Happy Eighth Anniversary!

I can't believe this crazy knucklehead has put up with me for so long!

Happy Anniversary to us!

Denise and Makell Experience a Hurricane

What trip to the mall arcade is complete without a visit to the Hurricane Simulator?!

Victims: Denise and Makell

(Honestly, a really blustery day in Rexburg is worse that this simulator!)

Visiting the Mormon Trail Center

And of course we took them to the Trail Center! Jason stayed home so Ryan could get a much-needed nap. Makell had never been, and Barbara hadn't been for years, so we all went to see it. (And of course the girls love to go just for the chance to rifle through the bin of pioneer dress-ups to create the cutest pioneer outfits!)

Denise, Chelsey, Emily, Makell, and Barbara

Our cute little pioneers

Chelsey is Embarrassed at La Mesa

One of our very favorite moments:

Chelsey frozen while grinning in embarrassment as the waiters sing "Happy Birthday" to her and to Emily. Only one sombrero, so Chelsey got to wear it.

(I love how Emily just looks confused!

(She was just enjoying the free ice cream that had been placed in front of her.))

Her turn with the sombrero

(Check out those birthday sundaes -- awesome!)

Children's Museum

No trip with family in town is complete without a visit to the Children's Museum!

Chelsey got confused and thought this air tube was a blow dryer.

I love how you can actually recognize Jason's and Makell's faces in the little pins!

Denise makes a cute ladybug, don't you think?

Makell the beautiful butterfly

Our little Groucho Marx....or Hitler...take your pick.

(She was so proud of her facepaint job that the only way she would agree to wash it off before we went to the restaurant was if we took a picture and agreed to put on our blog.)

Jason's AAP Conference and Our Vacation

I'll never forget where I was when Jason called me. I was at the zoo, enjoying a fun little visit with a friend while our kids played on the playground, when Jason called, telling me he had gotten his flight to San Francisco for the American Academy of Pediatrics conference he had been chosen to represent his pediatric residency at. Then he said, "And guess what?! I got your flight, too!" He had totally surprised me by secretly begging his mom to come watch our kids for a few days so he could bring me with him to San Francisco. Denise agreed to do it, something which I am never going to be able to thank her enough for, and he arranged for us to go! He was going to wait until the day before to tell me to quickly pack a bag, but he knows his crazy control-freak wife would need weeks and weeks to think and to plan. His program paid everything for him, so really all we had to pay for was my flight and my food. What an awesome way to celebrate our eight-year anniversary!

Jason at the airport all ready to go!

The best part about flying westward at night time is an extended sunset -- absolutely beautiful!

Enjoying the First Day

After getting in to our hotel at around 1:00 am (felt like 3:00 am to us!) we had to sleep in on Saturday morning! Well, that was the plan. My eyes popped open at around 5:00 am, my usual wake up time (7:00 am Central time) and could not go back to sleep. But I enjoyed reading while Jason enjoyed sleeping in. We met up with the Gollehons, another resident couple from Omaha, and got registered for the conference, and then hit a restaurant that our really good friends Alvin and Sarah had recommended to us:

Waiting for the brunch to open

Ummm...yeah, it was really good!

After brunch the boys headed over to some conferences, so Jennie and I walked down to the Ferry Building for the weekly Saturday Farmer's Market. We sampled so many yummy fruits, including things I had never tried before like a persimmon -- interesting, but definitely not my favorite. I enjoyed buying a few of my favorite fruits to have for breakfast in the hotel the next few mornings: freshly-picked oranges, plums, and peaches.

In front of the Bay Bridge behind the Ferry Building

Saturday night was probably the more disappointing part of our trip. The conference people had arranged for everyone who was part of the conference, pediatricians and residents and families/guests, to ride buses to the California Academy of Sciences. We had read about it and it seemed like an awesome place to visit! It has a huge rainforest dome, a planetarium, an aquarium, and a natural history hall. Sounds fun, right? We pulled in right at 8:00, exactly when the rain forest closed "because the animals are on a sleep cycle." Okay, well, that's fine. But then they announced that all of the planetarium tickets for the rest of the night were already sold out. Another bummer. We saw some of the aquarium, but it was pretty poorly planned and you just couldn't see the whole thing. Especially when it was super busy with all of the pediatricians and their guests. So we went through the natural history hall and up onto the "living roof," which was pretty neat, but it was a freezing night and we just couldn't stay outside long. So we spent about a half an hour there, and an hour in line for the buses to and from our hotel. All in all I had a good time, but if we had to hear another museum worker say, "No, sorry, that's closed. But have you seen our aquarium?" again, we were seriously probably going to punch them!

The T-rex statue was really cool!

Jason by a cross-section of a 1700-yr old tree from the Muir Woods area of San Francisco.

AAP Conference on Sunday

Jason attended some more conferences in the morning, so I hung out in our hotel room. Do you know how long it has been since I have slept in as late as I wanted, read a book in bed all morning, and taken a bath so long that the water turned cold? What a nice morning! (I will never be able to repay Denise, Makell, and Barbara for watching our kids so I could get my first vacation in almost seven years!) We had a fun lunch in the hotel restaurant, then we hit the exhibit floor, also known as the "listen to my spiel and I'll give you something for free" floor.

