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Fail! It's going to be a Sunday Phone Dump unless I really pull it together soon. And frankly? That's not looking good!
We are up in Tahoe. With our little Tahoe Princess. She looks like this:
What? You don't wear a princess dress in the snow?
Now, we are off to the Bridgetender for dinner. Assuming we can get the Princess to wear some shoes. Yikes!
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My Gram turned ninety five this past month. 95. That's a lot of years right there! I have been so incredibly blessed by her. She is the best example of a matriarch that I could ever hope to find. We enjoy celebrating her and every one of her 95 years! We kept things fairly mellow this year because we didn't want to overwhelm her. (Which, in hindsight, we probably did anyway. Whoops. Sorry, Gram!)
All of her children and grandchildren that were there toasted her. As did Dylan and Anders. Very sweetly. I wish I had video of it instead of still photos, but I only have so many hands. I know that very important things were said about a very important woman. And that's the most important thing, right?
Here's to you, Gram/GG. We love you beyond measure!
Of course I was running late for the entirety of preparing her party. I literally picked up the photos from Costco on my way to the restaurant to decorate. In fact, if you were to look on the floor of the banquet room, there were tiny little circles of photos that I had punched out to put them on the ribbons. Nice.
Someday, I swear, I will have things done way ahead of time. Someday.
Maybe.
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We got up with the best of intentions to move quickly and see all that we could for our remaining time in San Francisco. Then this happened:
Damn technology!
We recovered, ate a quick and delicious breakfast . . . with bacon . . . lots and lots of bacon for those boys! And then we did the most-touristy thing ever. We bought seats on a double-decker tour bus. Yep. Seriously. And we toured the city. It was actually very fun. We took a quick stop at Union Square because I was insistent that we would go to J. Crew. Plus, our Shannon was calling me from Hawaii, just prior to her wedding and I needed to talk to her!
After the tour and requisite J. Crew stop, we headed back to the ever-lovely Argonaut and checked out. Sadly. I then plugged in the Exploratorium address into the GPS and away we went. The boys love, love, loved the Exploratorium, but we needed a couple more hours to spend there!
We rushed out in order to cross the Golden Gate and beat traffic heading toward home.
Amidst our hurried crossing over the Golden Gate and our round-about trip back north arose the blatant issue that I had been avoiding the entire trip.
I. Didn't. Have. Family. Photo. Outfits. Planned. (And our photo session was the next morning. At 9:00 am. And yes, this is serious business around here!)
A stop at the Vacaville outlets anyone? Why, yes. Thank you for asking. I will frantically spend $200 on anything grey/blue that might possibly work for those ever-important family portraits! The boys immersed themselves in the Nike outlet and I did a quick run between Gap, Ann Taylor Loft and Banana Republic. In and out, in 45 minutes or less! Our dinner at Chevy's completed our Vacaville stop and we got back on the road.
It was hurried and we needed more time, but I am so very grateful that we were able to spend that time with my Mom, Dylan and Anders. It was such an immense gift to have that huge chunk of time and experience with them both.
Plus? We make rockin' tourists!
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San Francisco was a blast! An absolutely genius place to take the boys, if I do say so myself. My only complaint was that we needed more time. Another night and morning would have been perfect, but hey, we'll take what we can get!
We headed straight to Pier 33 to take the boat out to Alcatraz. Dylan had never been, obviously Anders had never been, I thought I'd been before . . . but maybe not; and my Mom had only been around the island, never on it.
It was so fantastic! Loved the history - and learned a lot that I had never known or even heard about. Loved the boat ride - it was a gorgeous day on the Bay! It wouldn't have been nearly as nice in the typical cold and fog. We walked all around, watched a movie and took part of the audio tour. My Mom and I are too impatient to listen to something that moves that slow. Sad, but true!
We actually left sooner than we would have liked, but I was feeling the pressure to fit a lot in. Poor Anders would have really enjoyed listening to the rest of that tour, but we had a lot to do!
On the ferry back to the City, we got the call that Dylan had made the basketball team. His smile was so wide! It was a great bit of news to energize us all, even though we were really sad about a player who absolutely should have made the team. More about that in a different post. This is about our trip :)
We checked into the Argonaut, where we were greeted at the door by the most fabulous doorman in the City, Steve. He is hilarious! He let the boys make a grand entrance into the hotel riding on the luggage cart. He was seriously so fun. Although I cringe at how much the room cost for the night? It was worth it. Totally worth it.
For dinner, Mom and I really wanted to eat at Scoma's. But instead, we let Dylan chose where he wanted to take his cousin. (Not Scoma's.) So we ended up at the Rainforest Cafe. Not exactly gourmet, but it worked! Anders thought it was really cool, the food was good and it was easy.
Then we meandered all around the Wharf, Pier 39 and even the Aquarium of the Bay. We ended up catching a pedicab to haul our lazy (tired) butts back to the hotel. Where we managed to haul ourselves up the hill to Ghiradelli for shakes and sundaes. Which we were not even hungry for, but we were in San Francisco! We had to go there!
We waddled back to the hotel and the boys were beyond entertaining. The hotel robes were not the standard white terry robes . . . instead, they were animal print. The boys through it very amusing to wear them, with sunglasses and act like total fools. I will spare them the horror of posting any photos on the Internet. In fact, I even made my Mom delete a few of them from her camera! Crazy boys! It is possible, although not certain, that Dylan introduced his Swedish cousin to the idea of "mooning" passerbyers from the 4th floor hotel window. Again, nothing certain . . .
