V-Day Weekend in Santa Barbara

We headed up to SB with my parents for Valentine's Day weekend.  It started like this (keep in mind that we were only going for basically 2 days, and this does NOT include the pack-n-play, stroller and several toys that were already packed in the car)...

It just cracks me up that once you have ONE baby, the amount of stuff you need to travel somehow quadruples???

We drove up Friday and went to dinner at Opal. Ella only napped 25 minutes in the car and wouldn't sleep again, but luckily she was still well behaved at dinner since it was a nice restaurant.

Saturday was our pseudo-Valentine's Day so Ella got dressed up in her heart onesie, red & white tutu and red & white polka dot leg warmers!

We spent the morning shopping at La Cumbre Plaza and State Street and then headed down to Henry's Beach after naptime (clearly it was gorgeous in SB this weekend)...

We collected shells and rocks...




After the beach we went to the Coronado Butterfly Preserve where the Monarch butterflies migrate once each year. It's quite a hike when you are carrying a baby, walking a dog and wearing flip flops!

You can't make out the butterflies because between the lighting and wrong lens I couldn't get a good photo, but there were thousands of them. The entire trunk of the tree on the left is covered in butterflies.


We went to dinner for "Valentine's Day" at Bouchon. We have totally turned into the those people that bring their baby to fancy restaurants! I wouldn't do it if we were home, but you gotta do what you gotta do when you're on vacation! She did great though, and the maitre d, who she had been flirting with all night, even presented her with a rose and said, "you were so good tonight!"  [However, I will say that at the time we left, every single table in the restaurant was taken except the two on either side of our table!!!]

We drove home on Sunday and even had time to stop at the Camarillo Outlets- whoo hoo!

HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY!