Camping at Lake Cachuma

A friend had suggested we check out camping at Lake Cachuma, a lake not far from Santa Barbara.  As we drove into the campsite, the temperature gauge read 94 degrees!  It was going to be a hot weekend but we were excited.  And here's the view from our campsite.  Beautiful!  Garrett and the kids walked down to the water to check it out.

Here's the path down to the water.  The kids said it was mostly rocks down there and Garrett said it wasn't worth fishing on the shore.  But the kids enjoyed running down there and throwing rocks in the water.

 

After some dinner, we enjoyed smores and some quite time by the fire.  Or silly time at least. :)

Ty missed all the fun since he was pretty tired from the ride up.  Just Tatum, Garrett and I!

  

The next morning we packed up and went down to the lake doc and rented a pontoon boat with our neighbors.  Kate, Dan and Jack decided to come up and camp the same weekend we were there!  They have a motor home so they were staying in a different part of camp, but we were so excited to have some friends join us.  Look at this view!

We headed out towards the damn and started fishing...

 

Jake and Tatum.

Since the fish weren't biting, Ty got hungry for some strawberries. :)

We decided to explore the lake so the kids took turns driving.  Here's Jack manning the boat.

We found these little buildings on the water and they turned out to be outhouses!  We all took our turn!

My turn to drive with Tatum

Then we finally found a place where the fish were biting and Jack caught the first one!

Then Garrett!  The "kids" decided to make up two teams, Garrett and Ty against Tatum and Jack.  Who would catch the most fish?!

 

Then Ty caught one!

And Tatum caught one!  She wasn't sure about posing with the fish for a photo but her teammate helped her out and held it for her.  Garrett caught another and so did Jack.  It was neck and neck until Jack caught one that as he reeled it in, got away.  Garrett said it didn't count but we all agreed that team Jack and Tatum won. :)

Headed back to camp.

The next day we decided to drive out to a waterfall we'd heard about.  It was a beautiful little park and a nice hike.

The waterfall was a bit dry but the kids loved it!

The best part was on the walk back, we passed Merida from Brave!  I didn't realize it was her until she'd passed us so here's a picture of her back.  But she had her bow and arrow and everything!

Then we stopped in Solvang, a cute dutch town, with beautiful buildings and windmills. 

We headed to a dutch brewery for some lunch and a cold drink.

And then ice cream after of course. :)

It's hard to see the kids here but they're on the steps.  Fun town!  We really loved this campsite and hope to go back again.  It's just a long drive from SD, I think it took about 5 hours.  Might be better to go in the spring when they stock the lake and it's not too hot.  We'd also rather stay in the camper side since the tent side was pretty crowded and the bathrooms were busy.  But lots of family fun!

After a long drive home, we came into our house to find our dining room table outside, and...

And our patio furniture inside!  I called my mom immediately since she had been watching our house and she's just a horrible fibber.  She was at our front door laughing!  She had been down at a garage sale at the Warner's and since they've been TPing our house a lot and Garrett got them back, they were looking for revenge.  They asked my mom if they could come into the house and change a few things around.  She agreed, being the funny lady that she is, and also suggested they move the outside furniture in and the inside furniture out.  Ugh!  They got us!  We

Cali actually really enjoyed the switch!  We left the furniture like this for a few nights and even enjoyed a few meals outside.  It's good to switch things up a bit sometimes. :)