Amy and I just returned from a GREAT trip to southern California for a friend’s wedding (Amy's college roommate Traci) and a couple extra days of R&R. We were blessed to have Grandma Karyn, Aunt Casey and Aunt Grace come to Louisville to take care of (and spoil) Evan while we were off gallivanting around the wine country.

We flew out to Los Angeles very early on Thursday morning. Evan stayed the night with Gramma and Papa since our morning started out around 4:00 am. As usual, Amy slept most of the flights out there. I took the opportunity to catch up on newspaper and magazine articles (no laptops on this trip). We actually landed at LAX around noon local time. We rented a little Jeep SUV and headed north on the six-lane Interstate (ugh).

Santa Barbara was beautiful and sunny! Amy had booked us a room at the Hotel Santa Barbara, right in the middle of the downtown shops and restaurants. We took advantage of the location and hit the streets for a little window shopping and happy hour bar specials. We managed to tip our glass at three different establishments before the night was over. We had an excellent dinner at Seagrass Restaurant and finished out the evening with a calorific helping of ice cream from Cold Stone. Yum!!

We packed a full day of activities in on Friday, including coffee on the road, a beautiful 3-mile canyon hike, lunch at a 100+ year stagecoach stop, two wine tastings, cheese/wine shopping and even cleaned up in time to make the outdoor rehearsal barbeque. Thank God for internet planning, Google maps, cell phones, the GPS unit and a little impromptu flexibility.

Traci and Jeff did an amazing job planning the perfect wedding weekend. The entire resort was rented out to wedding guests and family. The setting for the wedding was picture perfect and the weather seriously could not have been any better. Traci and Jeff are blessed to have such wonderful family and friends (present company included) to surround them and take part in such a special event.

Amy and I had a small little cabin to ourselves at El Capitan Canyon Resort. We enjoyed sleeping with the windows open and snuggling down under the blankets by morning. My liver is still recovering from the endless flow of wine and my bathroom scale is not talking to me now because of the dietary impact from my overindulgence of rich foods. Still, I greatly needed a break from the diet routine and loved every minute of our vacation.

Thanks to great family and cell phone pictures, we were never too far away from Evan and knew that he was in trusting hands (even for the late night emergency room visit and the dinner next to Mohammed Ali). That said, it was a wonderful feeling to get home to our little man (except when I almost knocked Amy over trying to beat her in the door). We missed him a ton! I’m ready for another vacation, but it might be a while before we are ready to leave Evan behind again.