El Cid's Girls - Tuesday

Tuesday morning we spent at the Academy of Sciences!!! We love this place. We were hoping to get there for Members Only Hour, but only caught the last few minutes. Thankfully, the planetarium show was running a little behind so Valinda and her girls still got to see it. Will, Sarah and I hung out in the toddler area, which we love.

We saw butterflies, birds, ants, bats, lizards, etc. in the rain forest.



Sarah had a little attitude.



We played in the tide pool in the aquarium and saw a lot of fish.



We also said hello to Clyde the white alligator, watched the penguins swim and found some cool rocks at the gift shop. Lots of fun. Then we headed home.

To help complete their San Francisco experience, I had the girls help me make sushi rolls for dinner. They were awesome helpers, but the eating part wasn't their thing. Good thing we supplemented with a turtle bread from Boudins. We also had gyoza and white rice.

El Cid's Girls - Monday

On Monday morning, we headed down to the Wharf. Our first stop was to see the Boudin bread demonstration ... forgot to take a picture of the baker making an alligator-shaped sourdough bread.

Next up was Musee Mechanique. We had fun at all the old-time penny arcade. Sarah LOVED her horsey ride. The older girls took turns doing the manual wind-up car racing. We made penny souvenirs and spent lots of quarters. Lots of fun.



We unfortunately couldn't find the sea lions on the pier so afterward we headed down to Ghirardelli Square for some chocolate.


Then we headed to the cable car turn-around and ate our sandwiches while we waited for our turn. William LOVED his first cable car ride. Sarah liked it too ... even though it's "old hat" for her now.



We ended up in Chinatown where Roger picked up Sarah and Will for naps while I accompanied the die-hard tourists while they picked out their souvenirs. Among other things, they found some awesome miniature parasols and an adorable tea party set. It was nice to be able to browse in the stores without having to keep an eye on my kids.


For Family Home Evening we headed out to Fentons to get ice cream. El Cid's girls LOVE the movie Up! so it was fun to take them to the ice cream shop. We even saw red and blue cars drive past. Each girl got to choose her own ice cream dish. Sarah wanted "pink" ice cream. But once she got it she didn't think pink was a good flavor. She wanted Valinda's and Mommy's "brown" ice cream. I, however, enjoyed her strawberry ice cream.



After ice cream we continued down the road to visit the Oakland Temple visitor center. They have a beautiful exhibit of paintings depicting scenes from The Book of Mormon. I loved it.



Whew. That was definitely a full day. Lots of fun.

El Cid's Girls Are Here!

My brother is an accountant - the kind that works 120 hour weeks from January until April 15th. He often gets home between 1 and 2 in the morning just to get up in a few hours to do it all again. My sister-in-law is a trooper. Every year for her girls spring break she takes them on an adventure. This year the adventure was to visit us in San Francisco! And we are so glad they did.

The 4 girls arrived at 8:30 in the morning. We came back to our apartment, dropped off luggage, had breakfast and then were off. We dropped Roger and Sarah off at swim lessons while the rest of us headed to Lombard Street. The girls weren't content to just see it from the bottom - we hiked up all the stairs to look down from the top. (I didn't take pictures, but Valinda did)

We still had some time before swim lessons were over so we drove up to Coit Tower. The girls loved seeing the beautiful views while Will and I waited in line to park. It was a beautiful day and they could see a lot. Again, Valinda was the photographer.

After Coit Tower, we had a little more time before Sarah and Rog would be ready for us so I appeased my nieces by driving down Lombard Street. I have to say it's a little trickier driving my minivan down that street than are Alero, but we made it and the girls loved it. We continued driving down Lombard and picked up my two swimmers who were just finishing up.

Then off to the next. We dropped off Rog and William at the house and then headed to the Golden Gate Bridge. Why I didn't take out my camera, I'm not sure. But we had a great time walking part-way across the bridge. My 5-year-old niece wasn't so sure about walking over the water, but she made it too.

Since it was 70 degrees and perfect we headed down to Baker Beach for a picnic. I didn't think the girls would venture too far into the water, but I was wrong. Annie thought the waves were super cool and quickly got drenched. She spent quite a bit of time wrapped up in a towel. They all loved collecting rocks they found. (it's not really a seashell beach ...) All in all a fun afternoon in the sun. Oh I finally took my camera out of the bag - here are a few pics of my girls.

We all scream ...

