I’m spending a few days with my parents in Santa Barbara before heading over to Salt Lake City for Inspire.Create.Share, the 2014 Stampin’ Up! convention.  It’s been a great visit, starting with lunch at the Figueroa Mountain Brewing Company with my dad:

I had the Danish Red along with a Farro & Arugula salad and both were delicious – but not as delicious as the time we spent together!

Day Two the first order of business was Girl Time:

My mom, my sister and I went to Magic Nail for wonderful pedis.  I almost got the same color they chose, but at the last minute Ampara convinced me to go with the blue.  I thought it would be too light on my toes but she (as always) knew what she was talking about!

That afternoon we headed down towards East Beach for the Maritime Museum annual Cardboard Canoe races.  My parents told me they never miss them because the entertainment is so hilarious.  No kidding.  The teams get two sheets of cardboard, a yardstick, a box cutter and some duct tape, plus an hour or so of design/build time.  The first two rounds were the kids’ divisions, and the last round was “grownups”.  Seriously, you have to put that word in quotes in this case.  They line up on the beach:

Here we have your basic box lined up next to a Viking Dragon boat.  You get the idea.  I wish I would have take a video of the race to the water, as that box in the foreground got hung up in the yellow starting line rope and the 1912 Box ‘o Bolts got their paddle kicked away by a bystander.  The distance to the buoy isn’t far, and what you need are mad paddling skills to get out and back before you sink.  Trust me, my parents were right – it was hilarious!

On Sunday I met up with one of my besties from 6th grade.  We have a lot of shared stories and memories between us!  I think there might have been a few ghosts of Puppy-Love-Past following us around, too.   (wink!)   Needless to say, we had a wonderful couple of hours together:

Amazing how the time has flown by.  This was a sweet visit, and tomorrow I’ll be on the early bus to LAX.  I’ll be in Salt Lake just after lunchtime with Cheryl and it will be full steam ahead from there on out!  I’ll do my best to share what I can, but the best place to find up-to-the-minute posts is on my Maui Stamper Facebook page – click Like to see updates, but remember that Facebook has a “use it or lose it” kind of algorithm – if you don’t interact with the page from time to time by commenting or liking, you’ll stop seeing the updates.

See you all in Salt Lake!