions to his dad, I think.....

I think we pull of the helmet look nicely..

So.much.fun.

This tour was one of the highlights of our weekend.

It was called the beach tour, but not only did we get to check out the beautiful beaches, we got to see some fantastic real estate and I gathered a little Hollywood scoop as well. Since Andy refused to do the TMZ tour I wanted to do, this was an added bonus for me.

Speaking of real estate....

if you ever bought a beanie baby, you helped pay for this $450 million estate.

YUP

$450 million. That's 4 of Tiger Wood's houses. Unbelievable.

I got Kardashian wedding scoop and found out where O lives.....both highlights of the tour.

Looking up at Monteceito Country Club, part of where "It's Complicated" was filmed.

After the tour, we checked into our Bed & Breakfast, James House.

I then stalked Oprah.

This was as close as I got.

Wine tasting!!!!

In downtown Santa Barbara, they had this little winery row, where you could go do several tastings next door to each other.

It was still only 4 o'clock on Friday. It's amazing how much you can fit in with no kids.

Dinner at Opal, where we ran into friends who were also in town from San Diego.

Well, "ran into" is pushing it....we orchestrated a meetup with Emily & Chris, since we found out they were visiting that weekend as well.

The next day was a wine tour. It was great...Brian picked us up from our B&B at 10am and we explored the Santa Ynez valley for the next 7 hours.

You might as well have called this the "Sideways" tour because we saw lots of spots from the movie that made Pinot rise and Merlot farmers want to throw in the towel.

Brian, our tour guide, showed us some clips from the movie before going into a winery where it was filmed. So fun!

The Samford Estate

This guy, Chris, works at the winery and the writer of Sideways liked him so much, he wrote him into the movie.

Getting a little "education"

Beautiful!

The second stop was our favorite! We had lunch, did some tastings, and just took in the view.

And....I pretty much don't remember much about the last stop, but I'm sure it was fun too.

Sunday on our way back down to San Diego, Andy and I tackled Disneyland WITHOUT kids.

45 minute lines are not so bad when you can sip on a drink, not wrangle kids, and get to ride something besides Teacups.

We had a blast!

Proudly displaying all of our "fast passes".

We officially Disney dorks.

2 1/2 days away with just each other was such a gift.

This stage of life that we're in is wonderful in so many ways, but so challenging as many of you can attest to.

We're so blessed that we were able to get away and refuel.

Andy's family stayed on this week to visit and help while I got my third foot surgery (and hopefully the last). They left this morning and my mom arrives tomorrow morning.

Doctors orders say that I am to stay on the couch for 4-5 days and not do much.

Those are tall orders when you have a 1 and a 3 year old.

But thanks to amazing grandparents, friends that have stepped in to help, and a rockstar of a husband, I have been able to do just that.

and four days on the couch is almost as nice as a 3 day getaway to Santa Barbara....at least for me, Andy may feel differently. =)