Santa Barbara – 2017

I had the absolute honor to attend my future sister-in-law’s bachelorette party all the way in sunny California! We traveled to the beautiful city of Santa Barbara. To say that little city is breathtaking is an understatement. Everything is so cohesive, from the architecture of each little shop, to the interior decor of the restaurants and wine bars. The company was pretty amazing too! Anywho, I’m getting a little ahead of myself. 🙂 Let’s start with when we arrived at LAX.

Most of us landed at LAX  around 9:00am (that’s 11:00am Central time). I was up and out the door, thanks to an amazing husband who drove all the way there to drop me off, at 4:30am. (Insert wide eyed emoji here) haha The flight took about 3.5 hrs, and was fairly smooth!

As we began to land this Texas girl was in awe seeing both the mountains out one window and the ocean out the other. I mean, how many times can you see both in one sitting? NOT THIS GIRL!! I met up with the other girls and we were off to the beautiful Santa Barbara!!!

We traveled along the PCH (Pacific Coast Highway, that was a new term for me) through Santa Monica and stopped in Malibu for brunch. Our Central time it was about 1:00pm, but there it was only 11:00am and we were STARVING! We found a cute little spot called OL LO. It was right on the water and was adorable inside. To be honest, that was my first experience with ALL restaurants having the option of 1. Anything vegan 2. Soy, skim, or low fat milk 3. Anything can be gluten free. 🙂

It was super cute inside with a massive fig tree in the center! That thing was literally in the ground. They cut a hole in the floor, planted the tree and left it to grow. I mean, how awesome is that! I might have to do that in our house now! It would save a lot of money on dead plants when it freezes (once a year). 😉

Once we finished brunch we continued our journey up the PCH to Santa Barbara. We had the cutest little bungalow house very close to the center of town. It was in walking distance from State St. which is the main drag with all the shops, wine bars, and restaurants. Of course, the first thing we did when we got in was, put our bags down and open up a bottle of wine to celebrate the beginning of an amazing weekend!

 

The rooms were super cute too!

 

The backyard had an AMAZING orange tree. We may or may not have snagged a few (I plead the fifth!!), and they may or may not have been DELICIOUS!

The interior was decorated in the cutest little rustic spanish/chic style. To match the vibe of the city.

Each girl got a little man that hung on the side of their wine glass. They were pretty cute. Mine’s name was Brad. haha

Ok, well this photo cannot be use as evidence against us picking one amazing orange. haha

and the bride got a little action too. (ok, so we picked 2 oranges). 🙂

Once we got settled in we walked down to the center of town. We stopped in several shops and ended up at a super cute wine bar!

 

We then walked around the town for a little while longer to enjoy the sites, then headed back for dinner and a night out!

 

The next morning we woke up and had breakfast at this SUPER CUTE little breakfast cafe called Scarlett Begonia!

The food was wonderful if you ever get the chance to go! We went back home to change into our “Boho” themed day outfits and hit the road for our Captain Jack wine tour! They were FANTASTIC!

Of course, since we were all dressed up, we had a mini photoshoot at each little location. The wine was great, the little snack were great, and the company was even better!

So apparently, the lady who lives next door to this winery, brings them fresh eggs every day!

Our final stop was in this super cute little wine bar in a town called Solvang. It was founded by a Danish community, and everything there is modeled after that style of architecture!

Our drive back home was BEAUTIFUL!!! I mean just look at that sun through the mountains!

 

In the evening we took a little nap, had dinner, and hung out and made some cookies!

The next day we went to the pier and beach. We had a fun filled packed day of wine bars, and Jelly Bean tasting. Not the good ones either. It was one of those games where you had to guess whether it would be a good flavor or a terrible flavor. 9/10 times it was terrible, but we had fun!

Of course the pier was beautiful, and the clouds had perfectly diffused the light from the sun, so we had a little photo sesh. 😉

 

The fishermen on the pier had caught an octopus! He was SUPER slimey (the octopus, not the guy). 🙂

 

….and also this crab ….

 

So I held it!

 

….annnddd this crab…….

 

the restaurant on the pier knocked on the glass as we were walking away and had to show us this guy….

 

We then made our way over to this super cute little wine bar called Deep Sea! We played the Jelly Bean game, took some pics with a dog, had lunch, and spent the rest of the day and evening just hanging out!

 

 

On the last day, I woke up super early to make it to mass at a beautiful church called “Our Lady of Sorrows”. It was truly amazing. Also, note the trees. The wind from the ocean blows in the same direction so consistently that the trees are actually growing at a tilt!

 

Until we meet again Santa Barbara! It’s been a joy.

Baby Lincoln

It’s the beginning of my boys! Seriously y’all I swear they go in cycles. 😉 This little man wanted to see the world and not miss a minute of it! I loved getting to see his eyes! I don’t get to see those sweet eyes very often! He was such a doll! Enjoy just a little bit of our session together! Hugs, Lauren Holub

 

Baby Harper

Oh my goodness! Y’all I could not get over this sweet little girl and her cute cheeks, and those little rolls! AH! This little miss was just perfect! Welcome to the world baby girl! Your family just adores you! Hugs, Lauren Holub

 

Mihir – One Year

I still cannot believe this little guy is ONE! I could not get over his awesome hair and his cute little personality. He had the cutest little smirk that totally made this photographer mama’s heart melt! And of course we could not end our session without a little cake smash! I cannot wait to send the rest of these back to his mom and dad! Enjoy!!

