Our Santa Barbara Kid Free Get-Away

I realized yesterday that I never recapped our mini vacation so here it is :)


Taking a picture with the kids before we headed out the door.

Where is Baby Fox?

Hey he's still missing...

Oh there he is!

First stop was Starbucks for Mr.  and then we stopped at a bagel place for a bagel and we got to sit outside and enjoy our bagels with no interruptions. It was awesome.

I was super tired waking up at 5:30 to work a bit before we left, so I took a nap while Mr. drove. Also very nice and when I woke up, I said, hey let's go to the Kate Spade outlet in Camarillo. Then we thought that we had passed it, and Mr. offered to turn around, I quickly decided, no, but turns out we didn't miss it and it was just an exit away. Talk about perfect timing. Then we ended up staying for a couple of hours and Mr. bought a bunch of stuff...me...found 1 shirt I liked...this always happens to us! It was nice to be able to change plans and not think about it.

Almost there! Beach!

We stayed at the Simpson House Inn, if you ever come to Santa Barbara, you have to stay here! It was awesome :)

The little sitting area leading up to our room. 

We got a little kitchen in our room, we knew we probably weren't going to cook, but it was nice to have plates and forks and a microwave at our disposal.

The view you get when walking into the room.

Kitchen area

This is the little welcome not they left us, but Mr. ate the cupcake before I could take a picture...

The stairs leading up stairs to the bedroom, more like a loft, since there were no doors up there, except to the bathroom. Of course I forgot to take a picture of upstairs.

After we got settled in we knew we wanted to go see the new Divergent movie Insurgent, but decided to get some food first and then go to the 8pm showing. We had  few hours, so we walked around and while walking on State Street found that they were having their farmers market. We got some awesome bread and homemade jam and the most delicious strawberries. Yum!

I took this picture when we got home, it's so sweet and yummy. I haven't ever had apricot jam...weird right? But it was delicious.

We went to Holdren's Steak and Seafood, we pretty much always go here because we know I can eat here.

Mr. got some ribs and I was in the mood for some fish, both were yummy.

Afterwards we high tailed it out of there so we could walk back to the hotel and drop off Mr.'s food and our Farmer Market finds...we were practically running, it took us about 25 minutes to get back to our hotel, we BARELY made it to the movie.

The theater was so cool. It was super old, and I think it used to be an old production theater...here's the outside taken the next day.

When you walked inside, it was like you were walking outside...it was the strangest thing. The roof even had fake stars up there.

Low lighting, but you get the idea, sort of reminded me of the inside of Pirates of the Caribbean.  We got in trouble for taking this picture, but they didn't make us delete it.

When you stay at the Simpson house you get a choice of breakfast things. You can pretty much get as much as you want too. They have two entree breakfasts you can choose from, and then an assortment of other things, like eggs, toasts, homemade granola and every drink imaginable. They ask you what time you want breakfast delivered and where. Both times we ate in our little patio area.

Paper delivery

The lady setting up our breakfast.

So cute right?!

That's oatmeal

 More food, yum!

These are scrambled eggs under there

After breakfast we decided to hit up some of the shops on State Street. 

 

We might have hit up the Coach Outlet (which is one of the better ones because there isn't as much traffic going in there like a normal outlet place, so all of the options are awesome. I ended up getting three purses and two small wristlets to give to friends as gifts. They were having the most awesome deal, 40% off the already reduced clearance stuff, then another 50% off of that! Crazy deal right? I just HAD to get that many purses...

After I got these, I thought, okay we can be done shopping. And we headed over to Chipotle to get me some lunch and then we walked back to the hotel to heat up Mr.'s left over ribs.

Eating lunch on the main house porch

After lunch we decided to relax and just read for the rest of the day.

I could definitely get used to this life

Yep a good 'ol Nicky Sparks book - The Longest Ride (it's coming out in theaters soon and wanted to read it first)

I decided to take a nap back in the room, which then turned into a 2.5 hour nap, it was glorious! That never happens! After I woke up we decided to just walk down to State Street to find a place to eat. We ended up at Palazzio, it was super yummy. Sorry no food pictures.

Those guys over on the bench, specifically the one with the black pants and the red part on his shirt, his back is to us...had some major game. Seriously there were three guys sitting on the bench and then any girl that walked by that was cute they would just start chatting them up. I think he got three phone numbers, it was awesome to watch. I wanted to applaud when they decided they were done.

