Love, Love, Love

I love, love, love this picture of Brianna with her Aunt Betsy. She had such a wonderful time in California and loved hanging out with her godparents. I just love this picture!

Feb. 28, Thursday - Meeting up with Family & Chickens

After our stay in San Francisco, we headed into the Valley via train and car to visit with Jon's sister, Betsy and her family for a few days. Our train ride was interesting with all of our luggage and two kids with one transfer to another train in the middle. It took a little bit to get situated but thankfully both Brianna and Carl slept part of the way. We rode the train to the end of the line, where Betsy and Justin were waiting for us to bring us the rest of the way to their house. We get to play with cousin Justin when he comes to Minnesota but this was a chance for us to visit him at his house! We were thrilled that it worked out to visit, it's always nice to have an excuse (the conference) to see family. 

One of the cool things Justin had to show us were the chickens in his backyard! It was pretty much immediate. Brianna quickly grasped the concept and at any given time, she was asking if she could go out and see the chickens. And one in particular caught her eye, Hoppy, who had one lame leg. She always wanted to go out and make sure Hoppy, or as she called her jumper or hopper, was doing alright and not being bothered by the other chickens or if she was feeling ok. 

It was beautiful weather while we were there. Still on the cooler side but with the sun shinning, just perfect. Once we got to their house, most of the pictures ended up being of the chickens... sorry about that. But it does sum up really well what the kids did! Carl learned pretty fast too that being outside and looking at chickens, or playing on their play-set was awesome. They had fun outdoor toys, trucks, and a tractor that could keep him busy for a long time.

We were not without puppy love once we got to their house. They have a big dog, Koty, much bigger than Eko (I think Betsy said around 150, Eko's 90 lbs). He was gentle with the kids and I think Carl loved having him around!

But of course, back to the main event of the day... Chickens! As evening approached, Brianna even had a chance to feed the chickens. That was exciting. She thought it felt weird, but anything to help her friend Hoppy!

We even got in some informational reading in before dinner on one of Justin's favorite topics!

Then, after the sun went down and the chickens had gone to bed, it was the indoor play, which was just as fun! Here they are with their homemade microphones playing a little game with Aunt Betsy. I think it went something like this, "If you eat the tomatoes then you wiggle in your carseat." I don't quite remember all the "If, then" statements they were creating but it sure brought out the giggles!

I was so blessed by Betsy during our stay. She is accustomed to modifying recipes for Justin's allergies, but on top of his we added gluten to the mix, making meal times just a little more interesting. But, Betsy was ready and willing to make food that was Brianna and Carl, as well as, Justin safe. She had meal ideas prepared and even a yummy stew in the crockpot for dinner our first night. Here's a story that Betsy wrote on her blog that I just love and want to keep for our memories too...

Brianna and Carl are allergic to gluten, so I dusted off my gluten-free flours and recipes for their visit. The first night, I set down a basket of fresh-from-the-oven gluten-free dinner rolls. Brianna looked up at me and asked-with her eyes big and round, "Aunt Betsy, do you have any gyuten fwee bwead?" It blessed my heart to be able to smile and tell her that the basket I just put down was gluten free!   

The rolls were delicious, and the interaction was so sweet. Thank you Betsy for thinking of us and finding great recipes for our meals. Again, it blessed us and I know the kids had so much fun at Aunt Betsy and Uncle Dave's house!

Brianna got to sleep in cousin Justin's room and Carl, well, he got to sleep on the floor by mom and dad. Everyone went to bed well and we were thankful for a little quite before bed too. We needed our sleep for another day of adventures with family!

Feb 27, Wednesday - All About A Cable Car

Wednesday, Jon was officially done with his conference and we were prepared to make our way downtown. As you might have caught on, Brianna was super excited to ride "Maybelle" and now that it was Wednesday with Daddy with, we were about to make some dreams come true!

We boarded the shuttle to the airport that would take us to the BART station and began our days adventure. On the train, Carl fell asleep in my arms. His little body was so confused and he loved the soothing sounds of the train. While we were still moving, I slipped him into the stroller and thankfully he kept sleeping. He wasn't going to be able to sleep long, because when we got off the train our first stop was the Cable Cars; and that was only a short hop and skip away.

