the final san francisco post: the sights

this might be the longest post of them all, just because we crammed so much stuff into our six days there.  i'm having so much fun reliving our trip by looking at these (and trying to remember where all these pictures are from) ...

the highlight for sure: kate!  (in matching outfits, no less)

 chinatown, of course

honestly the coolest museum ever -- the exploratorium.  we could have stayed there for days

 i have to admit, much of what the exploratorium contained i didn't fully understand -- including a water fountain in a toilet bowl.  but the kids loved it

what made the beach ball float?  air.  this i understood.  sort of

we actually timed our trip based on the home schedule of the golden state warriors (no joke). chris's high school friend ben, a sportswriter for the LA times, came through big-time for us with two tickets.  doesn't stephen look thrilled to meet the mann men?

i threatened to lock them up at alcatraz for being so dang cute.  this is their look of forlorn

helping out a street performer with a magic trick

we spent our last morning at the Children's Creativity Museum, and the kids worked hard on two joint projects.  above is a behind-the-scenes look at the production that is loaded below

nineteen seconds that i think took nineteen hours to make.  we have newfound appreciation for animated movies

and in a very fitting end to my journaling of our most amazing spring break trip ever, the kids would like to close with their version of ... what else?  HAPPY!

san francsico: culinary delights

i'm on a roll -- and bound and determined to put this spring break series of posts to rest!  join me today as i recount some of our eating escapades ...

all our walking demanded a reward in the form of hot fudge sundaes at ghirardelli square

susanna and i dined at the cliff house with the elliotts ... and noticed that the beach looks slightly different from our beloved topsail

in a true "the world is so small" moment, after having dinner with my sorority sister misty, we walked out of the restaurant and ran into another college friend of ours who doesn't even live in san francisco

 enjoying our first taste of five-star california cuisine at in-and-out burger with richard, kate, & leslie.  i can now understand why leslie lives there

san fransisco: modes of transportation

i finally sat my hiney down to follow up my initial spring break post, and quickly got overwhelmed with the sheer number of pictures.  so i decided to divvy them up into loose themes.  today's focus?  planes, trains, and automobiles.  (we did take use all three of those to get around; sadly, i have no photo of the subway or uber car, so i'll supplement with other modes of transportation.)

 for susanna's first commercial flight, we had to snap a picture of her in the cockpit.  it's only now that i realize our captain was all of twelve years old

 notice how dark it is?  we boarded that plane at like 6:30 a.m.  but the early departure was so worth it, as it was a direct flight and we were walking around san francisco by late morning

this really doesn't belong in any themed post, as it is a picture of our accommodations ... let's just say we took the STAIRS to get up to our second floor.  we totally lucked out in our first experience with VRBO, winding up with a huge condo with full kitchen and laundry in a great location.  i even taught my 7th grade math class at 6:30 in the morning a few days from the breakfast table

 
we loved the cable cars and rode them every chance we could

y'all.  seriously.  some of the 10,000 roads we hiked were crazy steep

but -- not all are quite so crooked as lombard street

kate got to ride in style, with her two eldest cousins both vying for opportunities to push her stroller

crazy hair day on the boat (see the golden gate bridge the background of this picture?!)

san francisco, part 1

i find it quite fitting that my office -- where my computer sits, with its printer and writing tablet and headset and all the work that goes along with my two part-time teaching jobs -- is the exact same space as the laundry room.  in fact, it's sort of a three-in-one: an office/laundry/mud room combo; the hub of the house, so to speak.  every morning at 7:05 you can find me, chris, liam, susanna, AND wonder all standing in this tight 8x10 foot area, shrugging on backpacks (the kids) and grabbing car keys (chris) and wagging a tail (wonder) and lamenting all the clean laundry that sits in the dryer (me).

because the juxtaposition of this dryer and computer is actually a perfect summary of how i feel about this blog.  (work with me here.)  every day, i sit down at this laptop and am visibly reminded of this neglected webpage ... and do a darn good job of ignoring it as i turn my attention to more pressing matters.  just like i glance at our front-load dryer, with its clear window showcasing all the clothes and towels and sheets to be folded ... and do a darn good job of ignoring them as i turn my attention to more pressing matters.

but it's mother's day.  which means chris is cooking.  and the kids are occupied.  and the wave of guilt that i have abandoned one of my children's favorite things that i do (this blog) is larger than ever.  so ... here i sit.  with a list a mile long of things i've wanted to document, unsure of where to begin.

so i will begin with The Most Amazing Trip Ever: our six-day jaunt to san francisco for spring break.  (let's pretend that it happened just yesterday, and not almost two months ago.)  what made it The Most Amazing Trip Ever was, quite simply, the kids.  traveling's hard.  especially when you're changing time zones, stuck with your family 24/7, sharing a fold-out double bed with your sibling, and battling a very congested, hilly city either on foot or in cramped public transportation.  in fact, i'd actually like to start off with this image to give you an idea of what our days entailed:

my FitBit buzzed every day when i reached my daily goal of 10,000 steps -- at around lunchtime.  no joke.  we averaged 10 miles a day while we traversed the city

but this is my point: the kids never complained.  NEVER.  even on our last full day, when we couldn't catch a cable car and wound up walking an extra mile to another stop only to find a 45 minute-long wait -- they didn't whine or moan or even so much as expel a loud sigh.  (in fact, they decided to play some made-up game together while we stood in that line which caused them to crack each other up over and over again.)  and when we finally boarded that cable car and found ourselves crammed  shoulder-to-shoulder with like a gazillion other people, where liam and susanna had to just hold on to our legs because they weren't tall enough to grab the hand straps and we insisted on letting the elderly use the only available seats, they never seemed anything other than thrilled and excited to be on this adventure.

and they thanked us, unsolicited, several times a day.  they found joy and wonder in everything we did.  they asked good questions and wanted to learn more and were just thrilled to be in a place that was totally new and exciting and different.  and so we told them how we feel so blessed that they're such amazing travelers, and that we will continue to take them on trips like these.  (in fact, they don't know this yet, but we have the next two spring breaks already planned -- which will involve passports.  stay tuned.) 

by now you've been wading through this post for about as long as it took us to fly out to the west coast, so i will cycle off for now with one family shot.  i'll be posting more photos that truly sum up our california adventure (including my sister and brother-in-law and my most precious niece) soon ... and hopefully it won't take two months to do so.

in our six days, we traveled via car, plane, uber, bus, cable car, subway, boat (seen here) ... and foot.  (side note: we asked some nice woman to take our picture with the golden gate bridge in the background.  i'm going to go out on a limb and say she's probably not a professional photographer)