What a wonderful Saturday it turned out to be, even though we spent most of the day waiting for it to clear up (life-critical machines and rain don't mix). We're having some strange August weather here in Santa Barbara. For the last few weeks it's been cooler than normal and overcast — we're used to this in June, but not in August. I'm not complaining because I'd rather it be like this than hot and muggy, but today was just plain strange. This morning we woke up to rain clouds and rain drops on and off all morning, yet it was warm and muggy. The weather couldn't figure out if it wanted to drop huge raindrops on us or clear up and be beautiful. Well, late this afternoon it finally figured itself out and cleared up to be perfect.
Once the coast was clear, we wasted no time getting out of the house and heading to the beach. We decided to drive down to a fun outdoor restaurant in Carpinteria called The Beach Grill at Padaro. Because of the strange weather, we almost had the entire place to ourselves when we first arrived. Gwendolyn loved hanging out with Mommy and Daddy and taking it all in. She got to see two Amtrak trains whiz by (the restaurant is literally on the train tracks and the other side of the tracks is the beach). The first train caught her off guard and she seemed a bit overwhelmed and shocked by the noise and the speed of it. But, by the second one, she was an old pro — waving to the passengers and loving every second. She also loved the big white seagull that flew in and landed on the umbrella on the table next to us. He perched himself right on the top of the umbrella looking all around — waiting for someone to walk away or look away from their food. Gwendolyn kept a VERY close eye on what he was up to. She even got to feed him some of Daddy's french fries when Daddy wasn't looking 