Mission Possible

After our soggy safari, we packed up at Safari West and headed more into town to stay at a second hotel within walking distance of Delia's mission.  We strolled around downtown Sonoma for a bit, warmed up in the hotel hot tub, ordered pizza, and watched the Cubs game in our hotel room.  For one person in our party, coming face-to-face with a giraffe was emotionally and physically exhausting, and sleep overtook them early.  We were cracking up when we saw the way she fell asleep in the bed and asked through giggles, "Who's sleeping with Delia tonight?  Apparently no one."

Our last day of this getaway was all about learning.  Armed with my camera and her little notebook, Delia was very serious about collecting photos and facts for her mission scrapbook.  We were thankful that a wonderful docent, who just loves 4th graders doing mission projects, became our personal guide for an hour and showed us every detail of the Sonoma Mission.  Especially since the Sonoma Mission is really tiny and there was actually not too much to see!

We learned that of the 21 missions, this was not only the most Northern one, it was also the last created and it only operated for about 12 years, under Mexican leadership, not Spanish.  We also learned that it is only 1 of 2 of all the missions that are not under the ownership of the Catholic Church.  Because it is owned instead by the California Park System, and because it practically crumbled to the ground in the 1908 earthquake, almost everything we saw was a recreation and "artist's rendition" of what it probably looked like, made for educational purposes only.  The only original thing still at this mission was its bell, which our docent encouraged Delia to ring with his mallet.

This mission was the perfect one for Delia to study, because it was not too huge and there is not an overwhelming amount of information that goes with it.  We're glad to have toured missions that are all different with totally unique-to-them stories now.

We made another stop at a mission museum attached to a winery, also.  This museum has paintings and models of all 21 missions, as well as authentic Miwok Indian artifacts.  Our stop here helped Delia glean just a few more pieces to the bigger mission story.

The mission museum/winery also had this cool fish pond where we fed the entertaining carp.  And we took a nice walk around the vineyards, where the colors are starting to change and look spectacular!

We feel like such smart parents squeezing two great vacations out of our girls' mission projects.  If you have an upcoming 4th grader, we definitely recommend giving them that nudge to explore a mission in a getaway-worthy area! :)

Safari Adventure!

In California, 4th graders are required to study the missions.  And at our school this involves visiting one, writing a report on it, and completing some sort of project.  Ella (with our encouragement) chose to study the mission in Carmel and built a model of it.  Delia (also with our encouragement) picked the mission in Sonoma and will be making a scrap book.  We had a long weekend and were excited to turn this mission assignment into a little getaway.  Upon inspecting the hotels in wine country, though, we were disappointed to learn they were pretty pricey!  But, then we were excited to learn that for just a bit more, we could have a real one-of-a-kind experience just a few miles from Delia's mission.  So, we booked a safari and an overnight at a little-known place called Safari West.  

Safari West is a privately owned property of 400 acres, full of exotic animals.  The owner is from a family that raised exotic animals for Hollywood movies and has maintained a love for collecting African mammals.  His wife is the former curator of the San Francisco Zoo, so together this couple is passionate about breeding the animals for the good of their population and then educating and sharing with the public through a unique safari experience.  

When you stay overnight at Safari West, you stay in a luxury canvas tent.  It has a bathroom and electricity, and the comfy beds are equipped with heated blankets to make your stay super cozy.  The tents are right on the grounds with the animals, so you hear animal sounds all night!  It was a very wet weekend, so we actually mostly just heard rain, which makes the most lovely sound when falling on canvas.  We were fine, and excited even, about staying in a tent, but this far exceeded our expectations.  It was very luxurious.  After our night in the tent, we were served a huge and amazing breakfast too!

Near the tent camp are numerous enclosures full of cool animals to walk around and look at-- tons of different monkeys, duikers, cheetahs, flamingos, our favorite the cute little fennec foxes, and an awesome aviary we could go inside for up-close bird encounters.

We spent a lot of time walking around visiting the animals at all times of day-- the afternoon we arrived, in the dark of night and then again in the morning.  And then it was time to take our 3 hour long safari ride!  A very knowledgeable and articulate guide drives you around the rugged back roads on an army-style Jeep.  With the rain, we were the only ones in our group crazy enough to want that bench on top, so we scored that.  Whenever a new animal is spotted on the safari, the guide stops the Jeep and hops out to give information about it.  This happened often-- the animals were everywhere!

