collins family

We did it... we survived an itty bitty trip with the boys. It was neither a dream or a nightmare. It was somewhere in between, with moments of smiles and happiness and moments of wondering why we didn't bring something along to tape our children's mouths shut! In all we had a great time- and given the chance we would even do it again!





Day 1- after almost 4 hours on the road (hey we had to take 2 potty breaks and a caffeine break) we arrived in Santa Barbara and went straight to the zoo. The SB Zoo is wonderful- it's small, never crowded and you get to see all of the animals up close. We had a picnic lunch there which was nice because the kiddos got a chance to run around. We headed back to our hotel which was great. Close to the beach, first floor, wine and cheese, cookies, etc. We had dinner at Something's Fishy on State Street. I thought the boys would be entertained by the teppan style cooking they do there. Not so much. Dinner was kind of a disaster. Derek was unbelievably noisy and Gavin was totally fidgety. The couple who shared our table said they "liked our style of parenting." HA- our style was totally stressed out/inhale your food as fast as you can/grumble the entire meal under your breath at your children/try really hard not to strangle them! But yeah, we got style! After dinner we walked around State Street. It was a beautiful night. It made me really miss living there. So by the end of the day the score was zoo= great, dinner = not so great, State Street= great.

Day 2- We had a great morning. I woke up to the boys singing "Happy Birthday" to me. We went out onto Stearn's Wharf and walked around. Then we took the scenic route through the mountains to Solvang. Jeremy had never been there before so he got a kick out of all the buildings. We walked around for a bit and had lunch and yummy abelskievers. An old guy sitiing by us at lunch told us about a nearby farm who had miniature horses so we went and checked them out. The boys loved seeing the baby horse which was only 3 days old. Then we dove up to Pismo Beach. My friend Shannon told us about a cute inn they stay at up there and we took their advice. The picture of the ocean was the view from the hotel. Pretty incredible. We took the boys down to water but didn't stay too long since a 1 inch wave toppled Derek over and we had to go take baths. In the evening we headed over to downtown San Luis Obispo for Thursday night farmer's market. End of the day score= Great!

Day 3- Yummy waffles for breakfast followed by playing in the sand. The boys were very squirmy and noisy at breakfast and yet another couple told us how "well behaved" the boys were being. If only this nice couple could hear the words I was muttering under my breath the ENTIRE meal! They were being good because I had a death grip on Gavin and had threatened to leave every electronic device we owned at the hotel if they didn't SIT DOWN AND EAT! After the beach, we headed home and were making good time until we hit the mother of all traffic jams in LA. The car ride home was not fun at all. That tape I alluded to earlier would have been nice. Oh well we made it back safe and sound. End of the Day score: beach= great, breakfast= stressful but strangers thought we were great, car ride= horrific.

I guess what we learned was a road trip is what it is- a trip on the road. Kinda boring in the car but worth it for all the sights we got to see and the adventures we had. We will do it again sometime, but we think our next vacation will just have to be kid free!