Even better.

First look at the beach. I headed to Santa Barbara for a girls' weekend with two old friends, my sister, and two new (to me) friends from the East Coast.

It was amazing.

I'm a homesick kind of girl so when Ed and the kids dropped me off at the airport, I wasn't sure how I'd do. (It didn't help that my Jack said, "my eyes are getting kinda watery thinking about you leaving.") But by the time we landed in Seattle, I couldn't stop smiling. I grabbed some Starbucks and jumped on my next flight where I had both seats to myself, the "special" drink of the month was Diet Dr. Pepper (my fave!), and a whole bag of cheddar chex mix all to myself. And I finished my first book of the trip right as we landed in sunny Santa Barbara (which by the way is the cutest airport I've ever seen), My sister and one of my oldest friends since kindergarten picked me up and we cruised to her family's beach house.

Plane clothes (rolled up my jeans, grabbed my flip-flops from my backpack, and shed my heavy duty sweater). We barely unloaded the car and then hit the beach.

Eventually we headed back to the house, where Paula and I actually had our own little adobe house, showered and headed out for dinner. We had a long wait for a table but we were all kidless so what's a wait when you can sit in the bar and have margaritas and appetizers (chicken satay, shrimp quesadillas, and calamari)?!

I woke up the next morning and headed to the main house and found this:

Vacation kick-off in high gear!!

(The courtyard in between the main house and the little guest houses.)

I started the first morning with a run on the beach and a big bowl of fresh strawberries. Then we headed out for another beach walk before hitting the Farmer's Market.

We picked up some flowers, fresh hummus, and fruit.

Calla lillies the size of my head!

After the market we headed to lunch where we waited for a prime table with this view:

and some awesome fish and chips.

The wait wasn't too bad since we had these guys from the "Ukulele Club" keep us happy with songs like "Under the Boardwalk":

After lunch we shopped a bit then headed home for shrimp etouffee and sangria in the main house:

The living room in our cozy adobe house the next morning:

After a run on the beach, we headed out for a full day of shopping on State Street. I wanted to take pictures but I didn't want to carry my camera around so I got this shot from the parking garage (you can imagine how much better it got in the actual stores!):

After a hard day of shopping and a fantastic lunch (panini with fresh avocados and goat cheese), we headed home to sit here, while one of the girls made an authentic Greek dinner (and more Sangria):

One more sunset from the patio:

I got up at 8:30 on the last morning and stayed lounging on the beach patio from then until I finally showered and packed up at 2:30.

It was even better than I imagined.

Beautiful house, fabulous fresh food, and amazing company.

All around delicious.

Then....I headed home and on the first leg of the trip, the guy next to me was so in my space I had half my body in the aisle which was tricky since I was in the last row, by the only bathroom. Then I had 3 hours to kill in the Seattle airport which I took good advantage of and finished book number 4 of the trip. I also noticed that I was getting some funny looks so I checked in the bathroom and sure enough my face was fried and thanks to my sunglasses my cheeks and forehead were painfully bright red but the circles around my eyes were so bright they glowed. Lovely. (the next day Jack said, "mom, what are we going to do to make your face go back?") The last flight was quick and I was home by midnight where my Jack came running out of his room to welcome me and I woke up my little Henry to feed him and he stared and stared at me and then finally smiled the sweetest smile ever.

The next morning I woke up with pink eye and bam! I was back in business with four cute kids and a houseful of laundry but I gotta say it was good while it lasted!