Rachel’s Fabulous Fall

 

It’s been a busy Fall for Rachel.  As you know, she started First Grade in August.  It’s been a hard adjustment to go All. Day. Long!!  She is an awesome reader though, and loves to do math and go to lunch recess.

In September, Rachel had another rush on loose teeth.  Two of them.  Again.  (She lost her first set within a week, right before the start of Kindergarten.)  She went to bed one night looking like this…

 

That’s a backward tooth!  When she got up in the morning, her tooth was out!

Six days later, she lost the next door neighbor to that backward tooth while she was at school.  She came home with the lost tooth in a cute little tooth container necklace.  (Wouldn’t it be fun to be a first grade teacher?!?!?)  Then she looked like this…

 

And today she looks like this…

 

GLASSES!!  She’s now the 3rd of 5 kids to inherit her parents’ poor eyesight.  We found out she failed the vision test last week, and when we went to the eye doc, we learned that the eyesight in those cute little eyes is pretty bad.  She picked out her frames (they’re a purplish color), not based on the color of the frames or how they looked.  She chose them because of the cute pink designs on the side!  This one is a hard adjustment for ME, but I think she looks pretty cute…if I do say so myself.

San Francisco–Day 3 and Home!

 

Saturday was our third day of fun, and also the day we started our trip back home.  After we got up and had breakfast, we checked out of our hotel.  And now I’m going to put in a plug for Marriott.  We stayed at a Residence Inn which was more than adequate for our needs.  We had a full kitchen (which we didn’t even use), plenty of space, 2 bathrooms, and the best all-you-can-eat breakfast we’ve ever had at a hotel.  We paid a bit more than we wanted for the room, but it was well worth it!

We had planned to drive to the Presidio, which is a National Park, and find Lucas Arts and the famed Yoda Fountain.  We did have a map this time (we are capable of learning!!), but it wasn’t a great map, and there was some construction with closed roads and lots of traffic.  We wanted to have time to stop at the Oakland Temple too, so we bagged the Presidio.

The Presidio is right at the edge of the Golden Gate Bridge, so guess what we did?!?!  And they weren’t even charging tolls! 

 

Jared hadn’t ever been on the bridge, as the boundary of his mission was half way across the bridge.  It was an awesome drive!!

There was a short tunnel at the end that everyone loved as well.  As we headed for the Temple, we passed through another really long tunnel (around a mile, I think) and over another bridge.  No pictures, though.

The temple is an amazing sight.  It was a really busy day – weddings! – so we didn’t get the best shots because we were trying to stay out of the way of the wedding parties. 

 

The grounds are beautiful, and there is a neat atrium that goes completely around the building.  There is a gorgeous view of the bay and surrounding areas. 

 

We spent some time in the Visitor’s Center and then piled back into the ‘Burb for the final attraction: Six Flags.

After lunch, and waiting in line for over an HOUR, we finally got to try out some rides.  The lines were ridiculously long, and we didn’t have a whole lot of time…so the kids got two rides each and we saw a dolphin show and a sea lion show.  The shows were great, but we were pretty disappointed with the park as a whole.

After some dinner we hit the road to make it as far as we could.  We hit Reno by 10 p.m. and decided to stop there, as we were exhausted.  On our way to the room, Emily was running into walls, Rachel was whining/crying, and I was so delirious and overloaded with stuff and Daniel that I was laughing uncontrollably.  The guy in the elevator with us probably feared for his life!!

After a good night’s rest, we dragged ourselves out of bed, had some breakfast and headed for HOME!!  We were so excited when, after several hours of driving, we drove into our little valley.  We had an awesome trip (and would love to go back), but there really is no place like home!

San Francisco–Day 2

 

Friday was the busiest, most jam-packed day of our trip.  We wanted to take the BART into San Francisco, just so we could all have the experience of riding the subway.  Unfortunately, the employees were on strike so we had to skip that adventure.  They were on strike before we went to SF, ended the strike about the time we embarked on our vacation, and then went on strike again.  What?!?!?  Who does that?!!

