Tag Archives: Santa Barbara

Vacation with a twist

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My son and his girlfriend last summer at the beach near Santa Barbara where we”ll be on vacation soon.

What a whirlwind week or two.

We had two health scares in one week. One was my daughter who had a reaction to general anesthesia and almost stopped breathing. The other was my son’s girlfriend — who I don’t know the outcome of a biopsy yet, but needless to say we’re all scared.

My son was so shaken up they decided to move up their wedding date from August 2024 to next week! If she needs surgery, he wants to be officially married and by her side.

I’m experiencing intense joy mixed with fear and praying that everything will be okay. They’ve been together for ten years, so we believed marriage would someday be in their future — just not in a couple days. They are devoted to each other and there’s an abundance of love between them.

We’ll be leaving our vacation for our first child’s wedding to celebrate their day.

A shout out to The World’s Common Tater for his post earlier this week called You Take the Good, You Take the Bad. He gave me the courage to write this post.

When have you experienced the good and bad at the same time?

One of my favorite photos of my son taken years ago by his girlfriend and soon to be wife!

Below: Palm Springs at the entrance of our home during Spring Break while they were in college.

Life is better with friends

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Santa Barbara Harbor

“All right mates! Let’s go.” Rob, an Aussie, called out to us when we parked in front of an apartment complex in Santa Barbara.

We jumped into his car without unloading ours. Off we went to the harbor where he said his wife Debbie was waiting for us on their sailboat.

That’s the first time I met the couple who would become our close friends. It was “BK” before kids — and around 35 years ago. My husband and Rob met on the East Coast training with a large brokerage firm. They had hit it off and decided we all needed to get together once they returned to California.

On the boat, Rob shouted orders like “Skirt the jib!” “Ready about!” or “Trim the main.”

My husband and I were expected to jump in and help, but we didn’t now what to do. Debbie showed us “the ropes” and how to respond to each command.

Years before, I had taken sailing at the University of Washington in college with my brother. We were in a small sailboat and I remember getting hit in the head by the boom. My earrings popped out and a clump of hair ripped out of my head onto the boom as we “came about.” I had a small amount of experience — which was more than my husband had.

We soon learned that this was not a leisurely sail. We found ourself in a Santa Barbara Yacht Club race!

That weekend was the beginning of years of friendship. In the early years, we visited them and stayed in their apartment because they were too busy to visit us. Rob left the brokerage business and they opened a savory Aussie pie shop that sold hand-held pies about the size of hamburgers.

My favorite pies were scallop and cheese, spinach and feta — and best of all — Shepherd’s pie. The pie shop was the first of several entrepreneurial businesses.

I remember one afternoon driving to a beach for a picnic. We got stuck in traffic that wasn’t moving. They pulled off the road and set up a picnic on a red and white checkered tablecloth with smoked oysters, tomatoes, cheese, crackers, and a bottle of “cab sav” in a field dotted with cows in the far off distance.

Time spent with Rob and Debbie is always an adventure. I can’t wait to see them in August on our vacation.

My husband and me on our friends’ sailboat decades after meeting them.

Rob at the tiller with Debbie.

Fred and Honey, our friends’ Galahs. Rob had to give up his Australian citizenship to bring them to the U.S.

How did you meet your close friends from decades ago? Do you stay in touch today?

It’s that time again…

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My husband and I decided it was time to renew our passports after our last trip to Mexico a couple weeks ago. We don’t plan on any trips out of the country for the next few months.

We do have plans to visit California, our friends in Santa Barbara — and hopefully our kids will be joining us. You don’t need passports to visit California, regardless if it seems like a different country or not.

My son didn’t join us on our last trip to Mexico although our DIL did. He didn’t get his passport renewed in time. He did schedule an appointment. The soonest appointment was a month out.

After looking online and printing out paperwork, my goodness! What a complicated bunch of words in tiny print. It gave me a headache looking at it. Or, maybe it was because I had an eye exam earlier and my eyes were dilated.

In any case, they tell you if you have your passport, it isn’t expired, and want to renew it, you don’t go to a passport office or post office. You mail in paperwork. I’m not sure if we mail in the old passports or not. That’s a little concerning. We do need to get new passport photos and staple them exactly a certain way to the paperwork.

Our passports don’t expire until February, but we’ve heard the turn-around time is three to four months, so we’re tackling this chore this week. Reading the US Passport website, it said when renewing your should start NINE MONTHS IN ADVANCE! Yikes, we’re already a month behind.

Do you have any tips for passport renewals? Do you need to mail in your old passports or do we get to use them until the new ones come in?

Hotel vs. Airbnb

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We’ve vacationed in the summer for six years in this cottage a few blocks from the beach near Santa Barbara. I can’t wait for our time there this summer!

When we get away, we like to stay in VRBOs or Airbnbs — most of the time.