We kicked off this tour with a real bang in the giraffe meadow.  These giraffes are used to the Jeeps rumbling through their land, so we learned quickly that they were FRIENDLY!!!  As soon as our Jeep stopped they started wandering over to check us out.  We were told not to pet them, but we totally could have, they were that close.  Up on top, we were screaming with delight and snapping pictures like crazy.  As we pulled away, Ella even cried some happy tears and said that was coolest thing that has ever happened to her in her whole life.  It was amazing, the highlight of the whole weekend, and completely worth the entire trip out to Safari West.

No other animals came as close to us as the giraffes, which was fine, because the other animals were all things like rhinos, zebras, watusi, wildebeest, various horned antelope, and cape buffalo.  We learned so much and were just thrilled to get such a neat look at these African mammals.  The rain did not seem to deter the animals from being seen and active.  The long drive around the rolling green back hills was very neat too.

Towards the end of our tour, the rain really started to come down.  At first this was just another fun part of the adventure and we laughed about singing "I Bless the Rains Down in Africa", but we got pretty soaked and were glad the tour ended when it did.  And we were REALLY glad that we got to see the giraffes as active and curious about us as they were, because when we went back through their land, they were all hiding from the downpour in the boma.

I'll end this post about an incredible once-in-a-lifetime experience with this funny story.  At one point an ornery ostrich was right in the road we needed to take to exit.  Our guide pulled out her squirt bottle, which is apparently how they get animals in the road to clear off.  This made us giggle, though, as were in a downpour and doubted the ostrich could even feel the spray of the bottle.  We hung there for a bit, waiting for him to move. :)

We would absolutely recommend both the overnight and the the safari trip at Safari West.  Though it looks like a big splurge, you can save a lot by going in the off season (if you're willing to deal with a little rain), and you can remember that staying anywhere else in this part of wine country is not actually going to be that much cheaper.  I think we made some more forever memories on this trip, which is always my favorite kind of investment.

Stages

I've been thinking lately about how fast it goes.  How it seems like just yesterday our days were spent mostly at home, looking for ways to get out.  Now we are gone so much, we yearn to spend Saturdays doing nothing but being home.

The days of play dates, trips to the fountain park, wagon rides, errands that had to be squeezed in between nap time, feeding the goats at the cheese place, leisurely strolls around the Target, baking for fun, crafting to fill time, Tuesday morning Women's Bible Study, and overused, tattered princess dress-up clothes are long gone...though they certainly don't feel all that far away.

Now our lives are full of Student Council meetings, basketball practice and games, band and choir concerts, piano recitals, dance rehearsal, book reports, California mission projects, sleepovers, and church youth group meetings (strangely, though, not for Dave anymore--  now the girls!).

I am not necessarily complaining.  Sometimes I miss those good old days, but each new stage brings new adventures.  I am so proud of Ella for running for Student Council, nailing her speech, and being elected rep of her 6th grade class.  I'm delighted that Delia is so excited about what she's reading that she reads her book report books aloud to me as I wash dishes.  I think Ella will learn so much about teamwork and hard physical activity in her brand new experience on the girls' basketball team.  I love that Delia gets to be a part of a special youth group our church runs for girls in 4th-8th grade and I get to be her teacher!

When I do start to feel sad about how fast it goes, I will just find solace in reading all those old blog posts, where I obsessively recorded every single detail.  And I will thank God that I was blessed with that opportunity to stay home with my girls for a couple years, soaking in their early childhoods.

(Here are a few pictures and videos I've been collecting these past few months.  None of Ella in her school basketball uniform or Student Council shirt with her last name on it, though, I try to protect that info a little bit on the blog.)

 Ella making cookies for a Student Council sponsored bake sale.

 Delia's completed Pumpkin Biography project.  Can you guess whose biography she read? ;)

Ella singing in a choir concert.  Dave and I actually missed this because we were at the Cubs game, so the picture is from a friend.

Celebrating report cards full of straight A's at Krispy Kreme, where you get 1 free donut for each A.

A video of Ella playing "The Entertainer", one of her favorite songs this season, at her piano recital. She actually performed 4 songs-- one of them a duet with Delia singing!
 

Fly the W

As I mentioned this summer, we're starting to get our hopes up that this year it might actually happen.  Our Cubs are looking good and might just get to see some 108 year old history being made!  To celebrate the Cubs' easy entrance into the post season, the girls and I ordered this little present for Dave for October.  I posted this picture of Dave with his new W flag on social media and SO many of our local friends did not understand it, that I am going to link you to a W Flag explanation, if you too have never heard of this Cubs tradition.   

