fiesta, forever...come on and sing along

if you grew up in santa barbara, fiesta is part of your soul. it's a summer marker that is etched in your brain. being in parades, watching parades, making cascarones, buying cascarones, meeting up with old friends, drinking margaritas, dancing, dressing in costume, eating churros, tacos, feeling a slice of history and just having a good time are all part of the 5 day celebration! the familiarity of this tradition for me, is unlike any other celebration i grew up with. i suppose i could compare it to celebrating the holidays. something i look forward to, that brings my family and friends together and that ultimately always wipes me out by the end. 

i want my children to know this tradition just as i do. i want them to have amazing fiesta memories. the girls happen to be 10th generation santa barbarian which furthers my interest in showing them all there is to the party! 

fiesta has evolved in the way we celebrate it today: heavy on the parades, light on the margaritas, but the anticipation for the fun and the exhaustion when it's all said and done have not changed...and the amount of confetti that lingers for weeks following our santa barbara party will always be. viva la.

opening night, dinner at the rose gardens

mama bit off a little more than she could chew, with bringing both girls, solo, who were tired and just wanted to see dancing...but we lasted until the opening ceremony and ultimately it was awesome!

excited spectators, for the friday (noon) parade. both were ready before 9am...mila complete with binoculars

adrea and i with her sweet baby boy. spent countless fiestas together growing up. not sure why neither one of us could remember one?

silly selfies, post parade

teaching the girls how to shake the confetti out of your hair into the bathtub

mila doing flamenco in her sleep, after fiesta day 3

saturday's children's parade

gorgeous costumes

walking down state to the placita

"mama want-choo"

the cuteness from these two cousins is over-the-top

paseo performances. evia has taken a liking to the flamenco performances and is talking about performing "on stage with the girls." we shall see what our future fiesta's hold.

in the cantina with grandma lu

done. done and done.

trek back to the car

recharging before fiesta-del-norte

roller coaster with cousin

where she prefers to be for the rides (sidelines)

tio gamz and isei can fly!

mila, evia and yinny - in action

playing a game to win a prize!

matching prizes. these ladies were at the mercado until 10pm!!! another fun fiesta come and gone.

nature lovers

it's no secret my girls are little nature lovers. and although i would like to claim the reason for their passion, it undoubtedly was inherited from their papa. i hear when he was a boy, he was often inspecting tide pools, identifying bird calls and exploring everything outdoors. today he still prefers to be out in the ocean or the mountains. the girls are right there behind him soaking up any bit of knowledge they can. thank goodness they are half d. we camped when i was a kid, but it was never my favorite activity. i have definitely grown to love the outdoors, partly due to my husband's love. we have been having a great time exploring together as a family. here are a couple of our summer adventures to share. 

for father's day, diegas requested to go north (only about 40 minutes from home) to figueroa mountain, for a picnic. we picked up some delicious food found a clearing and sat together. we listened to the sound of the grass moving in the breeze, the birds calling over head and each other as we talked about the various sights and sounds. it was gorgeous and good for our souls.

a month later we joined diegas' family on a camping trip (about 30 minutes south) at lake casitas. the fun thing about this location is the small water park. the kids had a blast and the adults did too. evia's most recent request to camp for 4 nights. she is set on FOUR nights in the tent. not sure mama can handle dirty feet that many days in a row, but i'm working on it. 

the drive into the valley from sb

figueroa mountain road

our sweet little picnic spot, amazing views

in his element

 

evia and isei, a cousin evening exploration

these little ladies are two peas in a pod....little rascals to the fullest

 

a couple years apart but they have so much fun together

washtub for baby

our camp

 

fishing in their jams. gotta get up bright and early when you fish!

these girls both got poles for their excursions with papa. last week evia caught a mackerel and mila an octopus off the pier in sb

evening dock fishing

father's day craft

some nights i'm so exhausted, i don't remember my head hitting the pillow. other nights, my mind spins in a flurry of lists, projects not yet complete and the tasks at hand for the day ahead. in most cases the latter prevails and last night was one of those nights. with father's day on the horizon (get it together mama 4 days away) i needed to come up with a toddler-craft stat, before papa was home for the weekend. we had so much fun painting on rocks at easter with my dear friend and her babes, that doing that again, with messages came to mind. the more i thought about it, the more i realized the words would be illegible if painted by kids. so i came up with an idea that i thought conveyed the same message but was easier for the girls to participate. take a look below at our fun project we did this morning! - good thing the honey never takes a unsolicited look at the blog. 

first evia wrote out the message on her chalkboard (good practice). we've been working on sounding out words

then she looked at her easel as she wrote it out for the second time on her "canvas" (i always pick up frames at yard sales - like having them on hand, we removed the glass from this one)

then evia went out and collected rocks from our gravel path

mama applied the hot glue

evia and mila selected gravel from the container and placed it into the glue on top of evia's handwriting

our finished project (we added a couple cloves to cover some rivets that were on the frame backing

happy father's day papa - you rock!!

past father's day gifts: evia's first drawing 2011 and mila's first drawing 2013