I Left My Heart In San Francisco

Okay, well maybe not my heart, but at least a good chunk of my bank account.
Seriously.


I was pretty exhausted fromt he drive the day before, so we got off to a slow start on Saturday. While I'm glad we took it easy, I wish I had planned a little better, because we ended up spinning our wheels a bit because I was so tired.

We knew we wanted to head down to the pier, so we drove into S.F. and began to look for parking. We searched and we searched and we finally pulled into a parking garage that charged.... wait for it....

$2.25 per 20 minutes! WHAT?!

Excuse me, but it's San Francisco, not Paris. (I probably wouldn't pay anything to park in Paris anyway!)

We were sort of overcome with shock at the price tag. As many of you know, Matt and I are sort of penny pinchers- we are NOT fans of wasting money at all. Especially Matt. Okay, Mostly Matt. I'm just kidding, we are a relatively united front on money... We don't like wasting it. And that's that.

Once we got out of the car, we sort of just wandered around, dazed at the amount we just agreed to pay for parking in this liberal cesspool of decaying moral values. Oooops. Did I type that out loud??

We first stopped at the Ghirardelli Chocolate Factory:


And got some samples that were, remarkably, free! Yum!

And then we checked out how they make their famous chocolate.

I definitely regret not buying one of the chocolate sundaes they were selling. They looked fabulous, but it was still morning and I had just sold my soul to park, so I wasn't really in the mood at the time. But I bet they were heavenly.

After that, we headed down to the pier...This was their first glimpse of the ocean, so they were pretty excited!

Then we backtracked to find a trolley:

It looks like a gorgeous day, doesn't it?

Well, don't let that sunshine fool you. It was incredibly windy, and once you walked toward the water, the wind was bitterly cold! Not exactly what I wass expecting, but I hadn't really planned for that, either. I knew Northern California wasn't as warm as Southern Cali, but Matt said that on teh forecasts, San Franscisco was consistently ten degrees cooler than San Jose (where we were staying).

We headed back down toward the pier and stopped at In N Out for some yummy burgers!

The wind kept blowing away our food, so we were trying to eat and hold our elbows down on our napkins at the same time:

After some food cleared our heads, we were able to shake off the parking extortion and finally made our way to the pier.

Did I mention it was windy? And cold?

Yeah.

Not so fun.

But we made the best of it and I tried hard not to complain... (Matt may have a different way of seeing it, but I really did try!)

We stopped by the famous Sourdough Bakery, which has a name... I just can't remember it!

They make the coolest stuff out of sourdough and the kids had fun watching for a while!

Little Turtles:

Victoria's favortie was the Koala Bear:

Snakes and Crocodiles

While Dad tried to find out about a tour of Alcatraz, we stopped to smell the roses, er ...whatever those are.

I told Tori she could smell them and just after I snapped this picture ... she pulled the flower right out! Ooops!

I love this one- you can see Coit tower in the background:

After we vandalized the flower beds, we headed over to the wharf to watch the Sea Lions... the wind cause Tori to have a little Marilyn Monroe moment on her way. Thank Goodness for leggings!

This was easily the cheapest, smelliest and most fun part of our day. The kids LOVED watching the Sea Lions. We could have stayed there for hours if it hadn't been so dang cold!

The wind strikes again:

Sorry. If I were a more savvy blogger, I could put all these Sea Lion pics in a collage, but that would take me four times as long and I am behind as it is...

The kids particularly enjoyed watching these two, who were frolicking and rolling around and kissing eachother's snouts. Too cute!

After hanging with the Sea animals, it was time to head over to get a closer view of Alcatraz!

Matt and I are huge fans of the movie So I Married An Axe Murderer, so we really wanted to tour Alcatraz. But apparently, you have to set those up several months in advance, and since planning was clearly not part of my day, we just took a boat tour around the Prison. That's just as cool, right?Okay, maybe not, but really, what can you do at that point?!

I was super tired at this point and Tori was also, so we mostly hung out in the cabin while Matt and the kids braved the wind and got some good photo ops:

Who says Chicago is the windy city? I think San Fran could give them a run for their money.

The building with the dome top over there is called The Presidio. Apparently the Spanish built it as a military fortress and never used it. Now it is a comples for the arts. Random Useless Info...

Approaching the Golden Gate Bridge!!

How cute are they?!

Once we got closer to Alcatraz Tori and I tried to brave the wind I was kinda hoping we might see Vicky wandering around giving tours, but there was no sign of him. Bummer.

There's something about boys and prisons... Matt and Isaac were super excited to get up close to this place and hear all about it.

After our jaunt along the pier, we headed back to our car to pay our ridiculous parking garage fee. The total price tag? $38 for five hours of parking. We had pretty much come to terms with it at that point, so we headed up to the "crookedest" street : Lombard

I tried to capture the crookedness of it, but once again my photography skills were a little lacking... Daphne, apparently, was terrified by the crooked street:

You can kinda see the crookedness here:

But you can really see it in this one. After driving down Lombard, we headed up to Coit tower, and from there you can get a good view of the crooked street, right in the middle of this pic:

To be completely honest, I was a little too hecked out to find out why Coit tower is important. I just know it is a San Franciscan Landmark and we checked it out!

Our little Daffodil:The aforementioned Coit Tower:

More of the city....And that was about it for Day 1 in California! We made the 45 minute drive back to San Jose, found us an Arby's and got our tired little bums in bed. Don't worry... I get my energy back and I'm a little nicer for the rest of the trip!