We've been excited that our W Flag is making regular appearances in our living room during this NLDS against the home-town favorite SF Giants.

Since it's become no secret that Dave is a big Cubs fan, and since we've been so excited about their success this year, and since our church friends are just awesome, on Sunday Dave was given a Pastor Appreciation Day card...that had 2 tickets to Game 4 in it!!!!  (Our friends also researched Dave's schedule and found a substitute to lead his Tuesday night class, and offered to take our kids for a sleepover, including bringing Ella to a band/choir concert.)

In order for us to see this Game 4 of the series, though, we had to actually root for the Cubs to NOT sweep the series in 3 games.  Monday night we stayed up late on the edge of our seats half wanting the Cubs to just win and advance and half wanting them to lose so we could go to this game!

Well, as you know if you watched that crazy game on Monday, Game 4 was a go!  So, off we went when I was done with school.  We put on all our Cubbie clothes and hopped on the BART to SF.  As soon as we got out of our car to walk to the station, we saw other Cubs fans and shared a "YEAH CUBBIES!" cheer with them.  At the ball park, we high-fived other Cubs fans as we passed them while walking around.  We had numerous conversations with Bay-Area Cubs enthusiasts about what part of Chicago they were from.  We laughed hopefully about how this was "our year."  I'm sure a playoff game in Wrigley is just amazing, but there was something SO COOL about this experience too.  We felt such a fun bond with the other fans in blue and took such pride in our Chicago citizenship.  Becoming BFFs with fellow Cubs fans, who were in fact total strangers, was half the fun of the night for us.

The National Anthem was especially cool!  The crowd was a near sell-out.  We've never experienced baseball with so much passion, enthusiasm and NOISE!  My heart was pounding the whole time, largely due to the excitement of the crowd!

 It was rally rag night.  I was excited to get a new, free dusting cloth! ;)

Okay.  Let's talk about this game.  90% of it actually kinda sucked.  We never had a lead.  We suffered through several Giants runs throughout the course of 8 innings and were just saying to the Giants fans around us, "It's okay.  We're used to this.  We'll get ya in the next game", when they said, "Sorry, Cubs Couple!" to us at what looked like the end of it.  THEN at the top of 9th, we lost our minds completely as the Cubs came back from a 3 run deficit to score 4 and take the lead!  Then when they brought in Chapman, Mr. 103-mile-per-hour-pitches, to shut the thing down he did in 9 straight strikes.  And suddenly, we were the winners!  Two Cubs fans, one right in front of and one behind us, lost their minds with us.  We were jumping, and cheering with each other and high-fiving! We whipped out our W flag for a picture and had Cubs fans from all over our section come and ask if they could borrow it for one too!

We made our way down the Cubs dugout where all the other displaced Chicagoans had gathered to cheer together.  We made more friends: our most interesting was a pair of guys who have been traveling back and forth to every Cubs playoff game this year and plan to continue doing so.  A round of "Hey Chicago, Whadaya Say?" broke out.  The players emerged from the dugout to do interviews and wave at us.  We chanted their names.  It was just the coolest.

So many things made this night one we'll remember forever.  The nature of the game and that insane come-from-behind win to clinch it, of course.  But also, the fans we enjoyed this game with.  I've already mentioned the kinship we felt with other Cubs fans in the park, but the Giants fans were so gracious, classy and generous too.  When our Cubs won, everyone around us high-fived, thumbs-upped and smiled at us.  Several people made a point to come to us and say, "Good game!  You guys deserved that!  We'll be cheering for you in the World Series."  We left the ball park late, after celebrating by the dugout, and AT&T Park employees, crossing guards, and people on the street on the walk back to the BART were all super nice.  Some Giants fans on the crowded BART even gave up their seats for us, saying "You won! You earned the seats!"  We have always thought of the Giants as our number 2 team and have enjoyed watching them win their championships the past 6 years.  We even let our own daughter cheer for them for a while! :)  We continue to respect and think the best of them.

And, obviously, our friends, who knew what the best way to honor and appreciate Dave would be and who went to the work of making this night happen for us.  We'll never forget it.  We suspect we may even be telling our grandkids some day about the 2016 World Champion Chicago Cubs and the NLDS championship they clinched in the most dramatic fashion...that WE WERE THERE FOR!