Moments of happiness with friends from NZ on Santa Barbara’s Waterfront

It’s been a lovely week shared with friends. We returned from Disneyland on Tuesday evening and have been enjoying a quieter time back at the house in Santa Barbara. The children have been playing in the pool a lot and we’ve had a couple of trips out and about, including a gorgeous little boat trip in the marina on the very cute ‘Lil’ Toot’; one of many lovely attractions on the waterfront.

It’s so great to have our New Zealand neighbours here with us. In the above photograph I am sat next to my Miss 3, then my lovely neighbour and her son, Master 6, and then my daughter, Miss 7. Master 6 has an older sister, Miss 10 (same age as our eldest), and unfortunately we couldn’t persuade the older girls out of the house for our little waterfront excursion (but it was the day after Disneyland – so they were a little jaded!). They had a great time having the house and pool to themselves, whilst we enjoyed the company of the younger children.

The sand-dunes were, as always, a great attraction for the young ones. They adored running up them and jumping down, trying to take off in the air as they flew down the sand. The man of the house watched over the play and added to the thrills, whilst my friend and I watched on.

After our play in the dunes we headed to Stearns Wharf and the lovely Ty Warner Sea Center there.

It’s a great little place of learning. There were some children demonstrating how to extract goo from kelp and there were lots of questions and gasps of amazement at how the seaweed extract is used in toothpaste and ice-cream.

Upstairs in the centre is a lovely jelly-fish exhibit and opportunities for children to make their own puppet shows, or just enjoy a quiet read.

The visit to the pier was made complete with ice-creams, a few squashed penny souvenirs and a rather freaky, larger than life onion ring – that the man of the house wished could be the ‘One Ring to Rule Them All’… as in his three daughters behaving themselves 😉