The Lee Family: Santa Barbara Fun!

On Saturday evening, after celebrating CK's birthday I headed to the airport to pick up two of my very favorite people in the world! John and Lynn S-B, who I've known since I was 11 and who lead five of us 7th graders across America for four months on our bikes. They planned to spend a week in New Orleans with their two sons and asked if they could stop in and visit on their way to New Orleans. Of course, we said yes even if it was only Saturday night through Monday at noon when they planned to leave to meet their sons.

When they arrived, we sat outside by our outdoor fireplace and had cheese and crackers and caught up until we were all to tired and went to bed. It was great having them here for a visit and I knew the girls would love having them here! Originally they offered to take the girls most of the day and we mapped out how to get to the Perot Museum, since we figured they would enjoy visiting Dallas and the museum. However, the next morning Olivia sounded pretty sick, even though she is at the tail end of a cold. When she gets sick, her illness sits in her lungs and she has really thick, horrible-sounding coughs for at least a week. So, she sounded terrible and we decided it was best to not go out to a big outing. Plus, I really wanted to spend the day with John and Lynn too, so I'm sort of glad they didn't take the girls for us. CK made his famous biscuits and scrambled eggs and we had some of the cured meats from the night before. Then, the girls read and colored with John and Lynn and we just talked and caught up. That afternoon, we decided to take a walk to the soccer complex and stretch our legs, however, we ended up walking to Sofia's school since it was so nice outside. Olivia ended up falling asleep just before our walk, so it was just Sofia, John, Lynn and myself. Sofia had her scooter, so she scooted along most of the way, but then got "too tired" when we were nearly to the school. John gave her a shoulder ride which must have been pretty cool since John is 6'6"! Sofia now knows what it's like to be a giant! Once we arrived at the school, Sofia showed John all the playground equipment and they went on the swings and played on everything while Lynn and I talked about everything and caught up.

Once we returned to the house, we made dinner. We grilled salmon (my favorite!), made jalapeño cheese grits and steamed broccoli. It was delicious and John and Lynn were excited to be getting "real grits" since they were visiting the South. After dinner, we decided to decorate the gingerbread houses we'd made earlier in the week. It got pretty messy, but the girls had a great time! After putting the girls to bed, we lingered again by the outdoor fireplace and talked.

The next morning, their last with us, we had scrambled eggs and pan-fried slabs of the grits. Delicious! Then we exchanged Christmas presents. We gave them a copy of Julia Heaberlin's book "The Black Eyed Susans" which we'd read recently for our book club and were able to meet and include Julia in our book club meeting. We also gave them a container filled with all the various Christmas cookies I've made over the past few days: pecan snowballs, Aunt Shirl's cranberry cookies and chocolate crinkles. We assumed that they would want something sweet to enjoy in New Orleans and it's not hard to carry and wouldn't need to carry it back to Santa Barbara with them. John and Lynn gave each of the girls their first set of art pencils and a small sketch pad! They gave me a set of homemade soaps and the book "Little Humans of New York." After exchanging gifts, we gathered up John and Lynn's bags and took them to the airport. The girls had enjoyed so much having them here to read with, draw with and get to know each other better. I loved having them here, even though it was a short visit, and I especially love how they treat our kids like their own grandkids. Hopefully we are able to see them soon, maybe in Santa Barbara this summer!

Drawing, coloring and talking with Lynn