Santa Barbara, Trip One

The Day's Plan:

• Starbucks
• Potty Break at CVS
• Santa Barbara Mission
• Kids World Playground
• Alice Peck Memorial Garden
• Crush Cakes Bakery
• Santa Barbara Courthouse
• South Coast Railroad Museum
• Padaro Beach Grill

After many weeks of anticipation, the kids and I and our favorite babysitter, made the long trip to Santa Barbara for a day of fun and learning.

Santa Barbara Mission was our first stop (after coffee, of course). We were on our own mission to find the plaque hung in honor of the Lone Woman of San Nicolas Island, because we had recently finished The Island of Blue Dolphins, which is based on her life.

It was found in the grave sight of the mission.

Simon was the only child willing to take a picture with our found goal.

The other children were too busy irreverently jumping down the walkway and pointing excitedly at hummingbirds that skirted their path. I wasn't sure if bodies were turning in their grave or celebrating the lives of healthy children. I went with the celebration idea while shushing the active rascals.

We happened upon a chalk-art competition and wandered through the pieces in amazement at people's talent.

A selfie with my son, whole in the head... for the moment.

A piece of art that caught our strange sense of humor.

Santa Barbara Mission... CHECK!

And then there was the playground.

Anyone who knows me knows I am not the kind of parent that follows their children unless asked to by them and even then it depends. Instead I let them enjoy the sense of independence and freedom and exploration while usually knowing in what general whereabouts they are. So anyway, we set up shop with a picnic lunch on blanket and the kids went running into a wooden world designed just for them.

Simon, mouth stuffed with half-chewed peanut butter sandwich, grabs an orange nearly the size of his head.

After struggling to get his little fingers into the thick rind, he gives up and sinks his baby teeth into the skin...

...only to find the rind of an orange is actually quite bitter.

He spat it out, unfortunately, on the silky skin of our lovely babysitter. Really, she should thank us for the apparent lack of manners, because oil of orange, I hear, is good for the skin. You're welcome, Kendra!

Some where around this point we were invited into the children's play world. We followed them into dark corridors, over rope ladders, and down slides.

 

It was then that we saw Simon struggling out of a plastic tire swing. The children gasped in excitement and ran to partake in the classic toy (well, as classic as you can get to a bright yellow plastic tire swing). My heart, when looking at the above picture, screams, "Get away from the swing, Nathan!" Yes, step away and no one gets hurt.

I put the camera down, walk within feet of the swing that Kaeley and Simon are now sitting on. Nathan grabs the outer rim, heaves the weapon to the side, and fails to get out of the way in time. The yellow plastic lightly hits him on the forehead and he's instantly screaming. I was a foot away. At the sight of blood I scramble in my purse for the wipes, which were not with me, so I grabbed the only diaper in my purse and pressed it against his forehead as mothers around us ran to help. An ER nurse/mom (who I really think should live with me and go wherever I go) asked if I wanted her to look at it. "Yes. Why don't you do that." Ugh. Blood and cuts. Yuck. It was a small nick, especially compared to our other experiences, but it was advised that we go to urgent care for stitches.
So we packed up and drove off into three hours of traffic for our urgent care in Torrance.
Why, you might ask, didn't I call insurance to see where our local urgent care was in Santa Barbara? Well, I had four children with a picnic lunch that needed packing and a diaper pressed against my son's bloody forehead and the brain can only carry so much.

Kids World playground... CHECK
Three hours of traffic... CHECK
Three hours in Urgent Care... CHECK
Five stitches later... here's Nathan hole in the head. (Get it? See what I did there?)

Stay turned for July's Santa Barbara Trip Two.