We got into the city and found a place to park for the day.  Then we started walking.  We walked up a giant hill and then down a giant hill.

 

I’m sure our little parade of people turned more than a few heads!!  Especially at the end of the day when everyone was tired and there was plenty of moaning and groaning…and then Rachel tripped on a curb and had quite the crash.

Our first stop was the Exploratorium, which is in a much bigger location than when Jared was a missionary.  We could have spent days here.  There were hundreds and hundreds of little stations that explored one specific thing.  There were areas for learning about sound, mechanics, physics…all sorts of fun learning spots.

Fun with mirrors…

 

 

Mega Magnet

 

Hydraulic stuff

 

Test how quickly you react

 

Sit in the chair and have someone spin the wheel really fast, and you can use the gyroscopic force of the spinning wheel to move the chair around.

 

Prisms and optical illusions

 

We wish we would have had more time to spend here.  I don’t think we even got through half of it!  We had a couple of other things we wanted to get done, so we grabbed a quick and ridiculously over-priced lunch at the restaurant and took a few minutes to eat.  Then we ran a few blocks down the wharf to catch our Bay Cruise.  As it turns out, it was leaving 30 minutes later than we thought, so we rushed for nothing!  We did get to be first in line for the boat though.

 

Good thing we brought our jackets, because it was COLD!!  Actually, Rachel forgot her jacket, so Jared sacrificed his for her, and used Daniel to keep him warm.

 

We cruised out into the bay and under the Golden Gate Bridge.  What an amazing structure!!

 

We learned that there is enough wire in the suspension cables to go around the Earth more than 3 times!!  Those main support cables are massive, and you can only really appreciate how big they are while on the bridge.

 

We also cruised around Alcatraz.  I didn’t get a picture of the whole island, but this is a shot of the side that faces away from San Francisco.  I can’t imagine how cold the water must have been when those prisoners attempted their escape!!

 

A view of the Bay bridge from our cruise.  It’s a neat bridge, but not nearly as impressive as the Golden Gate Bridge.

 

The famous sea lions that reside at Pier 39.  Apparently they showed up after one of the earthquakes and have called the pier home ever since.

 

Most of them were just laying around, but these two were having a little fun.

 

After our cruise, we had hot dogs and soup from a food cart on the wharf.  The sourdough bread bowl that held Emily’s soup was soooo yummy!!  When we finished, we strolled next door to the Aquarium at the Bay.  This underwater tunnel was the coolest part.

 

Trapped!!!

Everyone loved the touch tanks too.

 

Jared and I were secretly enjoying seeing the employee squirm as he nervously watched Caleb teeter on the edge of this tank!

 

Rachel was lucky enough to get to touch a ray.

 

 

Daniel was just dying to read a book.

 

And happy after his nap on the cruise and a full belly from dinner.

 

There was a sea otter exhibit that was supposed to be really great.  But the otters were asleep.  So we moved on.  Overall, the aquarium was less than spectacular, but still fun.

We had an awesome, very full day!  We started our long walk back to the car as the sun started setting.  Emily got this great shot of the TransAmerica building for us.  It’s the tallest building in the city (for now) and is the most prominent feature in the skyline. 

 

We wanted to make one more stop – the Lego store, which happened to be at a mall near our hotel.  We only had an address (you’d think we would have learned by now), and it was dark…and you can see where this is going.  We had to stop for directions for the third time!  We made it about 30 minutes before they closed and had fun looking around for a few minutes.

We ended the evening with some yummy frozen yogurt at a local place.  There was a couple who approached us (they saw our license plate in the parking lot) and struck up a fun conversation.  As it turns out, the woman’s father served in the mission presidency with Jared’s mission president, and also served in the stake presidency with a stake president that Jared knew.  Small world, eh?!?!

Stay tuned for the final episode of our San Francisco trip!