New Shoes

Chris thought my attire this morning was pretty funny--my shoes mostly--because I was wearing my new red shoes while I vacuumed. I figured it was a good opportunity to wear them around the house and break them in a bit; and vacuuming is the most continuous amount of walking I do (except on my treadmill, and really, I'm not about to wear heels on it). So he was quick to snap a picture and then post it not only on his blog but also on Facebook as well!

The Bike Lessons

A couple of weeks ago, Kristen decided that she was ready to learn how to ride a bike. I took the training wheels off her two-wheeler, and we headed out to the pathway. We started with starting and stopping--concentrating on learning to push back on the pedals instead of always putting her feet down. She was a little wobbly, but gradually got to where I could let go for a second or two and she would ride. Until....she realized she was riding. Something about that freedom seemed to scare her to death. We stopped, but tried again a few days later. This time she hopped off the bike, just as I thought she was really catching on, and announced that she never wanted to ride a bike again in her whole life and marched off home. Okay.

About a week later, we were talking in Family Home Evening about how much fun it would be to go on bike rides together as a family. It was pointed out that we couldn't until Kristen could ride a bike. Outside we headed. Kristen was displaying a bit of trepidation, but Daddy was with us, and she was kind of excited to show him what she could do, but kind of not. We tried together.

Sadly, when she'd had enough, she popped off the bike again and headed home. I remember we had to try a couple of times before Misha was ready too. No worries. We'll put the training wheels back on for the summer and then see if she is ready to try again.







Chris was good about making sure the bike got back in to the garage.

Misha's Style

If you know my Misha, you know that she has a very distinctive style. It fits her.

Jury Duty and Hair Duty

I received two summons for jury duty recently. My first stint was on April 20th and they voided the second one while I was there. Sadly, it was a loooooong and boring day of hurry up and wait. I don't think I would have been pretty impartial because already I was thinking that if the guy who allegedly murdered someone had a little more common sense, he wouldn't be wasting my entire day. I had to be at the court house at 8 am and did not leave until 4 pm. I did read almost all of a 350-page book though. At least I brought something to occupy my time. Most of the 150 potential jurors sat and stared at the wall. Half of those were asked to come back the next day for questioning.

Chris was home for the day, though he missed a meeting or two. My girls, Kristen especially, had to be happy with very simple hair-dos. I don't think she was very happy with her father's lack of hair-dressing talent.

Daddy Makeover

Kristen got some fun new "pretend" makeup and beauty accessories from Grandma Ball for her birthday. It seemed only appropriate that she try out her new stuff. Lucky Daddy....don't forget the earring.

Odyssey of the Mind

Amy and Misha and their respective teams both competed at the State competition of Odyssey of the Mind two weeks ago. Both girls put in hours of work for their teams. Misha's team placed fourth in the State and Amy's team placed seventh.

Chris, Misha and I were slightly happy that they didn't place in the top three. We were Odysseyed out. Amy was ready to go all the way!

Kudos to Chris

Chris has been working at his present Presales position for a year and a half now. His hard work has paid off as he was just given the top Presales award in the Western region of his company. We are certainly proud of how hard he works and grateful that he is such a good provider for our family.

Happy Birthday Kristen

My little sweetheart is five today. So many wonderful memories in such a short amount of time. Happy Birthday!

Scouts

The Scouts had a fundraiser on Saturday doing yard work--weeding, aerating, etc. Chris had them aerate our lawn. Misha observed, "Dad, if the scouts are supposed to be doing a service project, why are the leaders the only ones working and the boys just throwing my football around?"

Funny Comment

I thought this was such a funny comment from Chris while we were on vacation that I wrote it down so that I wouldn't forget. He was speaking to our children in an attempt to cut down on whining:

"We're going to do some fun things and some not-so-fun things, and I don't need you to point out the difference!"

Here's Your Sign

I noticed this little sign on the ceiling at the hotel. Just thought, "You know someone was idiotic enough to hang something from the sprinkler. Duh!"