It was such a cute little robot!

This robot was really cool! The man controlling him was just strolling around about fifteen feet away with his hand casually up by his mouth with the microphone and his hand loosely in his pocket with the remote. We were walking by when the robot said, "Hello, Amy!" Of course we stopped, and after talking with it for a minute we realized the guy standing nearby was actually the one controlling it and had read my guest tag. It was really neat, even if it was a robot for a lice company.

Just outside the exhibit hall were these stairs with this sign,

showing that someone at the AAP Conference actually does have a sense of humor!

Our loot from the exhibit hall

(We had to pay to check a suitcase, but all of those full-size bottles of Johnson's, Aveeno, Eucerin, Cetaphil, and others in there easily made up for it and more!)

Sunday night we spent some time walking around downtown San Francisco, enjoying the sites and the cute store windows. Little did we know what we would come across:

Jason standing by a larger-than-life new PlayStation Move controller

The building was open to the public, and there were a bunch of new PlayStation consoles set up with the new Move controllers and games. It was so fun to try! To me it was quite a bit like Wii, but Jason thought it was really cool. It was a fun little bonus to our walk!

Alcatraz Cruise

On Monday morning we caught the first Alcatraz tour with our friends Nate and Jennie Gollehon. It was a perfect day for a boat ride along the water!

This seagull was posing for Jason with the Bay Bridge in the background.

A beautiful ride (Golden Gate Bridge and Alcatraz Island in the background)

Alcatraz Island

Alcatraz was a neat place to see. I was kind of skeptical of going, but Jason really wanted to see it, so I went along and really enjoyed our tour!

Sign seen on the island as the cruise boat docks

It was quite the walk from the cruise landing dock up to the prison (about four football-field long switchbacks), but we joined a group with a really neat guy who stopped after each switchback to tell a story about an attempt at escape from Alcatraz. He was a really good storyteller and would string us all along until the very end when he made us guess if the escapee made it or not. Turns out no one ever did. Most were captured again very quickly. One guy made it to San Francisco but was recaptured immediately. Several drowned. Four men were ruled "missing presumed drowned." At the very end our tour guide said, "I keep thinking that one of these tours some old guy in the back is going to say, 'I know what happened to him....' insinuating that he was one who escaped. Then our tour guide swept off his hat, showing his fluffy white hair and said, "Wouldn't it be funnier still if one of those four men returned to his former prison and gave guides to people like you?!" and just cackled and cackled. He was great.

Everyone received a headset for a self-guided tour of the prison.

Cell of one of the escapees -- notice in the back the hole chipped out of the concrete.

(Has anyone seen "Escape from Alcatraz"? The movie set was extremely realistic and we thought it was a pretty good portrayal of the prison. And who doesn't like Clint Eastwood? Pretty good show, if you can get past the rear male nudity....)

Fisherman's Wharf

After our Alcatraz tour we hit Pier 39, also known as Fisherman's Wharf, one of the biggest tourist traps you'll ever see, but so much fun! We ate lunch at Bubba Gump, a whole restaurant dedicated to all things Forest Gump; we sampled chocolate at the Ghiradelli Chocolate Factory; we walked the entire length of the pier and back before deciding to find a good crab restaurant -- we just enjoyed being out and being free to do whatever we wanted.

Watching the bakers make sourdough bread animals at the Boudin Bread Factory

Every kind of taffy you can think of at the Sweet Shoppe

Best memory of the day: ordering a whole crab to share at The Franciscan Seafood Restaurant

I am thoroughly enjoying that crab!

Our waiter was almost perfect at hiding his amusement of our desiccation of that poor crab.

Almost.

"Biking the Bridge"

We saw the bike-tour rental booth and (last minute) decided to just do it! Man, it was SO MUCH FUN! You rent bikes on Fisherman's Wharf and ride along the edge of the coast, across the Golden Gate Bridge, and into Sausalito. You can ride farther than that, which we really wanted to do, but we were extremely limited on our time due to our afternoon flight. So we got our bikes about 9:00 am on Tuesday and turned them back in about noon.

This first picture is after about fifteen minutes of riding and after the first big hill. Notice the bridge in the background -- we are still pretty far away!

("Yeah, yeah, it's flat the whole way." I consider myself a smart person, but I'm not so sure after I believed the bike lady when she told us that it was an easy ride. Given, most of it is flat, but there are TWO killer hills and a third not-so-gentle slope to ride up. But I actually made it up the second one without stopping, a feat I am quite proud of! (And I still think I could have made the first one, had I not accidentally upshifted instead of downshifted, but that's a different story...))

Jason getting closer to the bridge - after about 45 minutes of riding.

Wishing we had views like this at home.

Slightly regretting those hard bike seats on the day we have to sit for hours on airplanes.

Never wanting to go home, but missing our kids like crazy.

Wanting to enjoy this memory forever.

Thank you so much, Denise, Barbara, and Makell, for even letting us have this opportunity.

Thank you, Jason, for such a fun surprise anniversary trip.

I know we'll remember this forever!

Golden Gate Bridge Photos