Beach Boy

It's been sooooo great having my parents here, er rather, having them in Carpinteria - close to the beach! (literally, like 100 steps from the beach). So, Ben and I have been hanging out with them in the later afternoons.... here's some fun beach shots from Sunday!

Family Fun

This has been a crazy few weeks... my parents arrived from Minnesota a few days before Christmas to spend the holidays with us... we have SO loved having Grammy & Grandpop around to spend time with, take advantage of some free babysitting and just have some family around to hang with us on a daily basis. Our holidays were a bit different this year as we aren't in the arctic cold of Minnesota (it was minus 4 there today) and we celebrated many traditions.... On the eve of Christmas, we had a traditional Japanese dinner called Nabe with my parents... it's one-pot cooking and it was yummy! Something way different for this Scandinavian family....

Then, on Christmas day, Steve's family came and we had a traditional Italian meal complete with Calzones made by Steve's parents, manicotti made my his brother and of course, wild rice meatballs made by my mom! (nothing Italian about that!) Food is always the center of attention in our family!

My parents have stayed with us for the last 2 weeks and they rented a beach cottage in Carpinteria for the month of January (partly because they want to get away from the incredibly frigid Minnesota temperatures for a few weeks and mainly because they want to hang out with their one and only grand-kiddo, Ben!)

It's an adorable little beach cottage and Steve and I wanted to give it a test run before they move into it tomorrow... so we have taken full advantage of the free babysitting and mom & dad stayed at our house in Santa Barbara with Ben while we stayed in Carpinteria at the cottage all weekend - it was soooo wonderful! We did all of our favorite things... slept in (ok, until 7:30, but it was nice!), walked on the beach, ate out, read a lot and set our goals & intentions for the new year for our family and me, for my business!

We ended the weekend with a trip to the zoo!