San Francisco

Thursday: Travel day
After a rough morning of packing (me) and whining (saben) and an equally rough car ride with more whining from you know who, we finally arrived at our destination - the "TRAIN IN TUNNEL". Also known as the airport which just happens to have an underground subway thingy that is heaven for everyone under the age of 5. (or 12?)

After 3 loops around the train in tunnel, we boarded our plane. Unprepared parents that we are, I waited until Saben actually started screaming to start trying to get him to eat/suck/swallow. Whoops. After 20 minutes of crying, a stinky poop filled diaper and finally a grand finale vomit in his seat, we swore to never fly with our son again. Luckily entertaining his parents with these antics wore saben out so he slept on landing. Phew.

Connor (who is 9 months older than saben) had been talking about Saben coming to visit all day long and meticulously listing off every item he planned to share with his new friend to his parents, caregivers & anyone who would listen. After the most delicious carne asada tacos & fresh mango drink EVER, we went home and stuck the boys in the bath together to help get them acquainted. After the new buddies were in bed, we had a blast getting caught up with Andy & Julie (he's a childhood friend of Kyles, both lived in Seattle when we were there) and then stole their bed - they slept on a futon in Connor's room.

Friday:


The day was cloudy-ish, but at 65 degrees, who can complain? We all drove over to Marin park, oogled the golden gate bridge & smelled the green things growing. A little farther on we hiked/slid down a trail to our own secluded rocky beach where all four boys played "Rocks in Water" while mommies basked on the sunny rocks.

After lunch in cute cute Sausalito, the guys towed the grumpy tired boys home for a nap while Julie & I went shopping in a fun, but expensive little district. On the way home we stopped by the hispanic markets & got 8 limes for a buck, huge avocados, warm corn tortillas and some recommended "quesadilla" cheese for an evening snack.

In the evening, the guys went out for drinks with some friends they both knew from high school, while the rest of us stayed home & watched "Potty Elmo". After watching grown men singing in falsetto about pooping and peeing and hearing one full hour of poop and pee talk Saben decided he wanted to sit on Connor's potty chair and Mommy decided she was never ever watching another Elmo video. Saben didn't actually go potty, but he kept peeking down to see if anything was happening as he sat there. It was adorable and Julie caught most of it on video so you can watch it next time you come over!

Saturday:

We headed down to the most fabulous farmers market I have ever seen and had breakfast in the sun on a dock. (scrambled eggs with arugula & herbs and roasted potatoes with onions) We gathered food for a picnic & couldn't resist getting some fresh greens, asparagus, pea shoots & green garlic for dinner as well.

We arrived at the zoo by 11am and spent a couple hours wandering around. Saben's favorite part was throwing food at the ducks (too bad we could have done this for free at a lake) and Connors favorite was feeding the goats (which Saben finally nervously tried).

We put the boys down for naps back at home, napped a bit ourselves & then started working on dinner. The fresh ravioli/Italian import store that I was excited to visit closed early because they had "sold everything" so we headed to Costco instead.

That night we dined with the friends Kyle & Andy had met up with the night before & they all reminisced about life at Liberty high school in Issaquah. Our little dinner party consisted of: a fertility doctor, a lawyer, a genetic counselor/scientist specializing in childhood abnormalities, a quantum physicist, a bike company owner and a stay at home mom. (those last two were us in case you couldn't tell). It was a pretty interesting evening.

Sunday: 75 degrees & Sunny

We slept in a bit and then headed out to the ocean to play on the beach. It was insanely gorgeous.

The boys played in the sand & flew a kite while Julie & I layed in the sun & watched the surfers. Then we walked down to the water & disaster struck!

A wave came in and instead of enjoying the cold water swirling around their feet, both boys panicked. Saben ran crying while Connor... well I think you can see for yourself, he's the one with the 14 on his shirt. Luckily I got this picture, which had me in hysterics the first 10 times I looked at it.

In the afternoon Kyle & I went down to Fishermans wharf while the boys napped and had a great time just wandering by ourselves. We shared a whole crab for lunch/snack and even got to hold hands which were miraculously empty of sippy cups & children. We met back up at a park & enjoyed swings & the sunset over the city.

Andy & Julie were such awesome hosts, it was awesome to see them again and we had SO MUCH FUN hanging out with them all weekend. It was so cute to watch Saben and Connor play together & interact, they only had 2 or 3 little fights the entire time and both of them woke up each morning asking to go play with the other one.

Monday:

My 30th birthday began with Saben waking up midnight as we went to bed and then spending the next four hours in and out of sleep, standing in his crib and asking to get out and play with Connor. (He was sleeping in our room and it is extremely unusual for him to have trouble sleeping) He finally zonked out at 4am and at 6:30 am we got up to go to the airport.

8:30 am at the airport, we gave him some Benadryl to help him on the plane ride. 8:45 we found out our flight was cancelled due to engine trouble. We somehow got the ticketing agent to get us one of the last few seats on a noon flight out of San Jose after he initially told us we wouldn't be able to fly till 3pm. When he said 3pm I was nearly in tears, exhausted and ready to spend most of my birthday waiting in airports with a cranky 2 yr old. Plus that would have gotten us to Seattle just in time for rush hour traffic.

Luckily we did get on the noon flight and things turned to the better as Saben slept on the shuttle to San Jose (after drunkenly staggering around under the influence of the Benadryl), he was perfect on the flight to Seattle despite being awake the whole time and we just barely slipped north before the worst of the rush hour traffic began.

Friends watched Saben that night and we got to enjoy a romantic dinner at Flats Tapas bar before coming home and passing out early into bed.