The Great Outdoors!

The weather has been hit and miss lately. We are thankful for the rain, (California needs it!) so we've been hitting the hiking trails every chance of sunshine that we get. We live in such a beautiful place, we want to take advantage of it. One of our favorite places is the butterfly refuge on Elwood Bluffs. the monarch butterflies are just starting to take over the place. Soon there will be millions of them fluttering around.




We saw some of my favorite birds there, egrets (I think).


I rescued a butterfly from a spider web. Poor thing.


Down from the bluffs, at the beach, Selah had a ball with the sand.




Nate and his long time friend "Cookies" engaged in some riveting conversation by the seashore.

Another hike in the area is this beautiful stroll along side a creek in Montecito, passing by horses and surrounded by lush greenery, coastal oaks and plenty of poison oak. We escaped unharmed.

Finn's probably getting too big for this thing.


SNOW!!! We heard it was going to snow on Friday in the hills nearby, so we jumped in the car and decided to chase the storm, kind of. We drove up to Figueroa Mountain early in the morning and just when we started to lose hope, it started dumping snow! We scrambled out of the car in the warmest clothes we could throw on, and played for about 7 minutes until we got nervous the we would have trouble heading back down the mountain. The drive was really gorgeous though. I mean, who wouldn't want to spend 3 hours in car with a whining 3 yr old and a crying baby? I'm always game.






Selah actually loved it!

We went on a little Valentines Day hike (after eating heart-shaped pancakes of course) and headed out to some more bluffs nearby, called More Mesa. It was fun to see Finn exploring more on his own, running ahead on the trail, throwing rocks, picking flowers and.....peeing.








Selah was a trooper in the backpack and then finally crashed.




Happy Valentines Day Everybody!