San Francisco Day 1

The thrill of a vacation ALWAYS prompts my children to rise early. All the way to the airport, Kristen had her eyes peeled for airport signs. When she finally spotted one, she cheered, "Boo-yah!" There was just a little bit of excitement in the air. Our flight to San Francisco was supposed to leave at 9:30 am on Tuesday the 30th. I say "supposed" because our second trip in a row we have found out our flight was delayed once we got to the airport. So much fun to hang out there!



We finally boarded after our half hour delay and were on our way. The plane was pretty empty so Kristen had an entire row to herself, Chris and I sat in a row, and Misha and Amy sat in a row. As cute as Kristen is, she's quite a you-don't-want-to-sit-beside-me deterrent. People would stop, see that her row was empty, spy her, and move on.





We arrived in San Francisco to an overcast and windy day. It was to be our lot for most of our vacation. We had a few days with sun here and there, but always there was wind. Chris was working Tuesday and Wednesday, so he dropped us off at the Tanforan Mall and took off for a delayed lunch meeting. The girls and I headed to the food court. I told them that I would take them to a movie if they were good. Always a good bargaining point. Sadly, they opted for "Diary of a Wimpy Kid." There's an hour and a half wasted. By the way, if you are reading this, you have the cheese touch. (You have to see the movie!)

Anyway, we perused the mall for a short time afterward and then planned to meet Chris at Target. Before leaving the airport, we had to have a car seat for Kristen. The Hertz guys wouldn't let us leave the lot without one even though we promised to go get one at Target (I'm sure they've heard that line before; we actually would have gotten one). We either had to buy a car seat for Kristen or pay $16/day to rent one from Hertz. We opted for buying a car seat. It is cuter than the other three we have at home, so now we have four!

My girls' favorite thing about that mall was the escalator in Target. They had never seen one that had a track for your shopping cart. We had to get a cart for the car seat box, just so that we could put it on the escalator.



After spending the afternoon at the mall, and having to go back to Target to find Kristen's misplaced sunglasses, we decided to get checked in. My girls get giddy over staying in a hotel. We arrived as "a snack" was being served which really was a full on meal--beef tacos with all of the fixings. They wanted to stay and have dinner, so Chris and I agreed. It was actually fairly good. We got situated in our room, purchased snacks, fruit and some drinks for the upcoming days and called it good for the day.

San Francisco Tale of the Nose

It would not be a complete vacation post if there were no pictures of Kristen and her sensitive sniffer.

Kristen and the Sea Lions




Kristen in China Town



Kristen sitting by a recently fertilized Flower Bed



Kristen in a Bathroom

San Francisco Day 2

Chris' second day of working. Fortunately, our hotel was maybe a half a block from his office, so I watched him walk to work with an umbrella in hand. Chris had promised that I would take the girls swimming on Wednesday morning but the pool didn't open until 9 am. After being up early because of the time difference and getting breakfast early as well, they had to sit and wait and watch tv before they could go swimming. Such sad circumstances for them. I didn't mind; I wasn't in much of a hurry since we had all day to entertain ourselves.

Finally, 9 o'clock arrived. The pool, much to our surprise, was perfect for the kids. These hotels must know families. Parents don't really want to swim, but the kids do. The maximum depth of the pool was 3 1/2 feet. AND, there was no hot tub. No reason for me to put on a swimming suit. I sat and watched them play in the pool for almost an hour when I decided it was time for a little diversion for me.

If you remember, we had purchased a family membership to the Denver Museum of Nature and Science in February with the intent of using our membership at the Exploratorium in downtown San Fran. Worked like a charm and we spent the afternoon "exploring". That was, of course, after I navigated through San Francisco traffic. I never would have made it without Chris' GPS. I was giving thanks for it all the way there and all the back to the hotel. Because of the tall buildings, there was a moment when the GPS voice told me the signal had been lost. "NOOOOO!" Just a small moment of relief when "she" started giving directions again.

The girls could have spent even more time at the Exploratorium, but after four hours, we were all a little pooped. Amy loved the pendulum with markers attached, Misha loved the bubbles, and Kristen could have stayed all day long playing with the beach ball being blown in the air.