Spontaneous family outings are so much fun. Rog was craving some Blue Bunny Moose Tracks, but the closet Wal-Mart that sold it was in Vallejo - 30 miles away. So I decided to check out Ben & Jerry's web site to see if they sold anything similar. As I was perusing the site, I found out that it was FREE CONE DAY!

Of course we had to try it out! We piled into the car and headed down to the Wharf. It was a success. I LOVED the triple caramel chunk. Will and Sarah enjoyed their vanilla and Rog tried out the Oatmeal Cookie Chunk - also good.





I love spending time with my family :)

Lucky

More trip ...

We really had a great time on our Utah-Ohio-Arizona trip. I wanted to document a few other highlights ...

The plane ride. Really, the hour plane ride to Las Vegas is so great. It totally is worth the $49 each way for Sarah and me. Our DVD player has been a great investment. Love it.


We got to see Maddy again. Emily was nice enough to meet us in St. George for the weekend. (Nate had a test in Las Vegas on Monday. Perfect timing!)


When I left for Ohio, the plan was to have Sarah and my sister Kymn meet me in Phoenix a week later. But poor Kymn caught a nasty stomach bug and our plans were delayed until Friday. William LOVED hanging out with his cousins though ...


Rog ended up driving out to Phoenix - I told him I wouldn't make it another 5 days - to see us. He drove 13 hours to make me happy. Talk about love. Roger and Sarah arrived in Phoenix about an hour apart on Friday night. It was soooooo good to see them! I love having my family together.

On Sunday, we got to meet Lyden and reconnect with Joe, Jen and Steve. Lyden is soooo sweet. The only hiccup with our visit with the Jurcas was the crazy hour-long emergency phone calls I received from my building. The power went out, which tripped the fire alarm and trapped my newest tenant in the elevator. Not so fun. But I loved hanging out with Jen. Dinner was FABULOUS and we were lucky to have a Jen-treat-special. Yum Yum Yum.




Roger, Sarah and I started our long trek home to San Francisco on Monday. One of our many potty stops was at General Patten's Museum. We didn't actually go inside, but we had a fun stretching our legs and looking at the tanks from a distance.


We spent Monday night in Ridgecrest, CA visiting Roger's cousin and his family. It was sooooo nice to get out of the car and enjoy some time together. Sarah LOVES Sadie (their 4-year-old). They had so much fun together and wished they had more time to play.

Sarah kept asking to go to "Sarah's House" so off we went. We pulled into our San Francisco driveway at 5:30 pm on Tuesday with another 1800 miles (roundtrip) on our minivan. We are so happy to finally be home!

Abbey & Henry's Special Day

For all of you wondering where I've been, here's another piece of the puzzle. I joined in the celebration of Abbey & Henry's big day in Phoenix, Arizona. Henry & Abbey chose to be baptized members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Most of my family was able to be there too. We had a great weekend.

Abbey & Henry (Isn't Abbey's dress adorable. My talented sister-in-law Valinda made it for her.)


Abbey was baptized by her Grandpa Gubler and Henry was baptized by his Grandpa Petersen. Abbey wore the same dress that her Mom wore on her baptism day.


Mary shared their special day - Damond gave Mary a special baby blessing.


All the grandkids - minus Madeline and soon-to-be Baby Boy Gongaware.


After the baptism and blessing, we headed back to the Petersen's home for a yummy lunch and an afternoon of fun. Damond and Roger got the pool ready for some fun.


The kids couldn't wait!


Oh I forgot to mention, the pool was FREEZING! Sarah did get in with Daddy, but I stayed on the sidelines ...


On Sunday, we went to the Mesa Temple to take pictures. Isn't this a sweet family?

William - 16 Months

William loves rocks. Picking them up, eating them, throwing them ... he just can't get enough of them!


Also on his list of favorites continues to be peek-a-boo. The other day he was using a coloring book to cover his face. On a comparison note, William will cover his eyes with his hands to play peek-a-boo. Sarah would cover her ears instead. Aw. Love it.


William is learning a few more words. He has added "Yes" and "Mama" to his repertoire.

He also has started to be a funny eater. It doesn't matter if we are eating his "favorite" foods, he will turn his head when I try to feed it to him. Or he will ignore that there is food on his tray until I force it into his mouth. The funny part is that as soon as he gets a taste of whatever it is we're eating, he is full-steam ahead and gobbles it up. Silly boy.

It was fun to see Will's personality come out on our Mommy-Son trip. He definitely is all boy and I love getting to be with him!