California Part II: Santa Barbara and Hearst Castle

Before we left LA, Brad took me on a surprise detour.

I may have been just a little excited when we pulled up to this house. Then the one right below it. 

 

Do you recognize these houses????

Then it was off to Santa Barbara. We did two hour legs in the car, with many stops along beautiful beaches. 

 

We ended in Santa Maria. 

And the next morning we drove to Hearst Castle.

 Which was unbelievable.

Oh, this is just the 2,000 sq foot guest house. 

Outside at the Neptune Pool. 

The gardens were immaculate. 

 

Very important to stop and smell all the flowers.

I loved all the citrus fruit trees.

And this is the indoor pool. 

Then we drove up to Big Sur, and stayed in a little cabin-like hotel right smack in the heart of Big Sur.

California Part I: Disneyland

 

(Finally meeting her idol, whom she waited patiently in line for for 65 minutes! 

AND all she can do is stare at the ground). 

 Brad had a conference in Anaheim, and because we like crazy we thought, "Hey! let's pack up and the kids and go with you!" 

And because we I really like crazy I took the girls by myself one day.

The day I took the girls by myself we just did casual things. We met all the princesses, but Merida was definitely the cutest! Ariel was pretty darling too (okay okay they were all darling) however, because I was alone the only camera I had was my cell phone and some of the pictures with the princesses didn't turn out :( 

 

We watched the Christmas parade.

 

And I couldn't help myself, I had to snap this pic. Because anyone who knows Brad knows, he was not okay with this.

 

Some parade shots.

After Disneyland, we began our journey up the Pacific Coast Highway.

THANKSGIVING!

We made scones and watched the parade in the morning.

 

Chris isn't in the picture but he stayed the night and joined us for breakfast.

Our little Califlower, is a very messy eater. Chris finished breakfast so he thought he would feed her.

 This was the aftermath.

 Then it was time to get ready for the Thanksgiving Feast. I had 10 pounds of potatoes I needed to mash.

Chris was in charge of pies, which meant I was in charge of pies (they were frozen).

Then it was BLACK FRIDAY! A day I have been waiting for, oh so long. And we cut down our Christmas Tree!!!

 It looked a lot smaller at the farm.

 My favorite thing at Christmas is my tree skirt. My MeMe (my mom's mom) bought this for my mom, and all growing up I begged my mom when I get my own Christmas tree, if I could have this skirt. She obliged. It makes me think of my Meme.

 And then we got our festive on.

 Even Dixie.

After all of this. It was time to leave for California!

Another Project another gallon of paint

After 4 years of living in the house we are finally starting to make it our own. Brad and I hate painting. Since our walls are already painted (albeit, colors we aren't fond of) they are painted, so why do something we hate, right?

The painting of the porch gave me the bug and confidence for another project.

This wall for instance. I hate it. It is a slate colored, suede finish wall, and I underestimated the amount of work it would take to repaint it. 

First, sanding, two jobs of sanding.

 Safety first!

 Then two coats of primer.

 

Two coats of beige.

  

Brad and Chris did the wainscoting for me.   

That took two coats of primer, and two coats of greek villa white.

After that it was time for clean up, which went into the early wee hours of the morning.

 

After a week long of priming, painting, taping, cleaning it was done.

My kids were neglected.

 Seriously, I caught B eating from the dog food bin more than once because she was hungry.

I don't even want to calculate the hours she spent in front of the tv this week (it makes me shudder)

We ate cupcakes, my neighbor girl brought over for us, for dinner one night.

We ate a disgustingly and artery clogging amount of fast food.

Not my proudest mom moments.

 But it is over and I have a beautiful wall now.

And I will never do wainscoting again. 

I can't wait to see my Christmas Tree in the corner of that room.

We go to the farm and cut it down on Friday. 

(This weekend we are making up for a week of neglect)

Yes! I found a Christmas Tree not far from our house that let's you cut down your own tree.

I.am.so.excited.

Blessing Dress

We did a photoshoot this week. B has a sore on her nose and a chapped chin, but as much as I wanted pictures of her the main reason for the photo shoot was her sister.

Two years ago I took B there to have pictures of her in her blessing dress my aunt made for her. They did the picture on this pretty, old fashioned, blue couch. So I went back to have a picture of C in her blessing dress made by the same aunt, on the same blue couch. 

And just a FYI. B was 2 1/2 months old and C is 5 months old in her picture. 

 I love it.

Moab

We went to Moab for a weekend. And we had a blast. Driving home we even saw a shooting star, so of course, I had to say "A perfect ending to a perfect weekend".

Chris bought a nee jeep and built for rock crawling he wanted to test it out. We brought our jeep, and tested it to it's limits. Sure footed as a mountain goat, that jeep is.

Some parts of jeeping were terrifying, and I felt like... well the video below expresses my feelings precisely:

On those parts the girls and I got out and watched.

And some Christmas Card Preview:

Some beautiful scenery.