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)