Solvang

We decided to spend a day touring the Danish town of Solvang outside of Santa Barbara.  Most of us thought it was great, but Wayne was sorely disappointed that it wasn't old-school and they actually had electricity!  So funny!

 Wayne was most excited to just eat, eat, eat!  So, our first stop was a bakery, of course.

 Windmills!  So, funny thing:  I thought I had heard that Solvang was a Dutch town so I was all excited to get in touch with my roots till I found out it was actually Danish.  I mentioned this to both Wayne and Sarah and neither of them had any clue that they were different!  Those Dutch sure do like to confuse people - Dutch people are from the Netherlands (which is also Holland), they are known for the color orange, but their flag is red, white, and blue.  Go figure!

 Family photo op in Solvang, too.

 Their flowers were gorgeous!

 We went on a fun little horse-drawn trolley tour of the little town.

 Libby with her favorite animals!

 The famous red clog of Solvang (not nearly as large as I had imagined).

 Group shot in front of the largest windmill in the town.

 The little mermaid statue was also smaller than anticipated, but the kids didn't seem to mind.

 Hans Christian Andersen wrote the story of the Little Mermaid, among other famous fairy tales, so we figured our Ariel lover needed her own picture with the statue.

 Before leaving town we had to hit up this amazing park.  It was so cute and the kids loved it, despite the heat.

 This was the little play house in the park.  Everything about it was adorable!

 We drove from there to San Simeon and spend a little walk on the beach before dinner and turning in for the night.  The beach right outside our hotel was covered with these plastic-looking things.  We're pretty sure they were dried up jellyfish, but not sure.

 Digging for sand crabs

 Brad was the first to brave touching one of the plastic-looking things, but soon we all took part. 

Hey, someone who actually smiles for pictures - yay!  Thanks, Brad! :)

Santa Barbara - Day 2

For our second day in SB, we started off at the Zoo, spent a little bit of time on the beach, then went on a "landshark" tour before trying to hit the town for a nice dinner on the main drag.  It was a fun filled day, that's for sure!

 Lexi wore her safari dress to match the giraffes and the activities du jour.

 Libby had fun pushing Lexi around in the umbrella stroller.  Lexi LOVED that thing and wanted to ride in it wherever we went.  Who knew it would be such a hit?!

 The dads and the kiddos with the elephants.

 After the zoo we spent a little time walking along the shore and hanging out under the pier.

 We had Libby be our photographer for a shot of just the two of us.  (You know, you need those now and then when you can't handle one more second of non-smiling or looking at the camera from the ragamuffins!)  Not bad, if you ask me!

 All aboard the Land Shark tour - a bus that turns into a boat.  How that works, I'll still never know, but it was really cool. 

 Libby by a giant rubber tree.

 And now it's a boat - wow!

And what harbor tour would be complete without the token sea lions on the buoy?

After the tour we had a great BBQ dinner at one of the few (or so it seemed to us) kid-friendly places in town.  What a fun first stop for our trip!

Santa Barbara - Day 1

For our family vacation this summer, we did a CA coast roadtrip with our friends the Changs.  It was a GREAT vacation and we really tried to fit in everything you could possibly imagine!  Whew, I'm exhausted just thinking about all we did!

 First stop was lunch at the harbor.

Yep, I think it's gonna be a great trip!

The first of many family photo ops!

 It turned out to be the perfect day, despite some major marine layer the whole drive there.

We visited the aquarium at Stearns Wharf and the kids got to pet some sharks - cool!

 And the adults, too, of course! ;)

 Treat time on the pier.  (Don't worry, the Chang boys had treats, too, theirs were just ice cream so they finished a lot faster!)  We were all amazed that the pier didn't have a railing on it at all - this little ledge was the closest thing to it and did little to keep the kiddos contained, as you can imagine!

Pink tongued pals!

 The token "Psych" picture for the Stewart family - they LOVE that show!

 Flying on the stairs at the mission.

 What cute little friars!

 The fearsome foursome on the front steps.

 Brad and Libby being crazy, as always!

 Glad I dressed the girls to match the mission!  Who knew it would be pink?!

 How darling is that?!  Libby is convinced she is going to marry Ian and that Lexi is going to marry Connor.  We'll sure have some cute pictures if that ever turns out to be the case!

 We found this beautiful park in the center of town.

 The moms.  (I felt really tall in this picture!)

Our own little beached whales with the awesome fortress playground behind them.  They loved being able to run around and play, play, play!

OC Fair

With all of our summertime festivities, we almost missed the Fair this year, but managed to make it there during its last week.  It was just me and the girls and we had a great time.

 We spent the majority of our time checking out all the animals.  Here are the girls petting two giant oxen whose hips were taller than a 6' man! 

 Terrible photo, but this was us at the Alaskan Pig Races.

 For such a short track, they sure were entertaining!  Libby's favorite was named Strawberry and she had a pink jersey on (what else?).

 The camels

 And we spent lots of time at the pigs.  This is one exhausted mom who finally gave up battling her children and decided to just let them eat so she could have some peace and quiet.  She was pretty nasty to them, I must say!

 At the end of the night we hit up a few rides before taking off.

A glittery, pink motorcycle - what could be better?

Yep, we love the fair!