The Farm - Tierra Rejada Ranch

For as much as I love spending my days at the beach, I also absolutely love spending time at the farm, so I was thrilled to take an afternoon to visit the Underwood Family Farm and go fruit and veggie picking. Before we could make it out into the fields, there was SO much to do around the farm!



Not at all farm-related, but notable nonetheless: Sutton's first time enjoying himself in an enclosed bounce house! He's usually freaked out by them, but this time he really had a great time bouncing around - he actually went in it twice!


First, we watched the singing chicken show (the same one we see every October at Bishop's Pumpkin Farm!)...

...then we raced around on some giant tricycles...

...we conquered a giant hay pyramid...

...fed and looked at a ton of different animals...

...we did some heavy farming on motorized tractors...

...and we posed for some obligatory cheesy pictures.

Then, finally, it was time to head out into the fields!

Sawyer proudly displaying our first pick of the day - a huge head of green leaf lettuce

We stained our fingers and our lips with the dark red juice of ripe blackberries

and we ate...

...and ate...

...and ate our way through the berry fields!

Row upon row of the most perfect strawberries I've ever seen! Sawyer and Grandpa ran around competing to see who could find the biggest and reddest berry while Sutton and I slowly worked our way up and down the rows filling our baskets and our bellies.

Look at how pretty those are!

We came home with strawberries, blackberries, lettuce, spinach, zucchini and green and yellow beans - all incredibly delicious! You just can't beat that fresh-from-the-farm-straight-to-the-table taste!

Fo Fo Figgily's

Well, everything that Grandma and Grandpa told us about Fo Fo Figgily (which has recently been renamed to Bright Child, but most people still seem to call it Fo Fo Figgily's) was correct...it's like our local Wacky Tacky, but about three times as big - Wacky Tacky on kid-friendly steriods, if you will.


There's a full-sized fire engine inside the play area for kids to explore


There's an area for mini golf putting practice


TONS of places to climb around in the two large indoor play arenas (which go up so high that my camera didn't manage to capture any great photos), but of course, high play areas = fast slides!

This picture cracks me up - Mitch looks nervous, but as the review on the website link says, "watch out if you dare attempt to join your little ones on a slide as it is easy to become a projectile missile down them!" Seriously, they SHOT out of these things at warp speed and landed a good 4-6 feet down the mats every time!

Sutton got a chance to show off his slam dunk skills in the basketball area, complete with four different height hoops (from super mini to full size) for dunkers of all ages.

Sawyer was thrilled to discover that there's also an arcade area with games. Since the climbing and slide area isn't really very much fun for Moms about to enter their third trimester, I found myself glued to the grab machine (aka "the claw") until I was able to win three beanie animals for the gang.

The super-sized Lego pit was also a big hit - quite literally! The boys had fun building up huge Lego towers and then knocking them over.

Santa Barbara Zoo

Grandma and Grandpa took the boys to the SB Zoo on Wednesday morning while Mitch and I stole away and ran around the Camarillo outlets for awhile. We got to squeeze in some shopping for Baby No-Name whos wardrobe is severely lacking since he'll be born in opposite seasons as his brothers (not to mention the fact that I sold most of the older boys' 0-12 month sized clothing at our previous garage sales!).


This is the face that they're making in about 75% of all the pictures that Grandpa took...typical these days!


Sutton, our pint sized photographer, taking pictures of the flamingos with Saywer and their new friend Mya (the granddaughter of a family friend)


Getting close (but not too close!) to the lady with the big snake. Sawyer told her he'd put the snake around his neck too, but he was going to have to wait until he turned five first LOL!

Train ride, train ride, goin' on a train ride!

...and a car full of wild animals, too!

Up close and personal with the animals

They even got thisclose to the giraffes!

Sawyer took a turn feeding the giraffe some lettuce. Look at that super long and dark tongue!

Speaking of crazy colored tongues! Thanks for a fun day Grandma and Grandpa! XOXO

East Beach, Santa Barbara

Mitch & the boys building sand castles


Sand castle building takes lots of concentration!

After awhile even Sawyer decided that playing in the waves was pretty fun! Luckily the waves at East Beach are tiny, so I didn't have to worry about them as much as I did in Pismo!

Sutton collected a bunch of rocks so that we can make some more markers for our garden. He was having a great time making rock piles and towers at the edge of our beach blanket.