CALIFORNIA!!!

In May, Matt had to be in San Jose for two weeks of training for work, so we thought it would be fun if we made a vacation out of it. So... on Friday the 20th, I drove out to meet him.
With the kids.
All three of them.
In the van for 12 hours.
And just me.

Despite all the nay-sayers, I made it just fine! God blessed us with a dose of wisdom, good weather and good temperaments from the children. It was really a good trip. Sure there were a few hours there in the afternoon that were a bit shady, but we made it through. It was supposed to take over twelve hours just driving and we made it in 12 hours with stops and some traffic... so not too shabby. Daphne was a great helper with snacks and entertaining Tori and Isaac manned the new dvd player, so we stayed pretty entertained and relatively happy. My back was killing by the end, but we were relieved and joyful to finally reach Matt. The rest of the story is soon to follow!!!

Adam's Eagles FIT Fun Run Slash Walk!

On the first Friday in May, our Family was able to participate in a fundraiser for the kids' school! As you can see, it was a 5k. On the literature we printed, we put "/walk" so people knew that they didn't have to run the whole thing. However, while we were promoting the event at the school, the kids decided to make the written "/walk" something that they said everytime. It probably doesn't translate into writing as humorously as it came across in person, but they thought they were being such rebels by saying it that way that it was pretty hysterical. So, when I went to the school to do the skit introducing the event, we had several occasions where we wanted them to say "Adams Eagles FIT Fun Run!" and they would add "Slash walk!" really loud at the end.

Here we all are before the race: I was able to do a very little bit of volunteering to help with the event, like passing out medals, helping with the raffle and cheering the runners on. Here I am with the other ladies who helped and organized the event:

And here are my two munchkins before the Kids K:

I was at a cheering station right at the very end of the Kids K, and I got to see my Firstborn hauling it home! He was pushing with everything he had and came in 2nd place for the whole thing! He was running with all the 6th graders at the front of the pack and still pulled off second place, which is pretty sweet for my 3rd grader!

Daphne kept plugging along with Dad and Tori in the big jogging stroller- it was hard but she did it!!!

We had a blast and the school raised over $4000, which is amazing!! I'm so glad we were a tiny little part of it!

John Hancock

One of the milestones of April was this gorgeous girl mastering the art of writing her name! She has been drawing faces and Ts and Os for sometime now, but over the weekend of April 17th or so, she just started doing the whole thing!

This has a fingerpainting on the other side, so it's kind of hard to see.

Can you tell I'm an Early Childhood girl?! This is the type of thing I document at work all the time, so why not combine Tori's "portfolio" with our blog?

Now, while the other kids work on spelling at the kitchen counter, Tori likes to practice her name!

This one got some extra Ts and dogs drawn on top of her name written a few different times:

This one has two ts, A big one and then she went back to make a little one that matched the other letters in size.

Did I mention that she's not even 3 yet? I know, I'm ridiculous. But I'm just so proud of everything they do, and I wish I had documented this type of thing with my other two kiddos.

Pardon my shameless bragging.

John Hancock

Body Odor

So, I have a big lump in my throat and tears running down my cheeks right now. Wanna know why?

Body Odor.

I know. It sounds a little extreme, but when have I been known for my laid back reactions?

So I guess I have been feeling this for a while now... The urge to hit the brake pedal, to press "pause" or slow motion or call for a Time Out. Life is just moving too, too quickly.

So today, I picked Isaac up from soccer practice and finished giving the girls a bath. As they were getting out and he walked by me to take his turn in the bath, I smelled something.

I looked around, thinking Matt must have come in from mowing the lawn....

I turned and just saw Isaac. What!? I didn't say a word, but I walked over close to him and bent down to smell his arm pits.

And there it was....

Body Odor.

Tears welled up in my eyes. I covered my mouth and composed myself long enough to listen to a recap of Daphne's play that she invented in the bathtub. I made my way out the door and the tears spilled out onto my cheeks. I walked over to Matt, now planting flowers for me.

"What's wrong?" He asked.

"Isaac's arm pits smell." I say, my voice cracking.

"Do they really smell that bad?" He asks, his eyes laughing at me.

I can't talk, so I just turn around to walk back inside.

"It's okay, babe. We can get him some deodorant!"

Then he said, " I'm sorry you're an old woman."

Let me be perfectly clear: I was not crying because I am getting old. (He was just teasing me!)

But my baby, my baby!! Every phase of his life as a baby couldn't come fast enough for me. I hungered for each milestone to come, to see for my own eyes that he was developing normally. And now? Now I seriously cannot believe how fast it is all passing. My heart aches a little with each new step. His feet are as long as mine now. He is at least 5 feet tall and he's only 9. But deodorant? I'm not ready for this. Not one bit.

I am so utterly humbled to be his mother... to be a mother to all three of them. He is a precious, kind, compliant, respectful, athletic and bright boy. I cannot say enough good things about him. He will probably hate me for recording this story... it may even be deleted at a later date. But just so that I can hold on to each minute, I am trying to preserve this one by writing it down.

Back in March, Matt brought him this Scorpion model kit from California. It was for ages 12 and up, but Isaac put it together (almost) completely by himself. He's so proud of it!

And I am so proud of him! I love you, Isaac. Body Odor and all.