The measure of a good vacation is how tired our kids are at the end of the day. All three slept on the way back to the hotel from the Exploratorium, and all three were begging to go swimming as soon as we arrived. Chris finished work about 20 minutes after we arrived. The girls checked the menu for the evening "meal" and decided they wanted to stay again. What the heck! I think it was all a part of their plan to go swimming again. If they stayed close to home, they had more time and opportunity. After dinner, Chris and I had to return a Redbox movie from the previous night. On the way home, Amy called and all three were begging to go swimming again. I told her they had to come up with ten good reasons why we should let them. This is what they came up with:

We won't fight
We'll be nice
We'll say nice things
No hitting, etc.
No whining or screaming
We won't drown
We will go to bed without whining
We won't beg
We won't run away
No talking back
We'll listen to our parents (which was crossed out because it was reason number 11. Let's not go overboard here.)

So we let them swim and wear themselves out some more. You can't argue with that reasoning when they fall asleep almost as soon as they hit the pillow. Sadly, some of us woke up to the sound of the fire alarm going off at 12:11 am. What the heck!? Kristen slept right through it. The alarm and flashing lights never stopped, so we figured we needed to exit the hotel. Other guests began to trickle out in to the parking lot. Many parents, like us, put their kids in their cars and started them up to keep warm. Two fire engines arrived, though if the place had been burning down, it would have had a pretty good head start. When we were finally cleared to return to our rooms, they said that someone had burned popcorn in their microwave and the smoke had set off the alarms. It didn't take any of us long to fall back to sleep thankfully.



End of day two and a way too early start to day three.

San Francisco Day Three - Alcatraz

Trolleys, street cars, and BART, oh my! Actually, we started on BART, and I think my children would have been just as happy to ride the public transportation all day long! Or maybe they just know that a day with their parents might possibly involve a lot of walking around and "exercise". And it did. We got an early start to our sunshiny but windy day. I froze most of the day. I have learned to never gauge my outerwear on Chris' warmth recommendations. On a positive note, my husband has an amazing ability to read maps and get us to where we are going. My inner compass is directionally challenged and would have gotten us super lost.







Our destination today was Alcatraz.



If you have never been before, you should go. We took a ferry out to the island and had the Golden Gate Bridge in one vista and the Bay Bridge in another. So beautiful. The island itself is lush and green with beautiful flowers.









We checked out some of the buildings on the island, took the personal, guided head-phone tour, and helped Amy and Misha complete their Junior Ranger workbooks. All but Kristen enjoyed the head-phone tour. I think it was a little long and above her level, but she was a trooper and walked her little legs right along beside us. Misha has a biographical book report due this month and decided to do her report on Al Capone. She should be able to have some fun pictures and personal experience to add.







We spent a couple of hours on the island and saw most of what was available to see. The masses were getting hungry, so we caught the 12:30 ferry back to the pier.

San Francisco Day Three Continued

We walked from the ferry drop off along the pier to Pier 39 where we found lunch. Chris and I had clam chowder and the girls branched out their repertoire and had....pizza. Whatever! After lunch, we braved the wind and walked along the touristy section of the pier. I was tempted to buy one of the cheap jackets, but I really didn't want one with San Francisco splashed all over it. Amy wore my fleece jacket, so I just braved the cold. The girls each picked out a logoed t-shirt and had a lot of fun when we found this store:


















I must admit, I cringed a lot at all the possible heads these hats have touched.

As we meandered down the pier, we found the sea lions. They weren't very active though my children did their darnedest sea lion impersonations to try and inspire some movement.





We took a street car down to Fisherman's Wharf. It was late afternoon and our energy was beginning to wane; however, the girls wanted to ride a trolley. We began an hour-long wait in line. Crazy! Surely there were other trolley cars around. Ghirardelli's Chocolate Factory was the obvious next choice. As we walked in the door, a lady handed us a piece of chocolate. I think, though cannot confirm, that my children walked through that particular door about three times. There wasn't much to see as far as it being a factory, but it inspired Chris to buy some chocolate.

We were all fading by this point and decided to find transportation back to the BART station. We walked a couple of blocks and lo and behold, a trolley. With no wait.