Mom and I had a glass of wine while the boys watched Green Lantern in our room. Then mi madre promptly fell asleep and snored while the rest of us finished the movie. She's so dainty. Her snoring, however, is not!
And that is the accounting of our first day in the city! Although I failed to mention the overpriced parking, scary bush guy and foul-mouthed gold pirate guy. If you've ever been to Fisherman's Wharf in San Francisco, those need not be mentioned. They are standards, always there in some variation or another!
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My sister's visit was timed at almost exactly in-between my nephews' birthdays. So of course we had to celebrate them while they were here!
Axel is easy to buy for. Cars. Cars. And more cars. We added to his matchbox car collection and he was a happy camper. Anders was equally easy to buy for. Although his Mama probably wasn't thrilled about his gift (whoops!), we got him some mini-cans of Fanta (handily wrapped in duct-tape, thank you very much) and an iTunes gift card. And a trip to San Francisco, but don't tell Axel. It seems a little unfair when you type it out!
Missing the birthday celebrations and basketball games and everyday life of my nephews is really hard. I always know that, but sometimes, spending time with them, makes it even more poignant.
It was so nice to have time with them. To get to play and hang out and talk. Hearing-loss and a language barrier make it more of a challenge with Axel, but I hope that someday, he and I will be able to have the kind of conversations that I enjoy with his older brother. For now, going out to the car and having him "drive" me to the grocery store twenty-seven times is just as good.
By the way, I suck at playing pool. Really, really stink at it. Dylan and Anders could whoop me all over the place. Pool studs that they are. In fact, I think that Halle might already play better than I do. Plus she looks awfully cute doing it!
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We have been so stinkin' busy, that I need to go back a couple of weeks and catch up. One day/major event at a time!
It's been two weeks since my sister and her family arrived from Sweden and we really haven't stopped moving since. They rented a place out on Butte Creek for their stay and other than the drive (25 minutes??) and the pot-grower across the creek; it was an almost ideal situation. It gave them their own space and ability to host whatever events and gatherings that they wanted to.
We started out their visit with a fun Sunday afternoon family gathering on their deck overlooking the creek. The boys ended up in the creek. Big surprise there!
Needless to say, these two found their "cousin connection" pretty easily. Although five years is way to long to go without seeing each other? They didn't hesitate for a second to jump right back in!
While the older boys were in the creek, Halle was enjoying getting to know her cousin Axel. They have a shared love of Nana (MorMor), bossing each other around and legos! A match made in heaven!
We ate, drank, rooted for the Packers and visited. It was a great kick-off to a great visit!
My nephews with my two Grandmas. Anders was really hoping to be taller than GG, but he's not quite there yet!
Someday, I'm going to catch up on all that's happened over the last couple of weeks. But not today. It's raining. We just had a yummy lunch and wonderful visit with Lauren and Bobby and now? The couch is calling. I'm thinking that it's a great evening for a couple of movies and some popcorn for dinner! Especially since I haven't been to the grocery store. There isn't much to eat other than popcorn anyway!
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From top to bottom, left to right . . .
Halle in her "costume" for Trick or Trunk (Jasmine top, pink satin skirt, fleece jacket, messy hair. Nice.) Fat, belly-licking cat. Very Garfield-esque. The Prom Queen and his too-pretty Princess cousin. The birthday dinner I "made" for my sweet Mama. Safeway deli soup - bought in bulk - and bread. Fancy. What I ate for breakfast the day after my Mama's birthday. Leftover birthday cake and a chai tea latte. What my sink looked like on Thursday. Disgusting. Halle's sticker-covered favorite grey dress. Some science character that Dylan created in class. It represents something. But I'm not sure what. A little token for our Shannon and Bobby to come home to. Love Lisa Leonard Designs!What Dylan's room looks like . . . extra mattress (post-cousin visit), tons of folded laundry, a wig and a guitar. Weird at best! The duct-tape box house that Dylan made for Mr. O'Malley. Mr. O'Malley, himself. The Halloween haul. Right up to the brim! New bar-stool cushions. The cat eating from the dog's bowl. (Not shown, the dog eating from the cat's bowl.) Halloween art that Halle made for me. Photos framed and up from Lauren's wedding. The "birthday cake" that Halle made for John last night. Complete with sugar water, Goldfish, pretzels, Cheerios and Cinnamon Toast Crunch. Yummy!
How's that for a week? And delivered on an actual Friday to boot!
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I have about 75 things to post about, along with pictures for the whole lot of them. Family visit, our Shannon's wedding, San Francisco, GG's party, Halloween, my Mom's birthday, etc.
What I don't have, however, is the time to do it! At least not this morning!
So, what I do have time for is to link up the "tease" to our family portraits:
I think that given what she had to work with, it looks like she did an amazing job! I met Kimberly when she shoot Lauren's wedding and decided right there and then that she needed to shoot our family. I have been dying to re-do the wall in our living room with some big canvases and I think that we'll be able to do that with some of her shots. I'm excited! Of course, now that she's given me a tease, I just want more. Guess that's why it's called a tease, huh?
And now, I need to pull it together. Lunches made, get dressed and get on the road. I'm actually craving my quiet commute today.
Because while I love this bunch like crazy? Quiet, they are not.
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