The Educational Part of Vacation

On our only cold and rainy day, we headed over to San Francisco's Palace of the Fine Arts to do some exploring at the indoor Exploratorium.  This is an acclaimed hands-on science museum, where the goal of the visit is to ask questions and learn, but mostly TOUCH!  Delia is our tactile child, always handling everything she's not supposed to, so a day to be set free and told, "Go ahead and play with it!" was bliss for her.  There are over a hundred exhibits and we did walk away with some new knowledge.  Here are some of the experiments and lessons that are most memorable:

Listening with your teeth. (Dave's favorite!)

Identifying where sound comes from.

Testing air flow.

Creating giant bubbles.

Messing around with light and reflection. (Can you see half of Ella and half of Dave? I think it's kinda creepy.)

Tricking your senses.

Dancing with and mixing color.

Trying to find centrifugal force.

Adjusting a vortex.

And trapping steam.

It was also memorable to leave our shadows and a radio show we recorded using unusual sound effects behind in the Exploratorium.  We spent several hours touching, learning and exploring on this day.  What a well-rounded vacation we planned!

More SF Stuff

On Friday we crossed the BIG thing off the list.  The thing the girls had been talking about non-stop and the thing that they say was their very favorite now that vacation is over-- a walk across the Golden Gate Bridge.  Technically, we didn't make it all the way across and technically the girls were carried and walked very little of it, but it was thrilling to them no less.

First they had to inspect the sample of cable.

Then pose for a picture.

Next we made our way to the first tower.

"C'mon, Ella!"

At the first tower.

We felt the vibrations in the cables.  Surprisingly, the car traffic flying by and wind and slight sway you always experience on the bridge only freaked out Dave!

After the bridge, we did one of my favorite things from the week-- a picnic in Alamo Square.  This line of Victorian houses on the hill with the city behind them is called the Painted Ladies (Ella loved this name!) or Postcard Row. It's also famous for being the Full House opening.  As we spread our blanket and ran around the grass, I was humming the "Everywhere You Look..." theme song! :)

After our picnic lunch in front of the Painted Ladies, we had to try out the playground.  I thought it was super cool to watch the kids play with that great view of the city behind them!

Thanksgiving in the City

We'll easily remember the Thanksgiving of 2010 because it was a pretty unique one!  We thought the holiday might be the perfect time to hit the tourist traps that normally attract insane amounts of people.  We were right!  As a special Thanksgiving treat, we enjoyed all the perks of SF without waiting in lines, battling crowds or even paying for parking!

Pier 39 was pretty deserted.  Strangely absent were the seals!  We had read that they recently took off, but it was still a sight to see all those floating boxes with just a few lazy seals on them.  We joked that they, like the rest of the city, were gone visiting the relatives for some turkey and stuffing.

Things were starting to look kinda Christmasy on Pier 39.

Fisherman's Wharf made a huge impression on Ella with all the restaurants and street-side stands selling their fresh Dungeness Crabs.  She would tentatively peek into each crate and jump back when she saw them still moving!
.

A highlight of this day in the city was taking a ride on the historic cable cars.  Again, no lines and plenty of space on board-- definitely not the norm when you catch it from the wharf!
.

The girls were thrilled to be along for the ride: holding on tight as we zoomed down the big hills, watching the grip work the levers with big eyes and exclaiming over Daddy who was standing up and hanging off the side.  We rode the cable car to Union Square, where we peeked in just one crazy busy store before catching a ride back.

As Larry (from the book) found his way around the city, he stopped at Coit Tower and Lombard Street.  So, we had to as well.  Coit Tower gave more great views of the city.

And Lombard Street was just as fun to drive down as you would imagine.  More striking to me than the twists and turns of this famous street, is the constant stream of tourists driving and walking down and taking pictures.  I think I counted at least 3 people taking a picture of our family in our van zig-zagging our way down the street. (Hmm, maybe the guy behind us thought the same thing as I snapped the above picture!) 

Last thing on Thursday's list was Thanksgiving dinner at Buca di Beppo, a favorite restaurant.  We had their version of the traditional meal and it was fabulous.

Holy (pumpkin) Cannoli-- the dessert was to die for! :)

First Up, The Zoo

The first full day of vacation had us at the San Francisco Zoo, one we've never been to, but always wanted to visit.  This was a really cool zoo with all the big animals, some of the more rare animals (like koala bears) and some neat interactive stuff.  It's located right on the coast too, so every now and then we got a peek of the ocean.

The turkey vulture was showing us his wing span while he warmed up in the sun.

We were cracking up at the prairie dogs.  I had a cold on this vacation and when I would blow my nose here, the prairie dog sentry would sound the danger alarm and they would all dive into the nearest hole!  Probably something you had to be there for, but SO FUNNY!