It was a fun trip down the Powell-Hyde line! A nice local started chatting to us and told us to turn around at a certain point and told us to look out the window for, in her opinion, the coolest view of the city. It was amazing... too bad I didn't have the camera ready. We stopped for a quick picture at the end of the line then it was off to find some chocolate!

Yummy ghirardelli chocolate! It was a little cooler closer to the bay but we found a cool fire to warm up by. Carl was busy walking around and at one point went a little too far and I asked him to come back. He slumped his shoulders over, put his head down and walked back. Where did that come from!?!

We ate a quick lunch then went down to rent some bikes for a trek to the Golden Gate bridge. The kids are used to their burley so they didn't mind traveling together the 9 mile, hilly, round trip to the bridge and back. We were able to get out a few times and stretch our legs and even take some pictures!

On the Golden Gate!

 Our Family photo in San Francisco!

Brianna asked Jon to take her picture on this rock. She did a great job posing there until her brother decided he needed to push her off. Looks like we'll be taking at least one more trip to get a Senior picture on this rock!

We made it back, a few pounds lighter, and decided we'd better start making our way back. There was a line to get on the next cable car so we patiently waited our turn to board. While we waited, an interesting group of people set up a small show of sorts. One gentleman was playing music, which wasn't too bad, but then two men started prepping for a Houdini style escape. One man in a straight jacket, the other chaining the man in a straight jacket to a light pole. Here's Carl taking in the sights of the city. Let's just say we were thankfully we didn't have to wait too long before boarding.

Jon and I were about done, especially after that last display, but we asked Brianna if she still wanted to go to the Cable Car Museum. Of course she said yes! It was completely free and totally worth the trip. Seeing the huge, noisy mechanisms move the cables that ran the cable cars was amazing! It was hard to believe this building was the hub for all the cables throughout the city. By the time we had seen everything, went to the bathroom, and literally walked out the door, the very next cable car was stopped and loading passengers. Perfect - we hopped right on!

We asked our friendly Conductor if we could take a picture after everyone got off at the end of the line. So glad we have this moment captured!

Well, as you can imagine, it was a long day with only short naps and the train ride back felt just a little bit longer. Carl got in another short cat nap before we disembarked and grabbed some dinner at the mall before getting a van ride back to the hotel.

It was a long, fun day ending with a daddy/daughter date in the atrium of the hotel. Carl and I went upstairs to unwind and get ready for bedtimes. 

We were excited to have spent such a wonderful day together and we were looking forward to another exciting adventure as Thursday we were going to head out of the bay area and toward Cousin Justin's house!

Feb 26, Tuesday - Eye on the Target

Tuesday morning started very much the same as Monday, a little too early. It was ok though because the kids were so excited to meet up with their new friends for breakfast. We ate then thought about what we wanted to do today. I had hopes of going back downtown and doing a better job at finding the parks I researched but the way Brianna and Carl were starting to act and how slowly B was walking, I thought better. I asked at the front desk and they said I could take a shuttle over to the mall. Sounded good to me. We'd be able to get out of the hotel, walk around, and have better options for lunch. 

I packed up crabby pants #1 and 2 and we headed to the mall. Everything was still closed so we were mall walkers until... we spied Target. Ahh, buying the few necessities we needed as if we were at home was weirdly kinda fun. Plus right outside the doors to target was an indoor play area. Normally I avoid these places but today we needed to expel whatever energy was left and this is the only place I knew of to do it. Onward!

Brianna and Carl had a ton of fun. They ran around being crazy and even started to play with a few other kids who were there too. And to top off our time, just a few yards away, there was trolley car that you could ride for 75 cents. Sure why not! Carl was not impressed and asked to get off right away, but Brianna just sat there as it moved back and forth. I'm pretty sure she didn't know what was going on and was just trying to keep her cool.

Speaking of cool. Check out these sunglasses. As a super sweet birthday gift, they traveled with us everywhere to keep the sun out of our eyes. After a moody lunch, we called for the shuttle and we waited patiently outside. Since lunch wasn't going the best, I packed up what was left and took it with us. I think Brianna ate more outside from the tinfoil wrapper than inside at the table. Carl, well, he was just tired.

