jet setters

Our little family packed quite a few trips into the last couple of weeks.

D & s had their annual school trips, which also meant that p & I had our annual trip with our friends. And I decided to cash in my chips for a few overdue girls trips in the mean time.

D and her 4-6th grade class hopped on a plane and visited our nation's Capitol, Washington, D.C.

                       

 S packed her bags and headed off to tontozona camp for 3 days with her 1-3rd grade class.

I managed to squeeze in 3 trips. A bit ambitious but like I said, overdue.

My first trip was, my very first friends girls trip, to a catholic women's blogging conference.  Despite the name, it was an awesome time filled with laughter, bonding & faith filled discussions. 

It was hosted at a beautiful home & I loved the fresh flowers on each of the tables.

I'm always a sucker for cookies... Especially with my name on it :)

We flew on a Friday, phx to Burbank & back Sunday night.

The next morning we took a 6am flight right back to Burbank. It felt surreal. And I might mention the turbulence was terrible!! So smooth the previous 2 times, but oh man I was scared.

As soon as we arrived we drove straight to a local bakery & filled out car with pastries galore to get us to our lovely Santa Barbara rental.

We arrived just in time for sunset.

This was our cute vrbo spot... The funk house.

Mr. B had crepes on his mind and whipped up crepe Suzette for breakfast.

We spent most of our time doing n.o.t.h.i.n.g.

We just relaxed. And enjoyed the quiet.

 Oh and when we did decide to walk around, we didn't get far. We kept getting really thirsty.

This pic doesn't do this giant fig tree justice... It was huge!!

So thirsty...

Ok we did do one real thing, we toured the Santa Barbara mission. It was so beautiful. I loved the gardens in the back. 

We saw some sea lions frolicking in the water just a few feet out from the shore.

This isn't a pic of them, I'm just recalling it. It was in this spot. Okaaayyyyy

We spent quite some time at this little Boardwalk winery. It was so comfy & peaceful. They had fleece blankets available to snuggle up in. 

We headed home from our very chill and peaceful trip on Wednesday night to my dad who was hanging in there with the kids despite being sick. Thanks dad!!

Friday morning I jumped on a GIANT plane with my sister and headed to Indianapolis.

My cute grandparents... I love them so much.

We stayed at my aunties house. She had our room done up so cute. We died. Not literally. She even had our pics put into picture frames...

She whipped up this amazing breakfast for us before taking us out antiquing and thrift shopping. We died. Again. Not literally.

We stopped into the Irish mutt... Because we were thirsty.

I just love this beautiful calendar my aunt got from etsy.

Fresh flowers from the yard... At my aunties again.

She took us to the cake bake shop. Ok this time we almost literally died from happiness & sugar overdose.

 We ordered a glass of pink champagne, 2 lattes, southern Carmel cake, a chocolate chip cookie & fresh berry cheesecake.

S.o.s.o.g.o.o.d.

This is my gramp in his front yard picking dandelions. He is very proud of his dandelion free yard. It's quite a process he has to remove them. He's very serious about it.

 We went to the lilac fields at butler university. Such an amazingly beautiful campus.

My uncle kept begging us to go down to the brewery down the street from my grandmas. How could we say no? Goll he must have been thirsty ;) ;) ;)

Preparing for family dinner.

The creek at the end of my gram's street.

My mom used to play in it for hours when she was little, looking for treasure and other wierd things.

By this time I was actually starting to miss my little family back home. I headed home Monday and arrived. To a clean house, happy children, clogged toilets and 1 more week of school.

And to top it all off with a bang, my mom spent the next weekend at our house so that we could celebrate our

17th wedding anniversary! 

That just seems crazy. But the dates don't lie. Holy moly that seems like a long time.

18 years ago we attempted to climb camelback. I had a little hussy fit and quit while the rest of our group finished. I have always regretted that & swore I would try again.

Well I let a few years pass by & decided we would conquer this mountain together in honor of our anniversary.

So we did.

The hard trail I might add. Echo canyon.

We had a backpack, water, hiking gloves... The whole kit & caboodle. We were pretty much professionals.

Anywho, WE DID IT!!

it was hard, but I was so proud of us!

We headed over to the camelback inn for a celebratory beer afterwards.

We spent the night at the buttes and took advantage of their many jacuzzis.

We were a little sore from our ambitious hike.

We had a lovely anniversary dinner at the top of the rock.

                   

We ordered breakfast in bed & headed out to the jacuzzis again before checking out.

We stopped by defalco's Italian deli to pick up lunch and headed home.

We were so thankful to my mom for watching the kids so we could have a night away. They were all so happy & in good moods when we returned. Thank you mom!!

All that time away made me thankful, reflective & RELAXED! I had a great time and of course missed my scmoopies, but I SO appreciated the freedom. And I knew they were in good hands. And I didn't feel too guilty since we were gearing up for a cross county family road trip as soon as school let out. I'm sure there will be a plethora of together time then.