Nothing beats burying your brother in sand!

Santa Barbara, Day 1

Enjoying the sunset at East Beach on our first night in Santa Barbara


Oh look, I was there too! It's a horrible picture of me, but at least it's one where I'm not behind the camera, eh? Sutton looks cute :)


Sawyer & I making goofy faces


Checking out Chase Palm Park




Hanging out at Stern's Wharf

Pismo Beach

We stopped for dinner at Splash Cafe in Pismo Beach (they have the best clam chowder bread bowls! It's so yummy that a few years ago I actually had a big batch of it FedExed here for Mitch for our anniversary!), and we let the boys play on the beach for awhile. This was Sutton's first time at the beach, and he had been telling us all day long that he was going to go surfing and jetskiing in the ocean "like a big boy." I was a little paranoid that he was going to charge right out into the ocean since he's so enthralled with water, and I was right to be worried - he LOVES the water!

Sawyer is definitely more interested in the sand than the surf (thank goodness! It would have been hard for me to have to run around after both of them!), and he had a great time building all kinds of sandcastles and drawing in the smooth sand with driftwood.

After about an hour it was time to hop back in the car and finish the rest of our drive into Santa Barbara.

Casa de Fruta

We took almost 500 pictures on our trip this past week, and I'm having a tough time narrowing it down to my favorite ones - we went to SO many great places! I'm just going to break it down by location and post a few for each (be prepared for photo overload!).

Our first stop on the road trip was Casa de Fruta. I've stopped there dozens of times on past road trips, but this was our first time taking the boys there. It's funny how something that used to be a quick 20-30 minute stop for the adults ended up turning into an hour and 45 minute layover with the kids!


Feeding the ducks our leftover sandwiches


Sawyer in the Pacheco Express train


Sutton was totally impressed with the Casa de Sweets. He somehow managed to convince Daddy to buy him a 2 foot long gummy snake!

Getting read to ride the Casa de Choo Choo...longest little train ride ever!

Gold mining at the Casa de Sluice box

Getting Road-Trip-Ready

We're planning a road trip to visit Grandma and Grandpa (as well as a quick two-day stop in Santa Barbara, where Mitch & I met, used to live and got married!), so I decided it was time to get to work on a few projects to keep the kids occupied on the looooong drive.

First, I made these coloring wallets for the boys. I've seen several versions of this with free tutorials online, but I really liked the setup of this one with the extra pocket for finished drawings, so I purchased the pattern from Jennifer Casa and got to work - it was SO easy! (Sorry about the poor quality photos today - I didn't have time to edit them!)



We didn't have any 3x5 notebooks handy, and I didn't want to have to buy anything new (everything used to make these I already had on-hand), so I gathered up a bunch of index cards, a tube of silicone sealant and some binder clips to hold them together while they dried - and we made our own notebooks - easy peasy (and free!)! Plus, I love that the index card notepad actually creates a harder drawing surface for the boys since they'll be using them in the car.



Look at how nicely they fold up, ready for travel!



Second, I won this AWESOME giveaway from Frugal Family Fun Blog!!! I was so inspired by Valerie's Roadside Scavenger Hunt travel game that I almost attempted to make one myself...but I got incredibly lucky and won the ultra cool one that she created instead! It's inspired by the same design as the coloring wallets...



...but inside it has four laminated bingo-type cards and two dry erase markers to play a fun game of I-Spy on our trip - YAY!

The boys are already having a ton of fun with this (Sutton took it with us on our drive to school yesterday!). I can't wait to play it on a longer drive! Look at how cute her illustrations are! Thank you SO much, Valerie! :)

I decided that some kid-sized travel neck pillows were also in store since I don't want to see slumping sleepy heads in their carseats (their new booster seats just don't have nearly the head support as their old carseats - boo!). Sawyer picked out some monster truck fabric, naturally.

Sutton wanted to model his for you :)

I'm still hoping to make some seat back organizers and two of THESE really cool car trash bags (with boning to keep it propped open...hopefully insuring that the trash actually makes it inside the bag this time!), but we'll see how much time I get before we leave. Mitch & I are excited to hit the beach on Monday and show these little guys some of our favorite places around our old stomping ground, but the boys are most excited about visiting Grandma and Grandpa and going fruit and veggie picking at the farm! :)