Egg Decorating

While it wasn't quite this experience, we had a great time decorating eggs for Easter. Sarah's friend Kenzie came over earlier in the day to help us color eggs - they did a great job with crayons and everything - but we needed a few more for our traditional deviled eggs for Easter. Rog rose to the occasion. He and Sarah had a blast going from pinks to blues to yellows to greens and purples. I love springtime activities :)

El Cid's Girls - Wrapup

Wednesday morning was clear so we decided to head back to the beach. It was a little chilly and the tide was super high so we didn't stay long, but it was still a lot of fun. These girls are naturals with the ocean.




We headed over to the painted ladies and the park at Alamo Square. Valinda and I picked out a home to live in ...


Then Rog got the best husband award for two days in a row when he let Valinda and I escape for more girl shopping time. The girls were great during quiet time and Will slept like a champ. And we left him with movies, so we weren't all that bad. I do want to note that Rog did feed the girls. I know. Impressive.

We had such a fun time with El Cid's girls. Hopefully, El Cid will be able to come visit next time :) We miss you Pete. Hang in there for a couple more weeks. Tax season is almost over.

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