Gran got us these neat sweatshirts from the (imaginary) ‘Theule University’.  Thanks, Gran!

It’s pretty darn cute – she’s writing to many of her favorite people. 

Wow – 3 kiddos with Santa this year!  Fortunately Roly had just woken from a nap and was very cooperative.  Merry Christmas, everyone!  🙂

Some times a hidden gem is found, other times …

On Sunday, the Santa Barbara Zoo held its annual Snow Leopard festival by bringing in snow and sleds for the kids.  We decided to have a family adventure and experience the snow.  We didn’t tell the kids what we were doing until we pulled into the zoo parking lot.  They were very excited, and we were shocked to see the line to get into the zoo snaking through the parking lot and onto the public sidewalk.

We dropped the kids to wait in line, I ran to the front to buy sledding bracelets and Toby parked the van.  We all came together to walk into the zoo once the line started moving.  Max, Lucy and I ran to the top of the hill at the zoo, ready for the snow.  

We saw a tiny patch of shaved ice that held enough of a slope for a 2 second ride in a plastic toboggan.  There were enormous amounts of people trying to throw ice-balls at one another.  There were so many people standing on the snow that volunteers had to use lawn rakes to ‘fluff’ up the ice so that it could be scooped up by the 3 year olds.

After his first run, Max decided he would rather play on his Nintendo DS.  Lucy found a neighbor girl to play with, but only lasted a few minutes herself.  Toby was mad because the concession stand closest to the ice patch would not open for another hour and when it did open, it did not serve hot coco.  I was amazed at the number of people who were waiting in lines scores deep for the 2 second ride.

So we decided that the morning could be rescue with a trip to Toby’s favorite bakery to get hot coco and éclairs.  We arrived at ‘Xanadu –French Bakery’ in Montecito to find the building was surrounded with caution tape and posted danger signs on the plywood over the doors.

We ended up having Vons donuts.  🙁

I have been forgetting to refill my water softener with salt for the past two days, so tonight I bought some salt and had Max hold a flashlight for me while I filled the softener.

Walking back to the back door along the side of the house, Max was swinging the flashlight around and the beam passed over the top of the fence.  Staring down at him was an opossum sitting on the top of the fence.  Max squealed and ran into the house faster than I have ever seen him move.  Certainly faster than when I tell him to take out the trash!  Well, the flashlight went with Max, leaving me in the dark.  I scooted past and joined Max in trying to take a picture through the window.  It was like trying to photograph Bigfoot!  Here is a sample what we ended up with.

Oops, flash is on.

Too much zoom

Bad light placement

Right on.