Super Coopers

Friday, August 16, 2013

Day 2 Santa Barbara, Solvang ...

This was an action packed day. I can't believe how much we saw and did. We actually hit the road at a reasonable hour for the first and last time of the trip haha.

We drove all through Santa Barbara. I was excited to see it. It was quite beautiful and crowded in of course. Then after a couple of hours we hit the highlight of our day...Solvang!

This place was incredible. Yes it was very touristy but we didn't care since we were tourists. It was the cutest little town settled by Danish people complete with windmills and bakeries. Ah yes the bakeries.

The marzipan was to die for there!

Enough to make me swoon. They were everywhere. We breezed in and out of them trying to decide which one to hit.

It was so fun to shop and shop for nothing in particular all up and down the streets.

Loved this faux thatch

This looked like fun

The shopping was a blast with lots of kitchy stuff everywhere. I was surprised they only had three windmills.

We found all three of them of course and checked them out. Here are a couple of them.

Christmas stores are always one of my favorites. I picked up a few things there and was proud of myself it was only a few.

We carefully picked out our spot for lunch and had their buffet here. I have to say I think my favorite thing was the Swedish meatballs with the pickled red cabbage coming in as a close second. Not a fan of the pickled herring though.

We tried out the Able skivers! While they were good they couldn't really compete with the bakery goods and fudge though.

So after a few of hours we hit the road...101 and 1 to be exact and headed back up the coast. When we saw the signs for Pizmo beach we had to check it out. It always reminds me of bugs bunny since he was always trying to get there. It was a beautiful day and a pretty beach with a great fishing pier.

We walked up the beach to the pier and watched the fishing and surfers for awhile.

I had about 5 pound of sand to get out of my shoes after that. I don't think I am exaggerating either.Well okay but at least a pound of sand. See that's alot of sand to be walking around with!

Then we went through San Luis Opispo on the way to San Simeon for the night. There really wasn't much to see there which surprised us but that's okay since we were burning daylight and had a ways to go yet. It was a beautiful drive.

Elephant seals

LOVED the fog!

It started to get really foggy and cold so we called it a night. So fun. We fell asleep to the sound of the surf that night. I love that.

Thursday, August 15, 2013

Our Trip to CAliForNiA 2013

This year we had another great family vacation. We took Christina since she is the remaining single survivor left in the family and had a fabulous road trip. Chris and I had never been to San Francisco so we were looking forward to a new adventure. She had a class for two weeks and left Utah just in time to throw her stuff in our car and head out the next day. SO Saturday July 20th we hit the road to southern California to get started on our adventure just the three of us. For the first time ever we took highway 210 to the 405 and I have to say it was pretty darn pretty. The drive wasn't too bad with lots of new stuff to look at. We got to Thousand Oaks that night with a little time to spare even. We had our first adventure that night at dinner. We decided to be adventurous and try a Greek Cafe for dinner and are we ever glad we did. It was fabulous. I highly recommend Daphne's Greek Cafe!

Starting with hummus...can't get enough of this!

My dinner was awesome.

Christina's was amazing.

Loved Mendis' dinner too.

We had a blast trying eat other's food and swooning over the yummy tasting treats.

Dessert!!

After dinner we headed over to The Oaks (Mall) to spend more time and money! It was a super nice mall and made our malls in Vegas look kinda shabby. Luckily we only had a short amount of time before it closed or we would have drug Mendis around there for hours!

As we were driving through Thousand Oaks earlier Christina mentioned that she had a friend that lived there so she called him up. They met after dinner at the mall and took off for an action packed evening. They drove by the LA Temple, Santa Monica pier, Hollywood I think, Malibu etc. Mendis and I had a great evening too just watching tv and unwinding haha. We are getting old.

Thursday, July 18, 2013

July 4th Weekend

We started out our weekend with the traditional trip to the smoke shop July 3rd to watch the free fireworks show. The first time we went it was chaos with cars, trucks, people and fireworks everywhere. Even though it was dangerous we thought it was pretty fun too.

Hanging out in the back of the pick up watching the show.

Fireworks just never get old. I kept Dane on my lap and kept him wet and cool with water on a washcloth. It was super hot out there.

July 4th we had Jeff & Rachel, Ashley & Benjy & boys, Charlie & Alisha over for dinner. Mendis smoked a bunch of meats so we ate like kings. Cooper wanted to be in a picture so I was happy to oblige. I was taking pictures for our food blog and took one of him too! After dinner we headed up to the fairgrounds for the big show. We stayed in the parking lot this year so the kids could light off fireworks and run around a bit. Then a big wind picked up and killed our party.

The next day we headed to Vegas and did some shopping. We met up with Ashley's family at the mall and hung out with them for awhile. Then we took Jeff & Rachel out for dinner at the Kabuki. We love that place.

We got a Love Boat! Might not have been the best idea since something shrimpy dripped on something I ate. Got some Benadryl and was good to go ....eventually.

Sunday morning was Dane's baby blessing. We all headed into Henderson for a family brunch first since we had to rush out right after the Sacrament to get Jeff & Rachel on the road back to Idaho. We had a wonderful meal and visited with Benjy's family for a few minutes before getting the photo op taken care of and off to church. The food was so yummy. We are still deciding if we like the key lime or the raspberry cheese cake the best. Killer good!

This is about the only picture I have of me and Dane with my eyes open! He is just the sweetest little baby. He takes everything in stride and doesn't make much of a fuss. All of the boys were such cute and loved visiting with us all.

Cooper Clan

Don't know if this is inspiring Jeff & Rachel or scaring them to death haha.

It was such a nice day. It is so exciting to add another sweet little guy to our growing clan. It was a great weekend (but we missed Christina who was slaving away in Provo with her history class).

Monday, July 8, 2013

Mary Poppins/Father's Day

We got four tickets to Mary Poppins at Tuacahn then had a heck of a time deciding what to do with the extra two. We decided Christina would love to see the show and Rees might enjoy it too. So we headed into Vegas and picked up Rees the day of the performance.

We all went to Paradise Bakery for our pre-show dinner then headed over to Tuacahn.

We were concerned about Rees liking it and staying still and quiet for the whole thing so we leaded up on treats. Seriously we loaded up with candy, rootbeer, popcorn, carmel corn, frozen lemonades, candied almonds etc! Great fun.

Well we all loved it and Rees was no problem at all. I highly recommend it if you can make it. Mary Poppins flying over the crowd was awesome and I really loved Burt tap dancing upside down all across the top of the stage!

We got home about midnight which would have been no problem but we had to be on the road the next morning at 7:30. We were headed to the Green Valley Ranch breakfast buffet.

Great family pic- love Coop's face!!

Not as fun but a great pic!

Seriously Cooper ate this sprinked donut in no time flat. He saw Grandpa with his donuts and had to have one!

Christina and Dane

Ashley & Benjy took all of us out to breakfast for dad's father's day present. We decided it was so much fun to do that it will now be our new tradition! A great weekend!