San Fransisco, Fourth of July

This is a late in being posted, but...

The first week of July, work sent me to the Bay Area for a 3-day training in Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. I loved it. I got to get away and learn and eat (they feed you nonstop) and sleep in a quiet hotel. All the people that normally want my attention had to do without and leave me in peace for a while...glorious! A bonus was that the training ended the day before 4th of July (Friday) so I just extended my flight home until Sunday and hung out with the Lindsays, so I got a free family visit, paid for by the federal government!

Here are some street pictures and fireworks pictures. Below is a picture standing on Kristin and Mike's street. Unfortunately, the fireworks pictures were taken sans tripod so they're very "impressionistic."


Here are some domestic scenes at the Lindsays' then-furniture-less apartment. They had just arrived from Vermont a week before and were waiting on the moving van to deliver their worldly possessions.

In the absence of a couch, Mike had to recline on a blowup bed and Gretchen had to recline on..dad.

Here's the li'l gipper getting her hair done while watching "'Credibles," (The Incredibles) which I learned is her favorite movie and needs to be watched a couple of times a day!

The kiddo.




Took a fresh air walk to the community garden near their apartment.

Scenes from an evening walk we took to "The Crepevine" on Irvine for dinner. Kristin and Mike live in the Sunset district:


I'm a little naieve as a Southern Californian and didn't bring enough warm clothes (..I mean, it was July!) I ended up high-tailing it to the local thrift store with Kristin where we both bought some additional long sleeve shirts, jackets, and sweaters. Just to give this some perspective, I slept under about 4 nice warm quilts and we turned on the heat at night! It was so very windy and cold walking and walking to the wharf for fireworks that I was a little short on holiday gaiety. However, I must have benefitted from the body heat of the thousands of other San Franciscans at the wharf because I warmed up once we got a spot on the grass. The fireworks were great. We learned that fireworks will just tinge the sky with their color, but no pattern is visible when there's fog. We also ate a 4th of July dinner at a Brazilian restaurant in honor of Camila and in honor of the fact that we were starving and it was the first restaurant we ran across:)


NEXT DAY: Chinatown




Look close, there's Gretchen, Mike, and Kristin.

Window shopping.

The iconic trolley...you're supposed to take pictures of the trolleys if you're from out of town.









We bought some scarves on the street, ate some good Chinese food, and then went back to a jacket shop where Mike bought a jacket and Kristin talked me in to plopping down some cash ($219..that's CASH for a social worker..but it was 50% off) for a rock n roll motorcycle jacket. That's about when the little miss started to poop out, as you see pictured above. The ensuing crankiness signalled that the time was right to take a long drive down to Moss Beach so she could hopefully fall asleep in the car seat. Here's us searching for little crabs, sea urchins, and the like in the tidepools at low tide (around 7 p.m.):





Auntie Winnow made friends with and gained the trust of the seals by slowly inching towards them two baby steps at a time. See those trusting gazes? Only a third of them jumped in the water and swam away. The others felt very comfortable around me.





The happy family.




FRIDAY MORNING (moving backwards in time just to keep you on your toes and avoid moving around these darn pictures); Moss Beach at high tide:





A memo was circulated, notifying everyone to wear pink on this day.


We didn't take pictures of Mike, except for one faraway hiking picture (above) because he wouldn't comply with the rule to wear pink.

Again, it was freezing cold. But because making Gretchen laugh and squeal called for me and Kristin to carry her close to, and then run away from the surf (which got us a couple of times), we took off our shoes and rolled up our pants.

Here's the cutest picture of the bunch of mommy and little miss:

One of my favorite things about Gretchen is that she makes herself really clear by repeating everything she says about 3-4 times in her cute, squeaky voice. I.e. "Let's go down the hill now. Ok, let's go down the hill now. Go down the hill now." Maybe another time, just to make her point. Each time she intones as if she's saying it for the first time and it's a new idea. She's also really good at pronouncing my name, which most adults can't do. She liked to sit on my lap and help me eat my food. I hadn't seen her for some time so it was so fun to see how big she's gotten and how many words she's now got in her little vocabulary.

I'm glad Mike/Kristin/Gretchen and bun-in-the-oven now live so close to me and we can visit again soon! San Francisco couldn't be a more fabulous destination, too. Thank you, guys, for putting me up (they even borrowed a blowup bed and blankets for me) and showing me around town 'n beaches! Let's do it again soon!

Day with the Dalton blondies, 4/10/08

Here Emily is giving Randi raspberries and tickles.

Randi was quite enthusiastic about giving her mom raspberries, too. A little too enthusiastic.













Little Kourtney was playing peek-a-boo with me with a blanket and I was snapping a picture each time she came out from under the blanket.

Emily and Randi playing with stickers together.

Emily made me delete 9 out of 10 pictures I took of her. Above right is a survivor.

Cuddling w/ Kourtney

Here I managed a miracle (really, you have no idea) in getting both twins in the frame AND both looking at the camera at the same time. Kids spend a lot of time moving around and looking down when they're playing. By the time you focus, you're too late most of the time! I had great hopes that I was going to get some really good pictures but I didn't do so well this time around.




Here's little Kestin with some cracker crumbs clinging to her face. She's saying, "Why do you keep following me around with that black clicking thing in front of your face? This is very curious."

Emily was very nice to pick me up from the airport (uh...in the middle of the night!) and give me a nice bed at their place. In the morning I woke up to little kiddies in pajamas playing and squealing outside my bedroom door. Needless to say, Emily didn't get much sleep that night and I'm only hoping Eliot did, since he had to go to work early! Randi warmed up to me pretty fast, since I seemed like a willing buddy to play with. She kept calling me Amy at first. ("Come on, Amy! Amy, wook at dis!") We all spent the day playing, chasing, laughing, and dumping out toys and then picking them up again, having accidents involving heads getting bumped, trying to get the girls to eat canned pears and hot dogs and take naps, jumping on the bed, bouncing crying girls on our hip, giving hugs, etc. (I must say, I'm amazed at Emily's ability to continually keep the bows and piggy tails in the girls' hair fixed again when they kept falling out!) Since we were pooped, Emily and me sacked out on the couch while Randi watched a kid's TV show later in the evening when the twins were asleep. Then grandpa and grandma came over with some dinner and Eliot got to join us for some food and chat. It was really great being with Emily and the girls since I haven't gotten to spend this much time with them in the past. Thanks again for letting me visit, guys! I loved it and will retain fond memories!!