San Francisco

Ryan and I had such a wonderful long weekend to San Francisco!  It's our 9 year anniversary coming up, and we're hoping that we'll be traveling to China sometime near our 10 year anniversary...maybe???... so we decided to take a trip this year instead. The view above is from our hotel window.  We stayed in Union Square which was a great location, close to everything.

Here's Ryan in front of Niketown.  We HAD to go in afterward. 

So the first day we arrived it was a little after lunchtime, so we just left our hotel and walked around.   We first went to Chinatown. 

It was so colorful and vibrant, I loved it!  It made me excited to go to China, although I'm sure not all of China looks like this :).

We then walked through a beautiful park, and ended up at Fisherman's Wharf.  I took tons of pictures but I tried to spare all of you and just put in a few of my favorites.  Here's Pier 39 with the sea lions.  We didn't walk around to the pier that's right next to them, we stayed on this side.  Can you see them lying down there on the docks?

We then walked all around Fisherman's Wharf and walked past Boudin (a yummy restuarant known for their sourdough.  I had to take a picture of this creation for Cooper and Jackson)

Then we just kept walking and seeing the sights, marveling at streets like this!  It was SO steep and I was amazed to see people RUNNING up them.  I had a hard time walking up them!

We had to see the famous crooked street!  Crazy isn't it?

This is the view from the crooked street. 

We had reservations at this restaurant.  Very very good.  From here we walked back to the hotel! Very very VERY far.  We walked so much that first day, my feet were killing me!  But it was fun and made me feel better for all the ice cream I consumed on the trip.

Our second day we took the trolley down to Fisherman's Wharf instead of walking the entire way

and decided to rent bikes to ride across the Golden Gate Bridge.  See it in the background?

Beautiful, isn't it?  (the bridge, not us :)

We lucked out and had GORGEOUS weather.  60s and 70s, sunny.

We rode our bikes to the top of this hill and this was the view of San Fran.  I almost had to get off my bike and walk it, it was so steep!  Luckily most of it was flat, I hadn't ridden a bike in forever!

Right before riding across the bridge.

We rode our bikes over to Sausalito and ate at this restaurant.  VERY yummy fries! 

We had every intention of riding our bikes from Sausalito to nearby woods to see some historic trees.  After we took a break, had lunch, we just decided to relax in Sausalito.  So we got out our books, got ice cream, and sat on a bench facing the water and just relaxed.  It was SO nice, just what I wanted for our vacation. 

We then took the ferry back to San Fran. Can you see it in the background?  I'd say the ferry was much easier than riding the bike!

Here's where we stayed.

The last full day we were there we met up with good friends Stephanie and Rich and their kids Zoe and Will.  Isn't she precious?  She's a mini Stephanie.

He's a cutie pie too!

Here's me and Stephanie.  They live in downtown San Francisco so it was fun finding out all about what it's like to live there.

After we met up with them we went and relaxed on the beach again.  It was just gorgeous!

Then we went and got a bread bowl here.  Everyone told us we needed to!

Here's Ryan relaxing. 

One last view of San Fran.   We sure missed our kids, it was very strange not having them with us.  We both missed them for the pictures too, neither one of us wanted to be the one in the pictures, but we had no kids to stick in front to take pictures of! :)  They stayed with Laura and Tom and had an absolute blast.  They didn't miss us one bit and didn't want to go home afterward, so I'd say it was successful all the way around!

Random Fun

This is a very random post, I just need to catch up!  

The boys were playing around with these parachute men and started putting them on their heads.   So strange but so darn cute!

A week or two ago we went to an outdoor concert and the kids loved it!  The weather was beauitful which made it nice for the grownups!

 I think they look alike even though they're cousins not siblings!  Am I crazy?

 The crowd was sitting to the left of the picture in chairs, and there was this grassy area that a few kids were dancing around in.  Our kids went and joined them, and Cooper was SUCH a ham! I think he thought everyone was there to watch them dance, not to listen to the music.  He had the biggest smile on his face and kept watching the crowd.  I think I may need to put him in drama or something! :)

 Ben and Cooper started breakdancing.

 A house project I recently completed is painting this wall upstairs with a chevron pattern.  It's just a small wall at the top of the stairs so I thought it would be fun to do something kind of crazy on it.  Upstairs is the gameroom.  It was easier than I thought, especially since Laura had the kids for the day!

I can't remember when this was or why the kids have on pjs, I think my parents were babysitting them. Anyway, my parents are having all of the tile in their house replaced with wood, so my dad wrapped all of their furniture with this plastic stuff.  Of course the kids wanted to be wrapped up too.

 Wow this is fun!

 Here's an example of the wrapping...the entire house basically looks like this.  What a pain!

 I watched Ben one day recently and got a few pictures of these best buddies.

 Another recent activity was Cooper's class, and a few other classes,  did a little concert for the parents. 

 It was so cute!  Cooper practiced the songs at home so he was really prepared and had a great time!

 Last but not least, we had our last MOPS meeting and we took a picture of our table, we're missing a few girls but here's most of us! 

Adoption Update

Well, our home study is complete and we're waiting to receive the final copy of it in the mail.  It takes awhile to become "official" because it has to be reviewed by lots of different people and then notarized ( I think that's the process!).  Once we receive the home study we can file the next two sets of paperwork, so I'm trying to now get all of that paperwork in order so we can mail it off as soon as we receive the home study.  After we file the next two sets of paperwork, all we have to do it sit back and wait for a referral!  (I should say that I wrote that sarcastically, that part will definitely be the most trying so far, as it will require much more patience than I have at times!)  We have lots of videos to watch and books to read while we wait in order to fulfill our agency's guidelines for training, so I guess that will give us something to do!  (Besides, you know, being a parent to our kids. :))

What We've Been Up To

It's been awhile since I've posted!  Ryan and I just got back last weekend from a trip to San Fransisco.  We had so much fun and it was a nice break from reality.  So this week we've had a very relaxing week and I've been trying to catch up on everything, along with blogging!

A few weeks ago Jackson decided he was not going to nap, but he was being so quiet I thought he was.  I opened his door and was shocked to see this! 

I'm in a MOPS group (Mothers of Preschoolers) and a few weeks ago I had some girls from MOPS over and their kids for a playdate. Here's some of the kids eating, I tried to get a good group shot but this was the best one.  I think there were 14 kids, so it was a good kind of crazy! :)

Cooper wanted me to take a picture of him so he could see his dirty face one day, and I just thought it was cute. 

We finally tried out a railing and it works wonderfully, he hasn't fallen out of bed since we got it!  He did one time fall in between the bed and the wall since the bed is on wood and he must have scooted it out while trying to fall asleep.  So now before bed I always make sure he's tucked in there tight!

A big milestone for Cooper is...he learned how to ride a bike without training wheels!  We started out in the grass and that worked great, he wasn't scared to fall but he could still ride around.

 There he goes!

 Jackson was toodling around in the car-the field is a great place for him to practice steering since he hasn't gotten the hang out it yet!

 There he goes!  Ryan did a great job of holding him up/helping him get started.  I tried a few times and he fell over.  He then asked if daddy could help him. :)

After the bike riding was done, we went to the park for a bit.

Then we ended our night trying out the new fire pit Ryan got for his birthday. 

We just needed chocolate and graham crackers to make the evening perfect.

I think the boys were happy with the marshmellows.