Warm tidings in winter

Ellwood

Coal Oil Point

Ellwood Beach

Riviera

Paddleboarders

Ledbetter

Hendry's

Hendry's

Valentine's day - Cupid's box

Valentine's Day

Valentine's Day bouquet - my style

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Valentine's Day - Cupid's gift to me

Cupid brought me my wonderful friend Elisa for Valentine's day. Her birthday is today :) Here is her birthday present that I made her: a shadowbox of glorious memories we share: at our wineries (corks), the beaches where we live (shells & sand dollar), and the picture of us on our boat. That won't get old, especially since she's moving to the east (wrong) coast to pursue her dreams:

El Mar en el Verano

Winter in Santa Barbara!

Sunny skies, typical cold water, and 70 degrees outside. Can't beat this.

The only downer is having to work during the day and can't exactly take out ye olde surf board....

In other sunny news, LoScho started a blog to show her *professional* talents. Here we go:

http://loloscho.blogspot.com/

A few more pictures for your viewing pleasure.....

Here's the SB/Montecito/Carp coastline, and Santa Cruz Island back there for ya:

Fun things

HEE HEE HEE

WINTER WHERE WE LIVE

SPRINGTIME IN PARADISE

IF THIS EXISTS, I WANT ONE

You know you wanna come visit us. :)

These pictures were taken at Hendry's Beach.

Stand up paddle-boarding:

Sunsets:

Summer lovin'

well, record temperatures have seemed to hit southern california. In Santa Barbara the high was 108, and today it is around 90. Regardless of the heat waves (or in the case of summer, lack thereof) you can't beat this type of scenery:

Crab Boil!

Last week there was a 'crab boil'- although I got eaten alive by mosquitos, it was still well worth it! It was done 'traditional' style, with no silverware or plates- just napkins. Gotta love culture :0)

So, there was 1 pot of food designated for each table. And by "1 pot of food", I mean this pot of food was enormous- we're talking a few gallons in size. This pot was filled with king crab legs, cubed red potatoes, corn, shrimp and sausage. Each pot was boiled and cooked with "secret" cajun seasoning (from texas). Each pot had enough food in it to feed 8-10 people- well, at our table there were 4 of us, and one of us (not to mention any names) doesn't eat shellfish...

For starters we had baguettes of bread. Here's how we started:

The way to eat this was to rip off a piece of bread and "swipe it" on the butter. Yes, no joke about this being a traditional crab boil.

The "cook" (i.e., the one wearing the flimsy lobster hat) decided which table got their food next based on his wildly walking around, and egging each table on to make the most noise. Here he is making his own noise, just to get people going:

Our friend Chris and I pumped up our vocal chords and got a little obnoxious so the cook would gravitate towards our tiny table of four (compared to 6 other tables of 8+ people) and we finally got our food!

Here's what we got:

OH MY GOODNESS-IT WAS MAGICAL!!!!!

Now, that food in it's entirety was intended for at least 6 people. Since "a certain someone" doesn't eat shellfish or most types of sausage, that food went to myself, Chris, and his petite girlfriend...

So anyway, here are the remnants of the evening- notice there is no seafood of any type next to a certain someone....

The cajun spices made it really flavorful, and the crab legs were very moist. The people running the show had given every table a pair of pliers for assistance in cracking the crab legs, so that was fun too. (well, it got old after a while). So anyway, that's the end of our magical crab boil.

'Til next time...