There are 3 monkeys in this picture. :)

Delia shows us how she gapes at the apes.

The bear enclosures reminded us a lot of Brookfield Zoo.

The best part of the zoo trip was the perfectly timed stop in the exotic insect house.  We saw a monarch butterfly actually emerging from his chrysalis!  Even with caterpillars and butterflies in our own house, we've never seen them actually come out.  SO COOL!

The VMs Get Lost in San Francisco

It's our nearest city and one we frequently day trip to, but it still holds a long list of things we wanted to do in it.  A whole week off of school for Thanksgiving gave us the opportunity to take a 5 day vacation in San Francisco.  We're returning with almost everything crossed off that list and a camera full of pictures.  So here goes another series of blog posts...

When we arrived on Tuesday afternoon, we had plans to meet up with good friends Phil, Teri, Beth, Allie and Nathan, who were also making a quick getaway to the city.  We joined our friends in Golden Gate Park and went to the observation deck of the DeYoung museum's tower.  The views of the city from this vantage point were great!  We enjoyed a nice long dinner with them afterwards.  This was such a nice way to kick off our vacation!

We stayed at another Embassy Suites and can't sing this hotel chain's praises enough!  If our vacation was just to this hotel and no where else, the girls would have been happy!  This hotel was located right next to the airport.  Anyone who's ever flown into SFO knows how it seems you're going to touch down right in the bay when you land.  The view from our hotel window offered great views of the bay and the planes constantly taking off and landing right next to it.  Watching this did not get old and did a great deal to help my nerves about flying!

Some things that became a part of our daily routine this week were eating pancakes and omelets for breakfast, visiting the koi in the waterfall ponds and swimming in the indoor pool.  By last night, the girls were each jumping off the pool wall and swimming long distances with their heads under the water!

This Larry Gets Lost in San Francisco book has been a favorite of ours.  When we read it each night, it kind of turned into our guide book.  Each attraction Larry would visit in the city went on our list and over the course of the week, we saw almost all of it!  As time allows, I'll tell you about it.

Bump, Set, Spike!

A goal of Dave's this year was to make it to more of his students' extra curricular school events.  Since the girls are old enough to have a more flexible schedule and totally love hanging out with their high school buddies, we've turned this into weekly family time.  One night a week, we head to school, go out for dinner and watch a soccer, football or volleyball game.  The girls race up and down the bleachers, sit with their older friends on the teams, play on the field/court when the game is over and have fun learning about the sport they are watching.  The girls' and my favorite to watch is volleyball, mostly because I understand it best, but also because our school has an awesome team (they just won the section title!).

 

Besides the perk of sharing fun family time while Dave technically does his job, we love practicing the sports we're getting to know better at home.  The girls (Delia especially) love bumping, setting, spiking and serving the beach ball.  As these fall sports end their seasons, we look forward to some basketball!

Under My Umbrella...Ella, Ella

A Day Celebrating Babies!

Yesterday was Baby Day.  We were blessed to visit two sets of friends who we've been praying for and who have recently grown their families.  In the afternoon, Dave and Ella went to visit our friends Travis and Darla, whose daughter has been residing in the NICU for 2 months.  She finally got to come home and we are praising God!

Then last night we got to deliver dinner to very good friends Sara and Arend and meet sweet little Anja (pronounced "On-Ya") for the first time!  It was fun to hold someone so tiny again and marvel over how much she looks like her dad.  Sara and Arend are doing great and are just bursting with that new parent joy.  We are thanking God for these two new baby girls and for the gift of more friends to travel this parenthood journey with!

Thanksgiving Feast

Last night, Ella and her kindergarten classmates invited all of their parents to a special Thanksgiving Program and Feast.  In class, they've been working hard on this and it was a special night. 

We started the night with their adorable little program. The 3 kindergarten classes joined together and recited Psalm 100 and a couple fall and Thanksgiving poems.  We learned about Pilgrims and Indians and the kids sang songs like "Hi Yo Witzi" and "Where is Plymouth?"

After the program, we all found our places at tables the kids had decorated with personalized name tags, turkey place mats, little tepees and stand-up Pilgrims.  Ella was thrilled that our table included her two good friends, Chloe and Amanda.  Dave and I really enjoyed getting to know some other kindergarten parents at this dinner.

We loaded our plates up with all the traditional Thanksgiving favorites-- turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, corn, cranberry sauce and pumpkin pie!

At the top of my list of what I am most thankful for this year is the fantastic experience Ella is having in kindergarten.  She's learning a lot, loving her teacher and making great friends.  This new stage of life has been filled with nothing but blessings!