The Boardwalk...

After a long couple months of work and business, Mr. Darling suggested we get out and chill out on a little adventure for his day off. Usually he would just need to veg out at home, but this time he actually wanted to see some sights. We decide to check out Santa Cruz a bit... Of course along the way we tried to find a couple thrift shops and bookstores...We also found a quaint little shop and a coffee shop his friend suggested.. The coffee was good, the thrift stores we eh, and there were no bookstores to be found.

So, we had a little lunch and took a drive over to the Boardwalk. The Santa Cruz Boardwalk was Founded in 1907, it is California's  oldest surviving amusement park and one of the few seaside parks on the West Coast of the United States. The History in itself is neat. Yet, I must admit it was not really that spectacular to us. We enjoyed looking at the colorful rides and the beautiful seashore...But it just wasn't that exciting. Let's just say we probably wouldn't go back.

I don't mean to be negative about it, but it was kinda dirty like down there and the people that were there at the time were kinda shady.... It wasn't overcrowded since we were there on a weekday, but I think I would be a lot more miserable if it was overly crowded. We had fun snapping some pictures yet, the time we spent there was not even an hour long. So with that, we got some fun snapshots of a one time visit to the Boardwalk. 

And we can see we walked through history.

Downtown Olympia

After seeing the Capitol building my parents/Freckle's Grandparents...took us to downtown Olympia for the fair and some antiquing. I am more of a visual person so pictures for me, mean a lot. I am not fond of graffiti all over towns, but this kind of artsy graffiti is fine. I love how this kind of backdrop in  pictures adds lot's of color and quirkiness. Moving on....

 

In all honesty...I don't like carnivals very much. The one reason is they are so expensive. A family can barely afford the ticket prices for their mediocre rides. You spend $20 bucks for 30 tickets, each ride is around 8-10 tickets. No way...I won't pay. The games are just as bad.... you hardly win and if you do win you get a cheap toy. Yikes. The food and drinks...HELLO. $3.50 for a little lemonade. I don't think so. What happened to the good ole days where carnivals were good cheap fun for a family. This isn't Disneyland folks. I have one last thing to bash on this carnival...The "craft booths" were filled with made in China junk. We were all very disappointed. I don't like being negative, but for goodness sake, it was all ridiculous. So we just walked through and took pictures.
The coolest thing was there were old school rides with fun vintage style.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

After all that we stopped in a little cafe for some lemonade then did a little
 browsing around a few shops. That was better than the carnival for sure.

 

 

 

We stopped in this quirky, funky vintage shop. It was fun...
a little pricey for our taste...but fun nonetheless. It was really fun shopping with my Mama C....She loves all that old vintage stuff. She makes the coolest purses too.
 She enjoys buying embellishments for her art work. Ha....Just like me.

Freckles is also a great partner in crime when it comes to vintage shopping. Shes got style and great taste I must add. We had fun rifling through the shops together....Even my dad enjoyed himself.

 

The best part of the day was when they all got goofy together.
Oh the giggles we had taking this picture.
 I am just so thrilled that my parents can just be plain goof balls,
and be so relaxed about it. Freckles was not embarrassed at all...
It actually brought her out of her shell a bit. That is a good thing.
 I just know this visit with her grandparents will be forever memorable to her.
We had so much fun.