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. =)

Rumor Has it

If you've been following my blog for even a little while, you probably know I'm a HUGE Adele fan.

On the brink of obsessed would be a fair assessment.

Andy and I had the luck of catching Adele in concert almost 3 years ago before she had become the goddess that she is today. Back then I snagged tickets for $27 and we got to see her in a room with 500 other people.

The Script opened for her. We had never heard of them, but bought the cd because we kinda liked them too.

Fast forward three years and I was scouring Craigslist back in June, actually considering spending $750 a ticket, which they were going for at the time.

I may LOVE Adele, but I ain't crazy. Or rich for that matter.

Well, I have never been so excited to hear that her concert got cancelled back in June.

This meant that I had a second chance to score tickets because the venue had changed to Open Air Theater, which held 6,000 instead of 2,500 at Humphrey's.

I read Ticketmaster tutorials online for a week before they went on sale.

I was NOT going to miss my second chance.

I sat at the computer and hit refresh, while putting in first available, any price starting 5 minutes before they actually went on sale.

When the clock hit 10:00, my refresh revealed "go time".

I did my thing.

There were none available.

The tickets were SOLD OUT.

within the 2 seconds it took me to refresh.

I was sick.

I hit refresh again and again and again.

And finally.....

some not so fortunate person had released their tickets...

and Andy and I SCORED.

So I interrupt our run of family events to bring you pics from the BEST CONCERT OF MY LIFE.

Well, second best to 3 years ago.

You really just couldn't beat that one.

After a forgettable opening act, my girl was on

**Side note...

Thank you Annie for letting me borrow your lens!!! I just don't think my little prime would have cut it.

and I loved every second of it.

Can I tell you that my husband tried to talk to me about football season road trips while ADELE was sharing background on her songs?

Really?

Silence please.

The hugeness of the moment must have escaped him.

When we got home at midnight after the concert, Adele's third biggest fan was still up in her room. I guess she couldn't sleep wondering how the concert was going.

So we shared with her as well.

And if you are a fan as well....which, how couldn't you be...

Here you go....

(Press pause on my music in the right hand column so you can hear her in all her glory....unless of course her song is already playing...then let it play out out of respect before beginning the live show.)

You're welcome.

Much Needed

We've been here almost a year.

Can you believe it? In fact a year ago this weekend, was our house hunting trip.

Anyways.

It's also taken us a year to find a babysitter, who's great with the kids and doesn't cost us an arm & a leg.

Awesome, except that she leaves to go back to school in less than a month.

So I shall use her as much as I possibly can (and that my husband allows me to) between now & then.

We did use her this weekend to take a much needed date night.

Taking advice from my sister-in-love, Sarah,.....

why would you spend money on a sitter to do the easy part?

So instead, we left right after nap-time. Why did it take me three and half years to figure this out?

Started with a little happy hour on E-Street in Encinitas.

We brought our own half open bottle of wine to a lookout point.

We're classy like that.

And again, we talked about how much we love it here.

And tried to figure out how we can afford to stay here forever.

(It's probably not going to happen)

Relax, mom.

And then we worked on our bucket California list.

On Andy's.....

He says he's going to surf before the end of the summer.

He's avoided watching Shark Week, so he just might do it.

Oh such a flattering, camera phone pic, straight up the nose, but since I'm never on this blog, I just wanted to let you guys know that yes, I'm still here.

Then we headed across the street to a sushi joint that had been highly recommended,

mostly for their 7 day a week happy hour.

We're cheap like that, too.

It was great!!

Thanks for the recommendations, friends.

And then we used our Fandango Living Social deal to go see

Crazy, Stupid, Love that stars some of my favorite people.

I just love Emma Stone.

And yeah, this guy's not that bad either.

Andy jerked the phone away while I was trying to get a shot of Mr. Gosling....

So even though the babysitter was by far the most expensive part of the night, it was so worth it to get to date my husband again....outside of the house.

Next date night on the calendar.....Adele in a week and a half!!!

Be still my beating heart.