The Big Day

This was the day I had come for...and it did last longer than 2 minutes. But first there was the day to fill.  Joe and Alice went off to work and I was going to run some errands in town.  First I took a shower and realized that I had forgotten to pack shirts.  I remember now that I was in the middle of deciding which tops to take, after having packed Bri's favorite of my t-shirts when I was interrupted.  After that I just threw in some socks and closed the suitcase and left.

On the ride down, you may remember, I bought cherries.  Nice, juicy cherries, and so the shirt I was wearing was spotted with cherry juice so before I did anything, I decided to do a small load of wash, so I could at least trade off the two shirts that I have.

When laundry was done, I drove over to Tom and Laurel's to drop off a card in their mail box, something I meant to mail a week ago.

Then I went down to Sambo's Restaurant on the beach in Santa Barbara.  I may have told this story before, but you know that the chain of Sambo's was based on the book about "little black Sambo" and I think the franchise went out of business during the Civil Rights era.  Only in the original book, Little Sambo is Indian, not African, and the restaurant here was the original one, so it survived the Sambo franchise purge and still exists today.

I like it because it has great crab eggs benedict and the wall decorations tell the story of the little boy and the tigers who turned into butter for his pancakes.

After my late lunch, I went looking for somewhere to get flowers for Brianna.  Are florists a thing of the past?  I didn't find anything at all in either Santa Barbara or neighboring Goleta (where Alice and Joe live), so I ended up at Von's supermarket, where the girl in the flower section had apparently never heard of a "small bouquet" and tried to sell me a Sponge Bob balloon instead.  I did find something resembling a small bouquet and bought it.

At 5:30, I went to Tom and Laurel's.  Bri seemed happy to be getting flowers of her own (Laurel had received flowers at an event the previous night).  Lacie was very cute getting ready to go to the show.

Brianna wore one of the Minnie Mouse bows that Ashley made for her in her hair.

Aunt Jeri arrived, exhausted after spending all day in transit, just before we left for Bri's school.  She had flown into Burbank and then took the train up to Santa Barbara and was picked up by Joe and Alice on their way to a concert at a local casino!

There were lots of parents and grandparents at the recital.

Fans of Lost may recognize this Dad who was there watching his child perform, taking video with his iPhone like the rest of us.  His hair has changed, but the smile is unmistakable!

They divided the dancers into two groups and each group did four dances and then, at the end of the show, each dancer got two minutes to do whatever he or she wanted to do, after which they took a bow and were presented with a beautiful red rose.

Brianna looked like she was having such a good time.  Most of the time she was covered by Reese, the little girl in the black dress, which made taking pictures challenging, but I did get a few good shots.

When it was all over there were nice healthy snacks set out for the kids in the school area.

Jeri and I went back to Tom and Laurel's and I read Bri a story called "F Words."  I told Tom I knew a few F words that probably weren't in the book!

We left when the girls went to bed and we stopped at a local sushi place to get something to bring home to eat, since the restaurants were closing.  I left about 3/4 of my dinner in the fridge to have later, as I just wasn't hungry.

Yes, it was worth the 7-8 hour drive to be here to see the show.  Really a fun day.  Tomorrow I'm taking my little girl to the zoo while Bri is at school, then we are going to join them for "family movie night."