As we were packing for the trip, Silas came in and said, "Hey Daddy, hey Daddy (he always says this twice): Are you going to get married or going to get the baby?" Classic. Neither, little buddy, neither…
We dropped the kids off at school and headed to the airport. After we landed in San Fran, we wanted to be resourceful and take public transportation (don't ask… we don't know why, either)… so we found our way to the BART. After about 30 min, we finally figured it out and definitely did a celebratory fist bump when we arrived at what we thought was the most appropriate destination to walk to our hotel.
We climbed the stairs to the street and found ourselves in the middle of what I dreamed of being typical San Francisco: artsy people wandering around (mid-day on a Wednesday) and tents and booths set up with all sorts of things for sale, things to protest, things to, well, walk (run) away from…
Obvious tourists, we were, and stopped to take in the surroundings, armed with our roller suitcases and camera. I laugh to think about it now. A nice man (obviously a street dweller who made his business "helping" poor folk like us) told us that in order to get to our hotel, we needed to walk this way. We thanked him and tried to walk away. We kindly nicknamed this guy "Bud". We ended up seeing Bud (mysteriously) several times throughout our stay in the city. We finally broke away, and began the "several blocks, not too far" walk to our hotel.
We walked, and walked, and walked… stopped to take a few deep breaths… and the climb up became steeper and steeper. Truly amazing, actually. I thought in my mind, what do these people do if it ices over or snows? These were really about the pitch of climbing black diamond slopes. The last one was the steepest, no less than 45 degrees.
Needless to say, we totally underestimated the vertical nature of this city. Everyone here has thighs of steel.
We reached the top! Totally towed our suitcases up about 20 blocks from the bottom of this hill. Our hotel was on this corner. We rounded the corner, dripping with sweat and highly short of breath, and the bellman just looked at us with disbelief, communicating the obvious question without saying a word. We replied, "Yep, we did. Never again." We all laughed and checked into the hotel.
After about 5 minutes of catching our breath and freshening up after our cardio, we set out to explore the city! We were staying close to Chinatown and decided to head there first. This is the oldest Chinese community in the country, and is quite impressive. We loved walking around all the fresh markets, thinking and praying about Samuel… looking so forward to our trip this fall to China to bring him home! We thought this was the perfect way to make our big announcement! (Click HERE to read)
BIG.
It's amazing, walking around truly feels like you're in the middle of China.
Fortune cookies! And yes, as the sign requests, we did pay 50 cents for taking a picture. ha.
We had dinner at a restaurant in Chinatown and ordered the special, Crab. Yep, a HUGE crab, deep fried. Delicious.
Then, hopped on a trolley for a ride through (up and down) town.
It was an absolutely beautiful day to explore such a fun city!
We woke up early on Thursday and made it to the "early bird" Alcatraz tour. We both thoroughly enjoyed the ferry ride and audio tour of the island!
And such beautiful views of the city, bridges, the bay…from the island. Another absolutely beautiful day!
We both found this regulation strikingly ironic.
We returned from the tour about 11:30am and walked along the piers at the wharf, grabbed lunch, and rented bikes for our Biking the Bridge experience! This was about 20 miles (which is a LONG way, especially with those hills…) but incredibly fun and worth it!
Another obligatory fist bump and celebration when we made it halfway over the bridge:-)
We made it to Sausalito, a quaint, beautiful, little town where we parked our bikes and had our second lunch. We earned it.
We caught the ferry back to town and turned our bikes in… what a fun afternoon. Dinner was delicious at Boulevard, an iconic, classic restaurant downtown.
Friday, we rented a car to drive up the coast! Driving in this mountainous city is a little challenging, but this guy did well (wink!) with help from his map reader in the passenger seat (wink, wink!).
The views were amazing! We had planned a picnic lunch and it certainly did NOT disappoint! Look at this! So fun!
We flew home on Saturday, ready to see our little munchkins. A very BIG THANK YOU to Mimi for babysitting!
They loved their PJs we brought from Chinatown. (I think Silas is doing his Ninja kick)
I cannot leave off some of the latest SilasandAveryisms:
Silas: on a recent trip to Wal-Mart to buy tball helmets: Mom, look! I need an air compressor!! Me: Silas how do you know what that is? I do, I need to air up my tires.
Avery: "I'm ready to go get Samuel. We will teach him Spanish. Like Dora. Uno, Dos,…"
Avery: Who has never liked sleep… "But mommmmmy, I can't be still.. the chirpy chicks make me laugh." (Her bedspread has little chicks on it)
Avery at church today, on her thoughts after sweet people commented on how pretty she was in her dress: "Daddy, they don't have to tell me I'm beautiful. I already know I'm beautiful."
With these two, difficult is not the right word to describe what it is like to get in a word… they never. stop. talking. Especially Avery… She literally says 100 words to everyone else's 5 words… it's as if she is bubbling from deep inside and simply can't get it out fast enough… with voice inflection for emphasis. I'm serious, she talks until she is humming then finally goes to sleep…
Oh sweet child, from where do all these words come?
Overheard:
Avery to Silas: "How do you know all about building things and trucks?"
Silas: "Because boys just know. Girls know princesses."
We just laugh and laugh.
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