We got back to our hotel and both of the kids napped really well. It was amazing. I tried to nap too, but I gave up and watched a movie instead. Still relaxing! After they woke up I went downstairs to the lobby to inquire about my refrigerator that was freezing the Coconut milk I had bought for Carl. This is in room number 3 of our hotel stay, just in case you missed a post. I didn't expect to move rooms this time, but I did want to know why it kept freezing the milk. Engineer came up and, Oh, looks like there's a hole in the fridge where the nob is supposed to be. Friendly engineer (a different one from before) brings up an updated fridge and another free movie coupon. Yeah.

In the hotel lobby they had a pool of Koi fish. Brianna sweetly asked one of the front desk ladies if she could feed the fish. She was kind and asked us to wait and they would bring out some fish food. It was a fabulous addition to our afternoon. Both Brianna and Carl loved watching the fish and loved even more that they got to feed them!

Dinner was makeshift sandwiches and veggies. Tasted better than the hotel food the night before, plus the kids were happy with yummy PB&J.

We made it through our days without Daddy. We were excited for Wednesday because that meant we got to go back in the city and ride Maybelle! But for tonight it was bed for the kids and Life of Pi for me.

My dinner view:

Jon's dinner view:

Monday - The Iris Story

As we walked, or ran, around downtown, we frequently saw flowers for sale. Brianna asked many times if we could get some, but I didn't want a bunch of flowers to carry around on our adventure. I told her if we ran into a little flower shop we could buy a couple flowers. Sure enough, as we were walking away from Trader Joes, we stumbled on a little shop in the middle of a block. Brianna's eyes lit up!

We walked in and asked for a couple flowers. My mom loves iris' and B kept mentioning Gammie because she was with us on our last trip, so we got an iris for her and a pink gerbera daisy for B.

She walked around the city proudly carrying her flowers, it was super cute. Well before getting back on the BART and heading home, I thought it would be good to find a bathroom. They are hard to come by, then B said she needed to go. We walked into the H&M that was right there and I asked the women behind the counter if they had a restroom. She apologized and said they don't have public bathrooms, then took a second look and asked if it was for my daughter. I said yes. She asked us to wait a moment then took us down to the employee area and their private bathrooms. We made it to the bathroom without an accident and were being so appreciative! When we were washing hands Brianna took out the the daisy from the package and asked, or told me, that she wanted to give the iris with the ribbon to the lady that let us into bathroom. Silly me tried telling her she didn't need to do that, but she quickly told me again that she really wanted to give it to her.

We walked out and she wasn't there anymore, someone else was waiting to take us back upstairs. I asked if she would give the flower to the women that brought us down. While we waited for the elevator, the other person walked around the corner and ran back into the friendly women that let us come downstairs. All we heard was, "OH MY, you're kidding, that is SO SWEET!"

We were excited to add cheer to her day, she certainly added cheer to ours!

Addendum to Monday

I forgot to elaborate on the room situation! After we moved into room number 2, I noticed that the door to the bathroom wasn't closing all the way. You had to really lift and turn the door with force inorder to get it to close. I was more concerned with getting out the door on our way to downtown than dealing with it, so I left it to deal with later.

Fast forward to that afternoon! After we got back from downtown I wanted to take the kids swimming, so swimming we went. It was chaotic trying to hold up 2 squirming little ones but we managed and had a blast. We went upstairs to get dressed and again I noticed that the door was not closing. This was not going to do. After further investigation I noticed that the whole door frame was coming off and no longer supporting the door as it should. Really didn't sit well!

So took one of our many walks down to the lobby to see what they could do. (Thankfully I really didn't unpack all that much so the idea of moving rooms again wasn't ideal, but better than staying in a room where the bathroom door doesn't close.) The lady at the front desk asked if she could send a building engineer up to look at it. I told her that it probably needed more than just looking at but ok.

The SUPER nice building engineer met us in our room and quickly looked at it and said, "Whoa, um, that's not good I'll probably need to take the whole frame off and take a look at this." Move we did to room number 3! He was so helpful and transfered some of our belongings to the next room - which was splitting the difference between room number 1 and number 2. He gave me a free movie, popcorn, and skittles for my troubles and proceeded to tell me that the hotel was "booked" and he needed to do a quick fix so it could be occupied that night. Wow.

