December visit to Santa Barbara

Every once in a while I get the urge to take a road trip.  Even if I have just returned from a trip I still get this urge to go somewhere, and Rosie's baby shower in Santa Barbara was just the excuse I needed.  Calvin and I made a long weekend trip from winter in Reno to sunny Santa Barbara.  ( We had to dodge snow storms on both ends of the trip. Hooray El Nino) Perfect excuse. While we were driving through winter in the Sierras I was thinking how much it looked like Christmas to me, but then I realized as we got to the green central valley of California that this probably looked a lot more like Christmas to Calvin. I must admit the concept of "going to the snow" instead of having it come to you is sometimes appealing.
Any way, we had a fun weekend and although I took over 50 phone pictures, mostly of Alice, very few are worth showing. Still I love having pictures to remember a fun trip. 

We frosted gingerbread men, a Smith family tradition. Alice liked squirting on the frosting and didn't immediately figure out that it was edible.  She is used to paints that are not.

I am not actually a great fan of cookie decorating, but I love watching other people do it.

Calvin and Jay got to enjoy a couple of bike rides, but no pictures were taken. On Friday I got to play in the park with Alice while Rosie had an appointment.

We had an afternoon at the beach and then dinner with Jay's parents.

Saturday we played with Alice at home before the shower.

Alice was happy to play dress up with us. 

I tried to replicate the picture of Rosie and Kelly in front of the Christmas tree in preschool, but we were missing Kelly and Alice was not in a mood to stand still, so recreating that picture might have to wait a while, but it is still cute.

And the reason for the visit, the baby shower.  It was hosted by one of Rosie's friends, in her backyard, in December.  There is reason people want to live in Santa Barbara!

Now we are just waiting for that sweet little boy to arrive.