Home Again, Home Again, Jigity Jig

First I have to tell you about more of San Francisco. I left of as we were headed to the city to go to the Exploratorium.

We left Martinez and took the BART into the city at about 11 am. When we arrived at the Powell Station we emerged into a total crowd. There were about 1000 people waiting to ride the cable car from Powell over the hill to the Wharf. The line was UNREAL! Since we had already ridden the cable car we decided to skip the 2 hour wait. We went to lunch at a sushi place and then took the #30 from Fillmore directly to the Palace of Fine Arts. It's not the same as riding the cable car over the hill but it was certainly faster.

The Palace of Fine Arts is beautiful. The kids ran around and climbed trees and had a grand time. Then I took them into the Exploratorium. They played and ran around. It was really fun to see them enjoying the exact same space that I had enjoyed so much as a kid. We spent the whole of the afternoon there.

It closed at 5 and we went back out to enjoy the park. After the park it was back on the #30 and into Chinatown.

We hopped out in Chinatown and walked to the middle. We were hungry and since we had a good experience the first time we went back to the same place we had been a few nights before. As we walked in Kees said, "We ALWAYS go here." Like we lived up the street. That made me laugh. Dinner was terrific again. After dinner we went to the park. The park that we "always" go to after dinner in Chinatown. The kids played and burned off some energy. By this time it was 9:00. We walked back up through Chinatown to our favorite junk shop that we "always" go to and got some more stuff. We loved it. Then we met the cable car and rode back down the hill to the BART. Nancy met us at the train station and by the time I got the kids in bed it was 10:15. The kids had been great companions and good little city walkers/riders.

The next day Sophia did some glass art in Nancy's studio. Nancy has a beautiful new glass studio. Not made of, for making....glass. Sophia LOVES to make fused glass. Nancy was gracious and helped Sophia do whatever she wanted to do. She made 3 little pieces and really was proud of herself. The boys swam most of the day and it was generally a nice day.

Then our last full day we went to visit my good friends Sam and Helene Sobel. They lived on the other side of the duplex that we lived in and were my mom and dad's good friends. Helene is from Norway and always seemed so sophisticated and smart to me. Yep, she still amazes me. She just got home from a week long trip to the Arctic with National Geographic where she took photos. She is an amazing photographer. And Sam is funny and very smart. He is now a retired cardiologist and is doing some law work a few days per week. I love their adventures, their style, and their humor. It has been too long since I have seen them. Their son Jeff was there to see us as well. Their house has the most amazing view of the city. It's up on Twin Peaks and looks over both the bay and the ocean over the Golden Gate Park. Wow! I hadn't seen them since our wedding 13 years ago! So of course they hadn't met the kids. Luckily they were on pretty good behavior and their son Jeff was really good with the kids. He is a DJ and had all kinds of music and videos to show them. We spent almost 4 hours with them and I loved every minute of it.

We got home, Nancy made another great dinner. I love that Nancy makes good food. I know that I can count on Nancy to make something interesting and good. After dinner I started to pack and put the kids to bed.

And yesterday we finally started to make our way home. We said our good byes and left the Slack's house at 9:30 in the morning. Again we listened to books on tape. This time I got to pick and I picked "The Magician's Nephew" by C.S. Lewis. They liked it but it was a bit too long for them. By 4 hours in we were only half way through the book. I stopped the torture and put on a movie for them. Along the rest of the way we talked, they watched a couple movies and listened a bit more to some of the book. We only stopped 5 times for food and potty. We made it home in 10 hours flat. That is good time with 3 babies in tow.

Bob was really happy to see us and the kids were thrilled to see their daddy. They had been missing their daddy. That makes me happy. Iva was bouncing around like a crazy dog and was really happy too. We all hugged....for about 5 minutes.....and then the kids and daddy went to the pool. Again, getting the energy out.

So it was a really successful trip. We are all very happy to be home with our daddy (husband) and Iva, our dog. I am very happy that things went so well. It was a bit stressful to think of traveling by myself with 3 kids but after this I am greatly encouraged. I think a big part of the success was that I let the kids make a lot of the decisions. If they got tired of what we were doing or needed food we would stop and go in a new direction and feed the need. I found that as long as they were happy doing what we were doing they didn't get too fussy. Even Kees could walk around downtown San Francisco at almost 10 pm and was happy. I have good little travelers and in my book that is huge. I have planned to travel with these guys for years and now it looks like I'll be able to do it with out too much complaining. As long as we plan well and stop when we need to they're amenable to new experiences. This is good. I have plans to travel and show my kids all that this great country has to offer and the idea of that makes my heart sing with joy.