 

Baby Ashley

I got to capture this sweet pea last week!! I LOVED her cute little chubby cheeks! Her mommy and daddy were also in the army, so of course we had to get some photos with the american flag! Her daddy is now a police officer! Good luck boys! 😉 enjoy just a little bit of our session together!! Hugs, Lauren Holub

Belize Vacation 2016

Well, we made it back safe and sound after this trip! Some of you already know the ending was a little crazy, but the beginning of the trip was fantastic!! We cannot wait to go back. We spent most of our time hanging out on the dock, fishing, and snorkeling. The waters were turquoise blue and you could see right down to the bottom even at +20 feet. It was one of my favorite trips to date. So, as you can imagine, I brought my camera along to capture some fun moments!

This amazingly engineered piece, was hand crafted and lovingly thought up by my uncle. I have to admit. It was pretty amazing to have everything at your fingertips when you needed it! 😉

Our toothy little monkey!

Of course, the main mode of transportation was via golf cart! I’d have to say, the practice of driving the golf cart as a little girl on my grandmother’s farm has payed off for this trip.

Also, sailing was must for this guy! I think that might become his new sport. Watch out world…

And as always, lots of relaxing on the deck. 🙂

 

And you can’t go on a trip with me without having a mini photoshoot, and since these two are getting married next year.. of course I’m snapping a few!!

Yeah.. that’s our relationship… in a nice little coconut shell.. (see what I did there? coconut.. since they are in the pic? haha I crack myself up sometimes.) ANYWHO.. Here’s my husband and I and our sweet baby girl!

My brother took this pic, so I have to give him credit where credit is due! 😉

This guy has always been my guinea pig. He’s grown up SO much! I cannot handle that he will be a freshman this year!

This is probably my favorite photo of these two. Godfathers are the best!

The parents…. Daw aren’t they cute?

….. and the crew!

As some of you may know the vacation wraps up with a slightly scary ending. Little did we know, as we were blissfully taking these photos, there was a little tropical storm called Earl developing out in the ocean. It was a little ironic to hear the Dixie Chicks song “Goodbye Earl” playing over the speakers just a few hours before we heard about the storm. Yeah, creepy right?  Well, we headed out on the last hopper flight back to the mainland to check into our hotel (mind you, this was one of the only hotels that were available on the mainland due to flights being canceled at the last minute because of this storm), which happened to be about 20 feet away from the sea wall. I’m not sure if any of you have ever actually gone through a hurricane, but being 20 feet from the sea wall isn’t where I will be for the next one that rolls in.

This was the view of the docks just a few hours before, the now category 1 hurricane, Earl decided to show up for the party.

The storm really started to pick up speed about 12am on Wednesday morning. At that time Paul and I decided that it was best to head to the bathrooms since our room has a huge window that looked out over this amazing view of the ocean. Well, that view now looked like something out of a terrible storm movie. The palm trees were at right angles, the windows were rattling, and the rain was coming down harder than I had ever heard in my life. Since we didn’t necessarily trust the sturdy ness of the panes, we put baby girl in her carseat, and made our way to the bathroom. Mind you little miss slept through the ENTIRE thing (only woke up once because she was hot and fell right back to sleep). We put her in the bathtub and then Paul and I huddled under the sink to try and get a little bit of sleep while the storm blew through.

At about 3:00am Wednesday morning we began to hear HUGE panes of glass shattering from the winds. I could have sworn it was from our hotel room just outside the door, but of course we didn’t want to open the door in fear that it was and have glass and rain swirling around, so we decided to wait. I don’t think I have ever prayed so hard or for so long in my entire life. It was a definite “come to Jesus” moment for me. I was finally able to close my eyes when the eye of the storm rolled over, but just as it came it quickly went. All of a sudden we started having water seep under the bathroom door (I forgot to mention that our hotel was one of those that had an outside door, so you had to walk outside on a patio walk to get to our room, also we were on the 3rd floor). I swore to Paul that it was because our hotel window had busted through and now all of the water from outside was pouring in. We shoved all of our blankets and towels under the door so that it would stop the water from coming in. The towels held the water for maybe an hour before more water poured in.

It wasn’t until about 5:00am Wednesday morning that the storm finally passed over us. We glanced out of the door with what little we had left of our phone battery flashlights, and with a sigh of relief the window was still in tact. The water had been coming in from outside our front door. There was now about a half an inch to an inch of water in our hotel room. We decided that since our beds were still dry, we would try and get as much sleep as possible before we had to wake up for the day. That was a grand total of 2 hrs. 🙂 Adrenaline does a lot to your body when you run on little sleep, so it didn’t bother us too much. Of course little miss was up and at-em bright and early without a care in the world!

We met our crew down for breakfast at around 7:00 to hear the game plan of how to get home. As we stepped outside of our hotel room, we realized that the huge panes of glass that we heard were actually from the stairwells just around the corner from our room. They had blown in and flew down the stairs. I’m just glad no one got hurt from those. Some of our members actually slept through the night, while others didn’t (like us..).

As the day rolled on, we hailed a cab to take us to the airport to catch our flight back home. For being a 2nd class country, they really did a fantastic job of cleaning up the roads and making sure the airport was up and running by noon to get people in and out quickly. Our flight arrived to pick us up about 5:00pm Belize time (7:00 Houston time), and had Chick-Fil-A waiting for us as we boarded.

Y’all, if you have never flown SouthWest Airlines, DO. I have never been more pleased as a customer to be treated the way we were as we boarded that flight. They were absolutely AMAZING!

We did make it back to Houston about 9:00 pm and were so very happy to be home. We crawled into our warm bed and slept like rocks!

We truly cannot wait to go back to Belize. We had such a great time. We just won’t be going if there is a chance of a tropical storm. 😉

Here’s what that dock looked like after the storm. 🙂