Since the time my son was one year’s old, we rented a house in Laguna Beach in the summer with another family from our hot desert. We rented directly from the homeowners (pre-VRBO era). The owners were school teachers who left for Alaska once the school year was over. We’d split the summer in two and overlap with the other family for a fun weekend.

My husband would commute back and forth for long beach weekends, while I’d stay with the kids the entire time. Not a bad deal, but with toddlers I remember I was tired. Still, much better than being in the desert with temperatures 100 to 126 degrees!

At Christmas the past two years, we’ve rented a house for a week — big enough for our Christmas Crew that varies from 10 to 14 people. We love being together under one roof and cooking Christmas Eve and Christmas Day feasts.

For the past 10 years, since my son was in college at UC Santa Barbara, we traded Laguna Beach for Santa Barbara. We stay at least a week and sometimes almost a month. My husband works remotely, so he sets up shop there.

When don’t we stay in Airbnb’s or VRBOs?

When we are going away for a quick trip, like a weekend, we stay in hotels. First of all, there are usually cleaning deposits and other charges that make a VRBO expensive for two nights. If you’re staying for a week or more, it can be more affordable to rent a house or condo and cook most meals.

When our kids were swimmers, we’d stay in hotels. We’d have to get to the pool early for warm-ups, get back to the hotel so they could rest between prelims and finals. The hectic schedule made the hotel much easier. I didn’t have to prepare meals, grocery shop or do dishes. I could order from the hotel restaurant or drive for takeout.

What’s your preference? Hotels or VRBOs and WHY?

Home safely

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A photo I found online on Flipboard of Montecito, a small wealthy town next to Santa Barbara.

We picked up my friend at the airport, showed her our new house and the two little towns by us. Fortunately I had planned on a good dinner of grilled tri tip, corn on the cob, salad and mashed potatoes. I don’t normally cook that much, but I had found a tri tip on sale and the corn looked good!

She planned a good day to get stranded at the airport, since I was cooking. The next morning she had a flight and we dropped her off at Sky Harbor airport. She is home safely now.

We were busy last night looking at the news from Santa Barbara County. Montecito especially got hit hard and was entirely evacuated. It was five years to the day that 100 homes were destroyed and many lives lost. I remember my Physical Therapist telling me a doctor she used to work with had half his house swept away and he lost a child to a raging mud and rock slide.

This year, there were videos of Ellen and Harry and Meghan getting rained on. Five years ago, Oprah posted a video mucking around in her backyard.

I think about what a gorgeous town Montecito is, but also that it gets hard hit by floods and fires.

Another place, like my old home Palm Springs, that is a nice place to visit, but I wouldn’t want to live there.

Where is a place you like to visit, but wouldn’t want to live there?

Montecito Creek image from Yahoo News.

Wait and see

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My daughter with Waffles and our Santa Barbara friend’s golden in their back yard a couple summers ago.

I’m waiting to hear from a friend who has a layover at in the Phoenix airport. She is one of my Santa Barbara friends, and if you’ve kept up with the news, you’ll know that Santa Barbara got hit with a major storm.

She’s coming from the east coast, trying to get home. But her leg from Phoenix to Santa Barbara has been cancelled. There’s another one at night, but with the Santa Barbara airport closed all day yesterday and partially closed today — due to flooding and mud covered runways, I wonder if she’ll get that flight?

She can’t fly to Los Angeles and rent a car, because the 101 freeway has been closed due to flooding from Ventura almost to Carpinteria.

We told her to call us and we’ll pick her up to spend the night if she can’t get home tonight.

I’m on wait and see mode, doing some cleaning and cooking, just in case. It won’t hurt me to have a clean house or food on hand, if she does make it home and doesn’t stay with us. We already planned a dinner of grilled tri-tip, corn-on-the cob and mashed potatoes. Perfect meal for a drop in guest! Or us alone.

Isn’t it weird that five years to the date Montecito had the huge flood, lives were lost and one hundred home lost? And now it was evacuated? It’s one of the most gorgeous areas along the California coast that we’ve visited for 37 years, yet it’s hit with natural disasters frequently. Or maybe because it’s home to Harry and Meghan, Oprah and Ellen, we hear more about it?

We’ll wait and see if we have an overnight guest. We’re ready.

What are your thoughts about drop in guests? Are you ready to have them or do you need to prepare?

Merry Christmas from the Christmas Crew

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Christmas Crew in Santa Barbara
This photo is from last year’s Christmas in Santa Barbara.

This afternoon we check into our Palm Springs VRBO to celebrate Christmas with our two kids and our son’s girlfriend’s family. Also, my dad who is turning 91 in a few weeks lives close by. We’re going to be a smaller group this year due to two sisters in Europe and the mother not well enough to make the trip from the Bay Area. One daughter is staying home with her. All in all, with those not coming, we’re down five people. So our party of 12 is now seven.

Merry Christmas!

Who are you spending Christmas or Hanukkah with this year?