piano recital.

How ridiculous is that first picture. Hey other kid, great time to turn your head right as I snapped. How else are you supposed to get a decent shot of your kid playing his part at a piano recital from your chair with his back towards you and people in front of you? I obviously don't know. So there is our sweet picture of his big moment. Gah.

He played Jingle Bells and Good King Wenceslas, and he played them beautifully. He's been taking piano since school started this year, and he loves it. His teacher is awesome, and every time I pick him up he says, "I really like her." Hope he sticks with it.

san fran. day 5.

Day 5 highlights:


-Breakfast at Boudin, said my goodbyes. I was growing attached. 
-Bus ride down to visit the Painted Ladies, it was so weird to see those houses in person that I saw every friday night on TV for half my life! They looked different in person, but looked the same in pictures. I realize that makes no sense at all, but in person I would maybe have walked or driven past them without recognizing them, but in pictures, there is no mistaking the Full House setting. 
-Another bus ride to Mission District for mexican food! 
-Walking around Mission made me feel like I was actually in Nogales, Mexico. I didn't like it much there at all. It was dirty and people had warned us over and over about pick pocketing. I was nervous and clutching my purse the whole time. But we staked our restaurant and it did not disappoint! Jeremy and I both thought it was the best mexican ever. And it was super cheap. And they had a huge salsa bar with every salsa imaginable. Yum, yum, yum. Mexican: check!
-Walked to Tartine Bakery (got lucky the last two places I wanted to eat were really close to each other) So beautiful and delicious were our chocolate fudge and tres leeches cake slices. 
-Back to the bus stop and had to run, bus took forever and stopped a bazillion times, making us miss our appt with the airport shuttle. At this point, we were DONE with buses. The last bus we rode was cram packed with hundreds of people, we were nose to nose with strangers. It was very awkward and stuffy and uncomfortable. People were rude and calling other people names, lots of attitude from teenagers, people in the door jam because there was no where else to go, causing the door to not open or close. I wanted to SCREAM QUIT PICKING PEOPLE UP! People did not care that there was no room, they just kept getting on at every stop. And making it worse was the crazy driver, we were holding on for dear life as she slammed her brakes at every stop. Also there was a man with a lighter and a sack of weed that he was twisting around and round, and lighting his lighter over and over like he just couldn't stand 5 more minutes without some. Very weird to see coming from good old Gilbert. 
-After missing our shuttle, we decided we would never want to live in a city that you depended on public transit. You have no control of time, and I didn't like that feeling. I would go nuts not being able to just hop in my car at my own free will. Could never have done the city thing without Jer--he was always studying the map and bus routes & stops & times. It was a yucky job but he was awesome. 
-Plane ride home had 20 passengers total. We sprawled out and took naps. Brayden had asked us to bring him back one thing: airplane pretzels. But they didn't pass them out. So Jer went and asked the Flight Attendant and she gave him an entire bag full. Maybe 50 packs of pretzels. Brayden was thrilled.


We felt like we did everything we wanted to in SanFran, and so we were ready. 5 days was perfect. So grateful to be home. Kosty spent the next week being as sweet as can be to me, which never happens, he held my hand-- in public--at school, requested me for bed time books, hugged me, talked to me, happy to see me when he came home, etc etc. That lasted one week. Oh, it was precious though. I kind of want to leave again just for this purpose. Absence sure made his heart grow fonder. 


Jer's sister Cede, and her husband Mark, came and stayed with the kids and were the best babysitters. (I think I mentioned that earlier?) We came home to a clean house, happy kids, clean sheets, made beds. They cooked and took them out for ice cream, had FHE with them, Mark brought home giant paper to make paper airplanes, and more. Grandma took them to soccer and to church on Sunday. So so so grateful to them. Couldn't have done it without them. It felt so good knowing that they were in our home, in their own beds, with their usual routines. It made it so easy to be gone. 

san fran. day 4.

Day four highlights:


-Breakfast at Hollywood Cafe.
-Taking the bus downtown to the Golden Gate Park. Wow, we were in total awe of this place. So crazy that it is surrounded by city. Felt surreal. Unbelievably gorgeous! Took out the paddle boat on the lake while we were there. Had my very own Notebook moment with my love as he paddled me around the lake. It was still, quiet, beautiful, empty....dreamy.
-Took the bus back to our hotel, changed and went out to dinner in Little Italy. Had the most delicious pizza and salad, oh again, almost in tears at every meal...so so so delicious. 
-Jer rearranged our route and our movie time and because I just had to hit Ghiardelli for one last night time hot chocolate run. 
-Rode the bus back to Union Square to see a late night movie, Hugo. 

san fran. day 3.

Isn't it beautiful?^

Coit tower.

Lombard Street

Lombard Street

(inside coit tower)

Day three highlights:
(pictures are so not in order, don't care)
Breakfast at Mama's...waited over an hour outside standing. Eggs Benedict and french toast sampler, almost too beautiful to eat. Worth the wait.
Walked up the STEEPEST street to get to the Coit tower. Turned around, walked downhill and then back up another steep one to get to Lombard Street.
More walking and looking and taking it all in.
Walking to dinner, then walking all around the Wharf. 
Back to Ghiardelli.
Snuggling by the fire pits at the hotel, getting free entertainment from all the drunk people surrounding us. We got told by an older married couple that 1. we were boring and that we should be out at the clubs! 2. children ruin perfectly good marriages. 3. come out with us, "we just corrupted another young couple last night"...tempting, but we decided we liked being "boring."

san fran. day 2.

Day two: Another trip Boudin Bakery for breakfast. I was in love with this place, it was adorable and delicious and all decorated for Christmas. You could watch the bakers craft their bread masterpieces & browse the culinary gift shop while you waited for your meal. I took a lot of food pictures on this trip because every meal almost made me cry tears of joy. 


After breakfast, we rented bikes and biked the golden gate bridge. It was a gorgeous day out, we didn't even need jackets. Sunny and 70 ish. So glad we did it this day because the rest of the trip was pretty chilly. There were a couple really steep hills but other than that, it was a smooth ride and we felt like total tourists with our nerdy fanny pack/map included bikes. We also discovered (on those steep hills) that other tourists were breezing by and that our bikes were total crap. We had paid for the upgraded bikes and realized we yet again were duped for being naive tourists. We paid for the nicer bikes and got the crappy ones instead. But we were happy to tell the bike shop that we had discovered their dirty trick and got our money back. We also realized that we hated,D being called "FOLKS." Every jerk who tried to scam us called us FOLKS. 

After a quick nap, we took the city bus to Union Square for shopping, dinner, and a movie. Union Square felt like NYC to me, even though I've never been there, its how I imagine it to be. There was this amazing street performer that was a one man band. He was adorable, and SO talented. There were lots of characters on the streets, Jer got offered drugs, and we sat next to severely intoxicated homeless people on the bus. The stores were crazy and overwhelming, beautiful architecture and most had two, three, four+ floors. For every meal we were on our iPhones looking at ratings and recommendations. I didn't want one single meal to be average. 


We saw Breaking Dawn and it was the worst movie ever, but it was fun to be in a big empty theater, in a super late movie with just the two of us. When we got out, we had some fun trying (and failing) at our first ever 'hail a cab' technique. We decided maybe we werent "cab people" and decided to walk farther in the freezing cold and get to the bus stop (again). We rode that bus everywhere. Every day we packed in as much as we could and didn't ever make it back to our hotel room before midnight.