Our Very Own "Staycation"

Every

one's

doing it--

the Staycation! A vacation without leaving home. We took a day trip to the Santa Barbara area on Saturday. We wanted to check out the beach town while we are out in Cali and also wanted to visit a couple wineries. We went to Cambria because we love their Chardonnay. They didn't disappoint. We got 2 glasses with our tasting, Mike got a commemorative magnet (it was our first winery ever...not counting the Missouri ones...Mike "doesn't count those"), and bought 2 bottles. Then it was recommended that we got to the Kenneth Volk winery. That man can make some wine. We bought 3 bottles her and now that we are home feel as though we should have bought more! It's so tasty.

Then we ventured back into town to see what Santa Barbara is all about. It's a nice little beach town. It's only an hour away from where we live, so a nice weekend get-away. Very old town. We visited the Courthouse that was built in 1928 (after the previous one was destroyed in the 1925 earthquake) and the Mission (even older...like originally built in the 1700's or something like that). It's a really cute town and if we decide we need a weekend get-away we might head back.

Don't We Live in a Major Metropolitan Area?

First we have a skunk in the drive-way, and last Saturday night we had a opossum. I mean, seriously, I haven't even seen this many critters on like a float trip and we live in LA. What's up with that?

We realized something was going on when Zoey wouldn't stop barking at the neighbors tree by our drive-way. Mike went to check it out and noticed that there was an animal in the tree. Upon further inspection (through my office window) we realized it was a pesky opossum. We had to get the thing to leave or Zoey was just going to go nuts when we let her outside, and we didn't really need another "skunk" incident on our hands.

So how hard is it to get opossums out of trees? Hard. We first tried throwing small rocks at it-nothing. Then we moved onto water--first we sprayed the tree with the water bottle and that did nothing but make the opossum bury further into the tree. Then we dowsed it with a big bucket of water. Nothing. Finally, my brave husband went outside (armed with a golf umbrella should the opossum jump all the way across the drive-way and attack...yeah right) and handed me the hose through the window. Well, it took about 30 seconds of spraying that tree with water, but the opossum finally left. He was so wet. We didn't want to hurt the little guy, but he needed to go. Had he left after our warnings with the spray bottle he might not have gotten so wet.

Man, what's next? A coyote?!

2nd Row, Baby!

Last Friday we were lucky to get some awesome tickets from Mike's work! We were sitting in the 2nd row on the 3rd baseline. Ya know, the place where a lot of foul balls are hit--it was scary at times. We had a great time and once the people in front of us left we really hit it big time and sat front row. We wish the Dodgers would have been playing the Cardinals (nice shirt, Mike), but were happy that they beat the Brewers because that helps the Cards standings.

Earthquake Damage

Not really...but check out our damage...the "S" tipped over! Too funny. There wasn't really damage, but thought this was good for a laugh!