Santa Barbara & Spumoni's

I desperately needed a break, so this past weekend, I decided to get away and take a last minute trip to Santa Barbara to see some of James family that had flown in from Oregon for a graduation. My two younger daughters went with me. (James never goes to any of his family outings - so I usually try to go and take the children with me.)

It was great. We had so much fun. We went to the Santa Barbara Museum of Art and then walked around, eating ice cream and browsing through down town shops.
A big storm came in and we literally got soaked as we walked the 12 blocks back to the parking garage. It was a little cold but we had such fun and laughed so much.

Sunday night we all had dinner at Spumoni's -- an Italian restaurant with the most delicious food. (Ok, when it comes to Chicken Picatta, Little Italy of Visalia is still better.)

We had a group of 10 and it was late by the time we arrived -- past 9 p.m. but they were happy to seat us and they were so friendly and gave us the best service.

The owner was very helpful and even brought some free wine, appetizers and chocolate cake and some other Italian desserts for us! (We did all buy main courses and we paid for some of the appetizers -- but they brought us so much more!)

When we left, we had complimented them on some of their bread and they gave us a basketful to take with us!

I will never forget that place and if I'm ever in Camarillo again, I'm definitely going there!

I'm glad I decided to go. I had originally told them I couldn't make it but after last Thursday, I just really needed to get away. I really needed this trip.


Back home update:
My mama is still quite upset with me over the car thing but she's being polite now, which is great. I spent the last four days in partial agony over everything that happened last week.

My mama had a doctor's appt. again today. Her MRI was as normal as expected for her age and the doctor said he feels she has been reacting to the medications that she is on - which are plenty of them. This morning he removed a couple of them and we will see if that might help. She does not remember a lot of things that happened recently, including climbing up the tree house. I'm hoping to see a big difference because for now, she still won't come home with me. That means I need to keep traveling to Porterville daily to see her. I told her I'll return this afternoon and make her some enchiladas for dinner. She liked that.

Thanks again for those of you who have emailed and/or posted kind comments here. It has meant a lot to me. It has been a rough week but I think we'll pull through.