San Francisco Day 1

I am slowly going to catch up on the last month, starting with the first few days of our trip to California a few weeks ago. It was one of the best trips we have ever taken! I was nervous because it was a lot busier than most of our trips, and I knew that our kids would be super, super tired and cranky a lot of the time because of the time difference and missing naps and going to bed late. But they did such a good job, and we got to do all of the things I had planned. I really couldn't believe how smoothly it all went. It made me want to do more traveling.

We flew into San Francisco and spent two days there. We stayed with Tommy's aunt Shamm, who lives in Marin County just north of the city. The kids were up at 4:30 the first morning, so we were off to see the Golden Gate Bridge bright and early.

As a side note, I spent the two weeks before our trip checking out all of the books I could find about San Francisco from the library to read to the kids. It wasn't all that many, but there were at least five or six, including two specifically about the Golden Gate Bridge and how it was built. As a result, Dane and Graham were SO excited to see the Golden Gate Bridge and literally screamed with joy every time we drove over it (four times in all). That prep time was worth it because it made them so much more invested in and excited about the trip as a whole.

And now, tons of pictures of us with the Golden Gate Bridge!

While we were there, we drove over it, we took pictures with it, we walked on part of it, and we went under it on a boat tour (the next day). Definitely got our money's worth with this bridge!

I have a picture of me at age 9 ish doing this exact same thing on this bridge. 

We visited this little beach in the city, which the boys loved...

Graham loved the huge Ghirardelli sign with the big G. "G for Graham!"

Another huge highlight for our boys was going to ride on a cable car. This was a big deal for them, so we made it a big priority. 

Krystel came and met us in the city and did our cable car ride and visit to Chinatown with us!

Is this not the cutest picture in the history of all time?

We didn't get many pictures in Chinatown. But we had a GREAT lunch there and had a big incident with a child who shall remain nameless about a toy that he wanted, which involved screaming for about four blocks before Tommy relented and went back and got it for him. Parenting at its finest!

We got ice cream at Ghirardelli Square too. 

After the city, everyone was exhausted so we let the kids nap for a while in the car while we drove up to Muir Woods. It was so amazingly beautiful! It was definitely worth the short drive up there (especially considering we were staying up there).

This was exactly what I wanted... to let our kids run free in these cool parks.

Selfie stick win! Graham's face!

This was just a small preview to what we would get to do in the Sequoias...

After the woods, we had dinner with Tommy's aunt and cousin near their house. 

And Lucy was very cute at the restaurant. She was playing peek-a-boo with Tommy around this glass door. 

Camping

I've had a goal to go camping for a while. Tommy got a big new tent with all his scout camping, and we got some awesome marshmallow roasting sticks, so now we have all the stuff we might need to go as a family, but it hadn't happened yet. We have been planning to but have had so many bad weekends with weather issues that I thought it might not happen before it gets too hot here. Once it's summer, it doesn't get below 85 or 90 even at night, so there is no way I'm going camping then. (We made the mistake of going camping with Tommy's cousins the first summer we moved here and had one of the worst nights of sleep ever. Definitely learned that lesson.)

But we managed to go last weekend and had literally the BEST time. It could not have been more perfect. Some of our good friends here, the Carters, came with us--we invited them because we know they are big campers, and they were perfect camping buddies. Ben is Dane's best friend, and Emmi is Graham's little friend and Eli is Lucy's age. We went to a campsite in McKinney, only about half an hour away, where they usually have the Father-Son campout. All the stars aligned to make this the most perfect weekend--good friends, the most perfect weather, and the kids actually SLEPT in the tent. We got a better night of sleep than we had all week (for some reason all the kids were waking up all the time the week before--it was miserable!). So it was so much fun and it made me feel like we could go camping a lot more often. I think we need to try and go at least in the spring and in the fall, depending on our babies.

Lucy and Eli having fun.

We even got a great family picture--always a bonus!

We told "scary stories" around the campfire before going to bed and Dane loved it. He was a little scared by a story about a coffin (although I'm pretty positive he doesn't know what a coffin is) but we were able to help him go to sleep and he didn't have any nightmares, haha. 

We did some hikes the night before and in the morning around the area. So fun.

These are the boys' "slingshots" they found, haha. 

Soccer

Dane is finally playing soccer for the first time, and it is way more fun than I thought it was going to be. I've always dreaded having extra things on our schedule, but I am loving watching him and doing this with him. I'm his coach and it's been going really well. I don't know how good I am as a coach, but I think I'm pretty good at keeping it low key and fun, and the kids are definitely getting better than when they started. We've had some problems with games getting rained out so we kind of had a late start to the season, but it has been a lot of fun.

Before our first practice!

Kurt came up to watch Dane's game. So fun!

We only had a couple of our kids for the game yesterday, but we got a picture. 

This guy. So cute!