Mothers Day Weekend

First off, Happy Mother's Day to all of my fellow "mamas" out there! We hope that sometime during YOUR weekend you were worshipped, pampered and treated like a queen...as all mama's should be :)
My Mother's Day weekend started on Friday at 2:30pm when Isabelle and Michael came to the office and kidnapped me for the rest of the afternoon. They took me for a drive up to Ventura so we could reenact Michael and Isabelle's "week before an Opening Weekend at the theatre" routine. The two of them will drive down to Ventura in the morning and drop off the theatre's postcards at our mail house for the show that is opening the following weekend.

From there, they drive out to the pier and have lunch at a restaurant called Erik Erickson's where Isabelle just loves their bread and rice (go carbs!) and her Papa orders jalapeno fish and chips. We did a little bit of strolling on the pier. It was windy overcast and chilly but it didn't matter since we were together as a family. Isabelle was enthralled with the seagulls and the fisherman so I grabbed my camera and started snapping away.

At dinner, I tried the jalapeno fish and chips and they were to die for! I can't wait to share that "routine" with them again :) We had such a nice family afternoon together and Michael took the evening off (double bonus) so we got to just hang out, which we haven't been able to do in quite sometime. This was the best start to a great weekend.

Bright and early Saturday morning, Mom/Grandmama came over to have Isabelle's big girl car seat put in her car by Michael (so long infant carrier!) so she could be comfortable for our 2.5-3 hour drive up north to Avila Beach, near San Louis Obispo, to meet up with Tia Tara at a spa called Sycamore Springs (http://www.sycamoresprings.com/). A girls weekend was all set!

Like I mentioned, it was a 2.5-3 hour drive. Um yeah....for those of you who have toddlers, especially ones who are walking, I am sure you can imagine how our drive went. Isabelle was fine for the first hour and a half with looking at books, dancing in her car seat to her kids songs, listening to Mom and I talking and listening to us when we were talking to her. But then...boredom set in. She wanted nothing to do with the car seat anymore and she wasn't going to nap like we thought she would. She was fussing a bit, wiggling around and pointing at things that we thought she wanted and when we gave them to her she didn't want them anymore. So we stopped for about 5-10 minutes at a rest area and let her wander around, check out the dogs and of course, check out all of the flowers and plants (our little nature granola girl). With a little over an hour left to go, we plopped her back into her car seat and low and behold, her books became interesting again and about 20 minutes before we got to Avila Beach, she fell asleep...nice timing.

The spa was beautiful all tucked away back in the mountains. Mom stayed with sleeping Isabelle while Tara and I went and had our massages...our well deserved massages. When we got out, Tara literally ran out to the parking lot to get her "Macho Nacho" and to let Mom go in for her massage, since our room was not ready yet (everyone was busy with the VIP guests-"The Girls Next Door" were filming an episode while we were there). So Isabelle, for her second time, Tara and I went walking around to check out the grounds. We played chase on the grass, looked at all of the flowers and leaves and had a little snack while we waited.

When we finally got the keys to our room, we loaded up a golf cart with all of our stuff and were driven out over a bridge, that is over the main road, and into the boonies to our suite. This was definitely a Natural Spa! We were staying in "Mellow" or Suite 11...one of the handful of prefabricated houses on stilts! It was crazy! The guy driving us to our room told us that they had a flood about 4 years ago and a river was running right where we were driving. I guess in that case, stilted rooms are a good idea. At least they can stay open during a flood or bad rainstorm and they wont get shut down for flood repairs!

We unpacked, played with Isabelle and waited for Mom to get back then schlepped ourselves out to dinner in Avila Beach on a pier (yes, another pier) at a restaurant called Olde Port Inn (http://www.oldeportinn.com/) for another great fish dinner! Tara had Isabelle out of her highchair most of dinner, reading her ABC 123 book that Isabelle absolutely loves. Tara taught Isabelle what a doggie says, "woof woof" which is more like an "uhf uhf" when Isabelle says it. And Isabelle told Tia Tara what a tiger says, "roooaaahhh" :) We surprised Mom with a birthday cake and sang her Happy Birthday with Isabelle clapping right along. On our way out, curious little Isabelle was pointing at the boats in the water so we stayed awhile longer looking at the boats and then noticed 2 things in the water...sea lions! As we started back from the car, there were a few people standing by a stairwell looking down so we went over to check things out and here is what we saw:

Isabelle was so excited to see this big ol' sea lion and didn't want to leave but the shopping Outlets were calling our names! We did a little shopping there and then decided to head back so we could get Isabelle to bed and chill for the rest of the evening. The next morning we got up, played around with Isabelle on the bed, got ready, packed up and were on the road by 11. Mom and I stopped at Coco's for breakfast where we all, including Isabelle, had a good breakfast which almost lasted us the entire way home. About 40 minutes after we left Coco's, Isabelle fell asleep for a little over an hour. When she woke up she seemed fine but then starting to get fussy again. Mom tried playing with her, reading to her and then all of a sudden, up came breakfast! Needless to say, a 30 minute pit stop was in order. We got her and her car seat all cleaned up (except the smell-yuck) and continued home. She was back to her old self after that!

When we got back home we had dinner al fresco with "the Dad's" at one of our favorite Italian restaurants and my favorite dessert....Golden Spoon frozen yogurt! That was a craving I had through my entire pregnancy and still do today. What a memorable Mother's Day weekend with the family! Thank you, Mi familia!