Girls Back at Home

While we were away the girls got to play :)

Thank you SO very much to the awesome grandparents for taking such great care of our girls!!! They hardly missed us!

My mom was here for the first half of the week, what awesome weather she got to have!

I was most worried how little Emma would do...she did Fantastic!! When I came home she seemed like she grew by about 6 months!

She loved her extra attention while the Bigs were at school

Ready for school drop-off!

They love that Grandma knows how to french-braid!

Outside play time!

 Cousins came over to play! Grandma rocked all 4....all 4 napped!

Checking out the neighbor's bunny

 Swingin' Sisters

 I just love this picture!! They were playing Captain May I?

Half-way through Nana and Grandpa came to relieve Grandma of her duties! The fun continued!

Successful naps!

 Sally, the puzzle Queen

 Libby, the Memory Queen!

 Grandpa used rubberbands to fix Sally's bow and arrow!

 Emma got to ride in the wagon for the first time!

 Emma got to be part of the tea party

 Sister love

 Grandpa time

As you can see, they were loved plenty :)

It was a nice little break, but always SOOOOOOO good to be home and back together again!!

California Day 6: Santa Barbara to LA

Our last day was pretty open as we just needed to get to LAX by 6pm for our flight.  We had a few ideas that we had thought of, but didn't know how much LA traffic would allow us to do or see.

It was fun driving through popular cities like Malibu, although I was less than impressed with most of them :)

We stopped at the Santa Monica Pier for lunch, it was a beautiful day and great scenery.

We got to listen to one of the Pier performers while we ate at the Mexican restaurant with table-side guacamole, yum!

She had a great voice, was super cute and Reid loved that she stopped in-between songs to put on sunscreen

Great fun people watching too!

We continued into LA and drove down Santa Monica BLVD and decided to head up to the viewing place for the Hollywood Sign---total tourist!

It took 56 minutes to drive 19 miles! It seemed every block and a half there was a stoplight.

I included this picture, because Reid couldn't get over the lady in the purple hair's belt, it's made out of bullets

Pretty view!

Reid's Skid the Kid Signature sign :)

and then we headed to return the rental car and get our grand total of miles, 565!!!

And just like that we were off to see our girlies!

Bye Bye California

 Sunset

 Moon

What a wonderful trip with fantastic sights, wonderful memories and great time spent just Reid and I.  So many giggles and fun times, we made it through with not even one little argument :)

Cheers to many more adventures with my Babens!

California Day 5: Pismo Beach to Santa Barbara

Our next stop was Santa Barbara.  It's a fun town with a beach feel and a college town and along State Street a little like 50th and France in Edina.

The coastline with the tall palm trees and the green, rocky mountains and hills made for some pretty views.

We saved lunch for In & Out Burger, it was my first time and Reid was very excited.  Soooooo, I maybe wasn't THAT impressed with it.  It was good, very good, but I don't know if it's worth all of the hype.  I actually kind of think Burger Time in St. Cloud tastes better.  Reid was glad I felt I could express my honest opinion, but not to do it too loudly so others could hear :)

We continued on, exploring State street and the Pier, the construction kind of ruins this picture, but you get the point

 The pier

Searching for goodies for the girls, and maybe a dish of ice cream to eat on the beach while we dip our toes in the Pacific Ocean

  Thankful for Snapchat and the response from Liz, who often comes to Santa Barbara to visit her Uncles, so she recommended a place that was their favorite. We went to Boathouse at Hendry's Beach.  Mmmmmmmm the drinks were delicious as well as the food!! Thanks Liz!!

 We needed to take a walk along the beach before getting back in the car to head for a night cap at a tap house

The walk along the beach the restaurant sits on.  Was fun to watch some of the surfers and locals as well

Next up will be our last day as we venture to LA to see the Hollywood sign and to catch our flight hooooooooome to our girlies