So yesterday Sayer and I had a day out to ourselves. He wanted to "go paint statues", which means go to one of those paint your own pottery places. On the way to the place (Color Me Mine in Goleta) he fell asleep. So, I drove around Isla Vista and the surrounding areas and stumbled upon this cool place. It was the set of the 1980's movie The Postman Always Rings Twice. I love that movie so it was a cool thing to stumble on. It was originally a gas station with oil fields behind it in the 1930's. There used to also be a restaurant beside it that is gone now. It's called The Barnsdall Rio Grande Gas Station.

When Sayer finally woke up we went and painted statues. He chose a dragon incense burner. You know he burns so much incense in his room now...Ah well, perhaps when he's 16 he'll understand what its real purpose is (I don't think I really need to elaborate on that one).

and my statue, I still had those daisies on the brain:

After our art outing we went and did some shopping. Sayer got some new crocs.

Tonight we have a babysitter- wooohooooo!!!! We're going to sample the other brew pubs in SB. We've tried one of the 2 we found. Maybe if we get really crazy, we'll give Sayer's incense burner a trial run.

Today a friend of mine came to see us in Santa Barbara. They are Houstonians as well renting a house in LA for the month. I have had the pleasure of photographing her on many momentous occasions (maternity, labor and delivery and newborn sessions). I hadn't seen her baby Jake in a while and I hardly recognized him. This is a favorite thing that happens to me a lot. I see babies when they are tiny and new and then get surprised months later when they come back changed! I love it. So we ran around to the zoo, had lunch and played at the park.

Dylan and Sayer got to feed giraffes. The look on their face when they saw that huge tongue coming their way was awesome. Afterwards, the zoo lady suggested that we use some hand sanitizer. I don't know about Dylan but Sayer rarely wants to wash his hands. They can be filthy and he'll say he doesn't need them washed. This time he didn't argue at all.

Lunch was fun. I took them to the Beach Grille at Padaro (I posted about it before). This time the train came and it was really loud and long. This was directly next to our table. You can see Sayer in the background of the picture of Dylan holding his ears too.

Jake is so cute.

We asked Dylan to kiss him. It never fails...you ask a toddler to kiss a baby or another kid and they kiss them so hard! They'll grab them and mash their face into theirs. I guess they really never do anything half way.

I found the coolest playground here. It's all wood and has these towers and tunnels. There are slides, ropes, ladders and bridges everywhere. It's also designed in different sizes so you get the same features in various sizes for different ages. There are cool paintings throughout. It's like a big maze and even I find it kind of challenging to remember where the way in or out was. There are all these tiny spaces that they crawl into as well. It's awesome.

Happy playground face-

and sad playground face-

some time for swinging of course-

One of the things that I love about California are the flowers. The climate is so temperate that everything just grows so abundantly. These daisies were just outside of a business here. Two huge banks of them just exploding with flowers. Daisies are one of those flowers that just seem so perfect, sweet and simple. I want this all around my house!

So that's it for us today. The kids were crashed out by 8:30 (love that) and I'm just sitting upstairs, listening to John Mayer (my fantasy boyfriend) on my headphones, drinking a beer and looking out at the big full moon. We head back home in 5 days (sniff sniff). I have a storm of work waiting for me and a pile of boxes and mail so big that I was told it was being put in a separate room in my studio. The busiest time of year begins in August so it'll be January before I come back up for air. It seems like it is always feast or famine so I am thankful for a good feast.

I'm behind so this post may be a bit long. I guess if you are keeping up with us and our happenings though you must be interested! So, yesterday we drove up to one of my favorite places, Jalama Beach in Lompoc, CA. Back in the day, before Mom-hood and such things, we used to come down to Jalama to go surfing. Usually it was part of a whole trek southward from San Francisco that involved a handful of stops, sleeping in the car (or tent) and a lot of In-N-Out burgers. Anyway, Jalama is amazing and you should go if you have the chance. It's far enough out that the beach can be pretty empty. The drive to it is great as well and it is an excellent campsite with great hamburgers (not as good as In-N-Out mind you), hot showers and wide sweeping vistas. When you drive in you come out over the hill to this-

The water is cold but the cliffs and the views make up for it tenfold. Sayer spent the first part of the day building his "Rock Land".

I collected my own sand and rocks to take home. I have a collection at home of sand or rocks from the various places that I travel to. Speaking of which, anyone in Cape Cod? I forgot my baggie of sand there. Steven hates this little habit of mine as he is usually the one lugging home the suitcases that hold my bags of rocks.

Other than photographing your kids and mine, my next favorite thing to shoot is random stuff that I find. I like to walk around and look for little vignettes, lost objects and still lifes that exist all on their own without my interference. Like this:

I love the colors in California. The blue and yellow combination especially.

To say Jalama is wide is really an understatement. When you're out there you get this feeling like you could walk for miles and never reach the end. Here is the view to my right:

and to my left:

Finn and Daddy played in the water. Finn won't let you put him down but he gets a big kick out of you holding him and running back and forth into the water. He stopped to give his Dad some sugar.

So, that catches us up to today! This evening we went out to the beach for a sunset picnic! I packed up some PB&J's for the kids and something better for us!

Sayer fed most of his sandwich to the birds who then followed him around for the rest of the evening. If you look above him in this picture you'll see part of the circle of birds that were around him waiting and watching.

This seems so S. California to me...

Some fun with Mommy-

We had fun playing with our shadows-

Sayer, taking it all in-

the sunset-

OH! and on the way out to the car, I saw another vehicle for next year's trip. This one comes complete with a serenade! Now you're excited right Danny? By the way, experts are everywhere as you may know, this guy told me that I probably needed a flash.

Finally we headed home, feet hanging out the window and all.

Finally, no really this time, this post is coming to an end. Goodnight from paradise!

As promised, the little movie of Sayer. It's 4 mb so it may take a second.

Enjoy! Sayer sure did.

So, if you've been reading this blog since I started, you may remember that our first trip to the zoo here in SB was a disaster. So, now that Finn seems to be back to his normal self (for the most part), we gave it another go. It was a much better day! We saw the whole zoo this time and rode the train too.

Here are the kids pretending to hatch out of eggs-

Finn showing his driving companion some love-

Sayer's family tree-

After the zoo and some napping, we spent the afternoon bicycling up and down the beach in this cool thing-

Sayer's favorite part was the bell. Let's just say the passers-by weren't the only people who could have done without it.

I think that I had the best seat. The ocean was at my right for most of the ride.

We found this cool beach side spot where the tables sit right on the sand.

The food was great, the sunset was perfect and the beer was well deserved. Sayer told me that he wanted to eat a swordfish. He had a great time eating his swordfish (fish and chips) and then afterwards we took a bunch of pictures of him jumping off of this rock. I'll post them later when I have time to work on them. They're hilarious and I plan to make a little movie out of them. I did manage to get a few snaps of me and the kids. Here's further evidence to my clients that it's even hard for a pro to get a good shot of a 2 year old and a 4 year old.

On a final note. We've decided to come back here next summer. I have asked some friends to join us. But, I'm thinking that maybe this might be the way to go next year. What do you think? Come on Danny and Denise, doesn't it look awesome? LOL