some catching up to do

I didn’t realize that being on vacation would prevent me from my daily blogging, but it has. For the last week, I’ve totally missed reading all my favorite blogs!

We’ve certainly been keeping ourselves busy, but the highlight was definitely Santa Barbara last week. I’ve been thinking about what to share from our get-a-way and there were a few highlights. First, the food! My favorite was Rose Café, a little family-owned Mexican restaurant near the beach. The beef potato tacos were amazing! Chads’s on Chapala also had excellent food and cocktails!

Our delicious cocktails

In between eating, napping and lounging by the pool, I managed to squeeze in a little shoe shopping. Aldo is my new favorite shoe brand. Flats are a requirement for me as a teacher and they have a really great selection (so does Target, my usual shoe store).


I was most excited about these, unfortunately they won't arrive until late next week

We also saw Sicko - wow, were we incredibly angry after watching this movie. While we typically don’t enjoy Michael Moore movies, we felt obligated to see this film and we're glad we saw it.

While walking on State St., we realized how prevalent homelessness is in the area. We are very grateful for all the blessings in our lives and felt a little sad about what we saw. Before leaving Santa Barbara we decided to buy a dozen bagels and distribute them around State St. All seemed very thankful, however it was really sad when a few people struggled to make eye contact with us, nonetheless, at least they were guaranteed something to eat that day. This experience has made me realize that I need to be doing more, not sure what yet, but I’m praying to see where God leads me.

Other than Santa Barbara, the other highlight was discovering a new hobby…scrapbooking. I didn’t think I was one for scrapbooking, but I was invited yesterday to a scrapbooking warehouse in Valencia and it turns out I absolutely LOVE it. I’m obsessed with paper, so now I have an excuse to buy paper. My current project is our honeymoon. Next project will be the vacations Rob and I have taken together. I won’t do our wedding - that seems like a monster of a project. Thank you Susan for helping me yesterday! Can’t wait for next time!

We also saw a couple movies in the last few days, both of which I would totally recommend. Freedom Writers (which we just bought) and Déjà Vu. I can’t believe it’s taken me so long to see Freedom Writers! As a teacher in Long Beach, I’m a bit ashamed. Déja Vu was a mind game for us, and we’re still trying to figure it out. We may need to rent it again and watch it with the commentary on in order to understand it better.

Rob begins a two month assignment tomorrow at Saatchi. It’s funny, I just left last month – they can’t get rid of us. I’m hoping to start sorting through all our wedding photos next week. I look forward to posting some of my favorites.

I’m off to catch up on my favorite blogs! Until next time…