We went downstairs and ate dinner, but the story of rooms continues...

Feb 25, Monday - Running UP Hills

Our morning started early and a little slow. We leisurely got ready and met Jon downstairs for breakfast just before he was to leave for his work conference (the initial reason for flying to San Francisco).  He had a full day conference both Monday and Tuesday, leaving the kids and I to our own adventures. Also that morning we decided to ask to switch hotel rooms (would not be the last time...). We weren't pleased with our first room and since we were paying for it, we thought we'd bring the issues up to management and get a new room. This meant however that I was to pack everything up and move rooms with two kids because Jon already left for his conference. Let's call this one room number 2. 

It ended up being just 2 doors down, so doing a little shuffling was nothing to worry about. Just making sure I had the right keys and that the kids kept following me was the biggest hurdle! We finally got settled and I  figured out what it was going to take to get us downtown. After hemming and hawing a while, I finally decided I was fully capable of making the trip, packed up, and we were on the shuttle back to the airport where we would catch the BART train into the city. The trip took a little under an hour. 

There were many reasons that lead me to getting out of our hotel room for the day but the main one was we needed a few gluten-free food items to help supplement the kids on our trip. This meant finding the closest Whole Food store or the like downtown. This was no easy task! I had done some research and found that there were a few stores I could get to by foot and there were parks nearby, added bonus, all it took was walking there! We never found the Whole Foods or, disappointedly, any of the parks I looked up, but we did run into a Trader Joes which was good enough for me.

Brianna was amazing walking the whole way and Carl did great being patient in the stroller. We walked a total of 3.5 miles, many of it being uphill, we were in San Francisco after all! Check the map out - we started and ended where the "C" is. Take the "C" and follow the path right, then up to "B" then back down, then up a little, and back down to "C". Whew! I could tell Brianna was lagging a little bit closer to the end but she made it all herself without help. As we walked up Bush Street, all uphill, Brianna was actually running. She kept saying, "Oh boy, I'm getting SO tired," then kept running. Silly girl, maybe you should walk...

Once we got downtown, it was just before 11 and we were all pretty hungry. I found the closest Chipotle and we settled in for lunch. Half-way through eating Brianna told me she had to go potty. No big deal right? Well... the bathroom was upstairs and I had a mess of two kids downstairs. I tried as quickly as possible to clean their messy hands (mostly Carl's), asked the wait staff not to clean our place, and rushed upstairs. Quite the task with a stroller and two kids, but we managed! On the plus side, a manager was walking around while we were eating, orienting a new employee. He asked us how we were doing then came back with a BOGO coupon. So nice!

We took in the sites as we walked around. They are not short of any visual stimulation in San Francisco. The hardest part was reiterating to Brianna and Carl that we do not stare and we keep walking. They did well. We made it to Trader Joes and had a snack. Another bonus, was that it was right on the California line so we got to watch the cable cars roll by as we ate. Leading up to our trip, we frequently read Maybelle the Cable Car by Virginia Lee Burton. It's all about the San Francisco Cable Cars and how the people of the city fought to save them "progress." It was fun to see Brianna relate her story to real life and get so excited for the chance to see them and in the coming days ride them. Leading up to our trip she was telling everyone she was going to see Maybelle. Not too many people knew who she was talking about, but that didn't stop her! Did I mention she was excited!

To say the least, Brianna was tired from all the walking and not getting a normal nap - on top of the 2 hour time difference messing with her head. Carl did end up getting a short nap on the way into the city, so he was ready to go. We had so much fun exploring the city and riding on the train together.

We figured out dinner and hung out in the hotel before bed. As an extra bonus, there was a business parter of Jon's going to the conference who also had their family along (3 kids) for the trip who was also staying at the same hotel. We ran into them after dinner and the oldest boy invited us to play in their room for a little bit before bed. Since Jon wasn't back yet, it was nice to have the added distraction! They ran and played and jumped crazily on the bed together. I love how kids are fast friends!

Well, as you might imagine, it didn't take much to get them to bed. They rarely sleep in the same room at naps or going to bed, so I thought this might be a challenge, but with all the activity and time change, they basically closed their eyes and fell asleep.

I relaxed as well and contemplated what to do on Day 2!