After dinner we headed back to the hotel and read some more. I wish it would have been cold enough to start a fire in the fire place. OH well, next time.

Thursday the breakfast entree was Eggs Benedict...Mr. said they were delicious.

 We decided we wanted to head back towards home, as to miss some of the Thursday traffic. Los Angeles traffic on a Thursday is a nightmare...we knew we wanted to eat dinner at Javier's, so we headed in that general direction. We were going to stop for lunch at Chipotle again, but when we got there, there was this burger place that looked really good, so we went there instead.

Mr. got a burger and their mac and cheese, he said it was good, but not as good as the Yard House

I just got a plain burger, but it was really good (that's the bread I got from the Farmer's Market

After lunch we decided to take a walk on the beach, it was just a few blocks away, so we walked off some of our lunch.

We decided to walk to the end of these rocks to get a picture, along the way, we saw this cute guy laying out.

Our little friend in the background.

After we were done, we headed toward Javier's. We changed clothes at a Starbucks, hehe, glamorous and then Mr. wanted to walk down to the ocean, since we had some time. We wanted to time it so that we got home just before the kids went to bed, we could see them, but didn't have to get them ready and wrangled. :)

 Mr found some rocks to climb up. Crazy guy.

The angle at which this is taken makes it look like he's really high up, in reality it's not that bad

I realize that I didn't take one picture of us at Javier's oops. We had a great time on our little mini vacation.

To end the post, here are some pictures of the grounds of the hotel I took before we left.

There was actually ice in there, so cute right?

No we didn't need the ice clamp thingy, there was an ice machine in there

We decided to go during the week so that the kids still had their daycare during the day and my parents only needed to fill the 3.5 hours from after work hours till bedtime. They were exhausted just doing what they did, I can't imagine if they had them all day too. We are so happy my parents decided to move closer to us so they could see the kids more. They get to see the kids, we get more date nights, it's a pretty awesome set up.

 When is your next mini-get away? If you could get away, where would you choose to go?

 Linking up with Amanda, for Thinking Out Loud and Vanessa and Penny for Thinking out Loud, Nicole at Treat Yo' Self Thursday

Spring Style Me Challenge #5

Hi all! I'm back for another style challenge with Alison at Get Your Pretty On. This will be my 5th challenge with her. The first one was last Spring, I can't believe it's been a year since the last challenge! I then did the Summer, Fall and Winter Challenges. I loved all of them, and getting new outfit ideas. Every Wednesday I'll be linking up with other Style Challenge bloggers and we're all going to show you our take on What Alison told us to wear.

Day 1

I don't own camo jeans or olive colored jeans, can you believe that? I knew I wanted a pair, but whenever I would go to order them online something stopped me, now I'm kicking myself. So I substituted a bright pair of jeans. Looking at this picture, I think I also want to get a slouchy t-shirt. This one is fitted, but I think I would really like a slouchy one (don't worry I have several coming my way, hehe)

While this outfit is plain, I really like that the necklace spruces it up a bit.

Day 2

I bought this dress when Mr. and I went on our get-a-way (which I am realizing that I never posted about! Going to remedy that on Thursday). I washed and dried it and it shrunk, doh! But it's hot here and I think it will still work, maybe with some more casual shoes and a bathing suit under it? Definitely not work wear for sure.

This pink sweater has gotten more use than any other sweater in my closet. I love pink.

Yep same necklace as yesterday, I just can't help it, it's such a great statement piece.

Some randoms:

She is just too cute, I know I always say that, but seriously...I always see people posting videos of their weekends and what not. I was thinking of videoing a weekend...or maybe just a day...hmmm...what do you think? Something you'd want to see?

I took the kids to the park tonight, they (really it was Baby Fox) wanted to race, guess who won?

Instead we stopped to take a picture.

Really weird angle of my face, yikes! At least she's cute.

In case you were wondering, I did finish my book, with only 5 minutes to spare. Yikes! That was super close and I'm glad that it worked the first time I hit submit...But it was worth it, I got $130 off! I'll let you know the quality of it when I get it.

Bottom right corner says 11:55pm

That's it for now. Happy hump day! Now go check out the other ladies in the Style Challenge and see their take on the daily outfits.

