A nautical outing

Well, we are finally back from Europe and feeling rested although a bit discombobulated. To my surprise, I realized late Saturday evening that I would have Monday off work as a holiday! Yippee. That meant one full day to unpack, get organized and snuggle with my much-missed little people.

Yesterday though, it was back to the reality of work. The kiddos stayed home from work to hang with Carl and they decided on a sailing adventure even though thick fog hung in the sky. My sweet girl called to ask if I would like to join them. If only...

Late afternoon I found a wonderful montage of their day awaiting my inbox.

She's ready for Mr. Newton's phone call. Or The Sartorialist. 

Central Coast Summer...ahhhh....

What's your favorite childhood ice cream treat?

XO,

Chelsea

sweet surprises

Who doesn't love surprises?

While I was busily making dinner tonight, the little pips spent the early evening popping in and out of the house. Always full of questions, always full of energy. They both tried to steal all the carrots for my Moroccan carrot and chickpea quinoa salad, and I spent a good amount of time spelling out words for Sutter's thank you card to his GG (great grandma). I finally managed to get a few minutes of quiet time in the kitchen. Whew!

Then I went outside to join Harper in checking on these newly planted babies

and that's when I found this sweet little surprise

And then I was reminded of a sweet surprise gift from a friend,

a surprise chance at playing captain,

and a surprisingly still moment of sweetness,

Sometimes you just have to shoo everyone out of the kitchen long enough and you'll remember all the little sweet surprises that make up life.

What's your favorite surprise?

XO,

Chelsea

fancy fridays - hello summer!!

Well, around SoCal, spring usually brings some summer-like temperatures, along with May Gray and June Gloom...its sort of a schizophrenic time as far as the weather is concerned. We've already had a few hot streaks. But I never feel quite in the summer spirit until Memorial Day rolls around. I know its not even really "officially" summer until June, but the onset of Memorial Day is the reality check that bikini(eek!!) and BBQ season have finally arrived!!

We've already had our fair share of BBQs this spring - Carl even whipped up his own BBQ sauce to dress up our drumsticks last weekend. However, I've been feeling less than thrilled about the actual "bikini season" part of things. Not to mention the impending trip to Norway (meeting his family - yikes!) which has put me in healthy-eating and workout mode.

With a good deal of our friends out of town, it means no prior commitments or the tempation of last-minute soirees that we're quite fond of hosting. I'm looking forward to a weekend of hanging out, chilling out, working out and cleaning out our very messy office and possibly the garage. I have high hopes, I know!! It sounds lofty but I'll be happy if I manage to spend some time snuggling my loves and working on some crafty projects I've had lurking around the house.

Prospects for the weekend that I'm most excited about:

A sunset cruise aboard the Double Dolphin with both the kiddos in tow. Sunsets in Santa Barbara are among my favorite things to experience.

A trip to the Farmer's Market on Saturday morning is definitely in order. Its the perfect thing to inspire my clean eating, pick up some cilantro and tomatoes to plant, and pick up some picnic goodies. 

With our Farmer's Market goodies in hand, I'm hoping to head over to the Mission to check out the I Madonnari offerings...

 and settle in for at picnic in the famous Mission rose garden.

And that's just between now and Saturday!

I'm also super psyched to try out Brandi over at Mucho Mucho Bueno Bueno's awesome t-short tutorial,
 another T-shirt redo into a pretty dress for Harper,

and something I always mean to do but never get around to...

give myself a pretty manicure!! Although I'm positive mine won't be nearly as elaborate and pretty as these. I'm happy if most of the polish ends up on my nails and not everywhere else. And I promised one very sweet little girl some polished toes too! She got her very first "pedicure" at preschool the other day and now she's pretty much obsessed. There are the cutest pictures up ate her school of her with her little feet in the tub and getting her little toes polished! I just love that sweet little girl!!

And my one last goal for the weekend - buy the stinkin' Tracy Anderson videos already. Kassi and I have been chatting it up about these and I finally need to just do it already (and hope my honey fixes the projector so I have something to watch them on)!!

What are your plans for the long weekend??

XO,

Chelsea

all you need is love

Moving.
Its chaotic, its draining, and if you have as much crapola as I have, it takes a really long time.

And if it occurs on a much-hyped holiday revolving around showing your loved ones love, it could probably suck pretty bad. Lucky for me, it didn't.

We spent a lot of Saturday moving. And a lot of Saturday night trying to arrange (and rearrange) furniture until my honey's back finally gave in. I stayed up until 2 am trying to put the kitchen away and when Valentine's morning rolled around, I wasn't feeling too festive. But my sweetie knew just how to perk me up.

Nothing beats waking up to this

The rest of the morning was spent exploring more unknown boxes of stuff, trying to remember where I had put things in the kitchen and mundane stuff such as gluing (and regluing) stuff that came apart in the chaos.

We decided that all work and no play made for a bad day, so we paused the moving in favor of sailing for the afternoon. Beautiful Santa Barbara weather, friends and champagne dusted off any sense of stress about getting it all done!

And when that was all said and done, we kept the party rolling by having our friends over for some show and tell about the new house, homemade pizza and wine.

I promise some house pics to come shortly. As soon as I can find the charger for my camera...

In all the chaos, I couldn't find Carl's card. And his real gift is still rolled up in a tube in the back of the trunk. It really does need a frame to be a proper gift, so I guess we'll call it a belated one. I'll admit, I was not really on my game this weekend, though I was responsible for the heart-shaped espresso set in the first picture.

Honey, pretend you don't see the following picture of what your gift will look like once framed...

love these prints from madebygirl

There is still lots of nesting to be done to really be settled in to the new house. In the meantime though, I've been enjoying the sprinkling of love all around the house. After all, isn't that really all we need?

XO,

Chelsea