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. =)

The one with no pictures of my kids

Last weekend I went back to Texas...

wait for it...

BY MYSELF.

It was one of the best weekends of my life. No lie.

Now I love my kids and I may even love my husband more after last weekend since he was the one that made it all possible.

But it was a little piece of heaven to go back to Houston, and spend 72 hours with friends, family, good food, shopping, and no distractions.

I even had 3 hours to myself at Market Street.

I'm anxious to see what this store turns into...

The weather was toasty, but nothing like what I was afraid it might be.

On Sunday I was hanging out with my mom and she commented about what a gorgeous day is was.

I looked down at the car thermometer, and said, "Mom, it's 98 degrees!"

She was like, "I know!"

But really, the weather was beautiful.

After spending some time with my parents on Thursday night at Carrabas, I got to meet my sister in law & niece at Starbucks, and then headed up to the Woodlands and connected with Sheila & Becky.

And I got to love on little Davis too! I hated that it took me 5 weeks to meet this little punkin.

Long distance sucks.

After doing some shower prep on Friday with Sheila, we headed out to Grimaldi's that night.

It was amazing....two of my closest friends in one of my favorite spots ever. Oh, and there was red wine....and no kids.

Saturday, it was all about celebrating Jacqueline and Mark's two little miracles.

Words cannot express how happy I am for them. I have been waiting to help throw this party for a long time.

Because Mark & Jacqueline had kept the gender of their twins to themselves for 8 weeks (rock solid discipline), we used the colors blue, pink, and green to decorate.

Becky made adorable invitations and print outs to go with the theme.

I was almost in tears when this picture was taken.

The football one below me.

A&M played OSU....and lost.

It was a good thing that Andy was in California because the thought of having to lose and look at his grinning, obnoxious, orange clad self would have been too much.

Then it was time for the big reveal!!!

Mark & Jacqueline hadn't even told their families what they are having.

We were all in suspense. I had been trying to (over) analyze everything she's said for the last two months.

I went ahead and chose my pink clothes pin (we had to guess) and waited...

Unfortunately that Houston heat sucked the helium out of their reveal

but it was still awesome...

black balloons? WTH?

Nice try. We know you're not waiting until December.

Tell us already.

Let's hear it for the BOYS!!!!!

and then there were lots of hugs and happy tears!!

Mark & Jacqueline, we are so happy for you!

Girls Weekend!

About three months ago, I happened upon my old neighbor, Ashley's, blog.

She talked about a fantabulous girls' weekend, and instantly got me thinking.

This we must do.

It's good for the soul to go away with your girlfriends.....sans kids and husband

And I am very thankful that my husband (and my 7 other girlfriends' husbands) were willing to help make it happen.

So last weekend we headed to Palm Desert (outside of Palm Springs)

I can't remember the last time I rode with girlfriends in the car (without car seats)

Me, Paige, Annie

I forget that we pretty much live in the desert. It doesn't really feel like it because the weather is so mild where we are, but we definitely drove through some honest to goodness desert.....and made a pit stop at the outlet malls.

Then we kicked off the weekend at Tommy Bahamas....I heart this place.

Karen, Amanda, Me, Amanda, Annie, Jamie, Paige

Ahi Tacos, yummo

When we got to the house late Friday, we wasted no time throwing our stuff down and getting hard at work being lazy.

Annie stuffed our bags

with lots of fun stuff

and we broke out our new wine glasses, made especially for this occasion by Amanda & Jamie

So Saturday morning, I thought we were all going to sleep in.

That's what you do on vacation, right?

Well, at 9:00am I woke up to seven girls taking my picture....they had already been on a Starbucks run, a real run, and a golf cart drive ....al by 9am.

I'm blessed with sleepers, so waking up at 9am was actually only about an hour later than my usual wake up time.

I was feeling seriously lazy and unproductive.

But it was VACATION.

and then after a little shopping break

we spent the rest of our day here.

Taking Ashley's lead, we split the meals up, so you only had to cook once, and got to vedge out and relax the rest of the time.

I haven't eaten this well in a long time....

Team lunch

Soula & Annie

Amanda popping the champagne for breakfast

more vedge time.

I think I actually read 5 magazines last weekend.

That had to have broken some sort of record for myself.

My fellow dinner teammates

Amanda & Paige

games & dance parties at night

Karen & Annie

I told Andy the best part of this whole trip in my opinion was the gift of eating and carrying on a conversation with girlfriends with no interruption of kids.

and pool time.

Lots of pool time.

And then on Sunday, we finally had to pack it up....

and head home.

Thanks girls for a fabulous weekend!!!

I can't wait to start planning next year....

because this is going to be an annual trip, right?