Shoes to Shiraz | R Squared | Two Teens and Their Mama |
Confessions of a Frumpy Mommy | A Lovely Little Wardrobe |
Mishaps and Mayhem of Solitary Life | Puppies and Pretties | Daily Style Finds |
Making the Most of Everyday | She Thought She Could | Foxy's Domestic Side |
Quilty Joy Joy | Curls and Cardigans | Once Upon a Time and Happily Ever After |
My Running Stitches | From Plaid to Pearls | Stashed Blog | X-tremely V |
 A Little Bit of Cheer | Nick and Nik

An InLinkz Link-up

Linking up with Because Shanna Said So, Get Your Pretty On, The Pleated Poppy, Tucker Up , Shopping my Closet and Molly and Carly for Let it Shine

What Happened at My Allergy Doctor Appointment

Good morning! I told you last week that I was going to the doctors (although you can probably tell from the title this post), and today I'm going to tell you what I was doing. Of course it had to do with my allergies! I've talked about my food allergies, but never my environmental ones. I've been getting sick a LOT, every 3-4 weeks I would come down with sore throat and sinus stuff. This last round (last week) I couldn't take it any more, so I finally went to the allergy doctor again. The last time I went was back in 2007 when I was originally diagnosed with my food allergies. I needed a plan of action, cause getting sick every month was not an option.

So at this point in the post, if you don't want to see pictures of my back with a bunch of allergy dots, just push that little red x in the top right of your browser, or I guess it's the top left on a MAC? Hmmm...pretty sure that's where it is.

They told me to expect a 2-3 hour appointment, cause they were going to get me results that day. The last time I went (different doctor, different city) I had to make another appointment to get the testing done, which is silly, since you're going there because you think you have allergies, duh you want tests done. Anyway...on to the fun not so fun pictures. Mr. thought it was fascinating watching my back go crazy.

Here's your last warning, click away, if you don't want to see my back.

Here's Jonny, he was administering the test. I got 88 allergens the first go around.

First they number your back...so they know which allergen is what. They had stuff in two trays, this was the first one. All numbered up and ready to go. See the top left shoulder there? That was the control, he did that first to make sure the test would be valid, before even numbering my back.

Next comes the many, many pricks. Yes they did hurt, and he did it 88 times, I don't know if I could have done many more pricks, lucky just when I was at my breaking point he stopped.

So this is just after he finished pricking me, you cn tel some of them are already starting to react.

This is about 3-4 minutes later - See the really red stuff in the 3rd column at the top? Those are grasses.

 7-8 minutes into the test - it's getting uncomfortable, my back is so itchy it's almost numb, you know that feeling?

10-11 minutes into the test, almost can't feel it, I just want to itch!

15 minute mark - Test is done! Those big welts, yep I would say I'm allergic to grasses. The part after the grasses and and the 4th column are all food related stuff.

Sweet relief! Cortizone cream, it felt so good.

Now the ones that turned out having no reaction, they had to make sure it was a true non allergy, so they actually gave me a shot. Don't worry, they just put it under the skin, no muscle, so it wasn't too bad. Easier than the back pricks.

They only retested the environment stuff, not the pets or food.

Forgot to take a picture of the after 15 minutes on this one. 6 of them came back with a positive. Darn. So basically there are only 4 things I'm not allergic to out in the world. JOY. Can you feel the sarcasm?

So what's next? Based on the results they put me on some daily allergy medicine, that's for the skin itchiness, which I had no idea that I scratched so often, but apparently I do. They have me on a nose spray and some special eye drops for when my eyes are super itchy. They also said that I was a candidate for allergy shots. Basically you go in to get at least weekly shots of all of the allergens you're allergic to, and then slowly build up a resistance to them. You are able to go every other day, to make it go by quicker if you have the time to do so. I think I'm going to go Tuesday and Thursdays, since that's when I'll be able to get over there. The first dose of shot is a 1:10,000 dilution, and they slowly work you up to a 1:1 ratio, so depending on how often you go in to get the shots, the quicker you'll get to the 1:1. When you get there, you then only have to go once a month for the next 5 years. They said that 85% of the people are completely cured of environmental allergies at the 5 year mark. No allergies? Yes please!

They also said that some of my food allergies might be because I am so allergic to everything that my body is perceiving certain foods as an allergen. There's hope! Only time will tell. Keep your fingers crossed.

That's it, if you have any questions, feel free to ask!

Any of you readers out there gotten the allergy shots? What was it like each week/between the shots?

 Linking up with the girls for Tuesday Talk  and with Faith, Sarah and Heather for Mommy Moments