Patrick's Point...

Well, here it is! The kids are having fun exploring the site and the campground. Not many children here but they will survive. There are flowers and lush greenery everywhere, the fog is thick and dew drops drip from the trees all over the place. It's cool and beautiful here and there's lots to do and see and explore. I know we're going to like it here.

Ben :)

Ben in a hole in a rock

Hannah

Noah

Moss

Drive...

We drove up the coast on the 101 and ran into HOT weather, we thought we’d melt when we got out of the car at some points. We saw lots of cows on our way. Not much else besides cows and fields though, nothing that interesting for the kids. We arrived at Patrick’s Point just as it started to get dark, set up the tent and got in bed. The kids love camping and were so excited about finally camping! But we were all tired from yet another day of long driving! We'll have plenty of time to explore tomorrow and the next day!

Hot

Camp

Leaving SF...

We went to return the keys to the house we were staying at (thank you Wendi, Michael and Milo!!!) and decided to go up to Twin Peaks and show the kids the view, it turns out that Daddy hadn’t been up there either so we went. It was chilly and very windy! The fog cleared for just the time we were there and we got to see the city pretty well. We even spotted my undergrad university ☺ (USF). It was a beautiful view and hard to leave the city. Then we drove through the city and crossed the much anticipated Golden Gate Bridge. Boy was it foggy!

Daddy trying to show Noah USF
Us
Hannah and Ben
Golden Gate Bridge

Thank you Nanny!

We bought T-shirts on the Wharf last night with the money you gave us!! We love them and are so happy with our new shirts. Thank you! We love you!! See you when we get back!! Ben’s was dyed with chocolate, Hannah’s is a cable car and Noah’s is a pirate boy ☺ perfect for each one. Daddy even found one that was dyed in coffee and it even smells like coffee (Ben's smells like chocolate, mmmm) We found them at the Crazy Shirt store.

a view of the bridge from yesterday

Jelly Belly factory...

After a long drive to the factory we arrived to the factory where it was a cool 100°F (like we were slowly baking in the oven). There was a line so while Daddy held our spots in line we checked out the store and the rest of the place. Everywhere there were jelly bellies and items with them on them. It was very colorful and there were a few things for the kids to do to keep them busy. Noah really liked the distorting mirrors and watched himself stretch and shrink in one of them. Also while we waited the employees walked around with various flavors of beans for us to try, yumm.

We couldn’t take pictures while on the tour (super secret stuff) but we got some pics of the day we spent there. Enjoy!

Cable Car...

Our last highlight of the night was the one that was the most anticipated: the cable car ride. We boarded one from the wharf that went to Chinatown and got off and waited for the next one to take us back. They all loved it and can’t wait to go again. We got “home” after 10:30 and we were all exhausted from the day. We climbed into bed thinking about the Jelly Belly factory tour tomorrow ☺

Ben is thrilled to hang on the side
Waiting for the next cable car to come around (it took forever)
The stop
One our way back towards the car

Touring the wharf...

This afternoon we went to the wharf and toured around. We walked past a pier where you had access to some ships if you paid for a ticket and as we were thinking about whether we wanted to go down the pier a couple handed us their boarding passes (kids were free) and of we went to check out the ships. This was not a highlight of the day but Noah really loved pirate ships and playing pirate so we got to see a ship (pirate-like) up close and personal. It was interesting to see what kind of lives the sailors lived on a ship like that.

We also went to Fisherman’s Wharf for dinner and the kids were impressed with the crabs and all the seafood on the side of the road for sale. The two big kids didn’t try anything but Noah found out that he loves shrimp.

Climbing the anchor

Hannah and Alcatraz
Mommy's here too...
The monkeys with Alcatraz behind
Checking out the crabs at Fisherman's Wharf
Pirates...

San Francisco...

We decided to go to the Exploratorium this morning and it was a hit with the kids. Hannah loved putting her hand in the nails to see her imprint. Ben loved making a tornado and Noah loved getting the balls to float on the stream of air. It was especially great when it came to lunch and we found that the entire menu was organic and served on biodegradable serving ware ☺ we liked that. If we lived here, we’d definitely have passes to go often because we barely touched the surface with what we saw.

San Francisco...

We made it to San Francisco! We are staying here for 3 nights and staying at another friends house. They aren't here but they're letting us stay here! Really the kids were disappointed when they found out we weren't staying in a hotel but they aren't disappointed right now, there are so many new toys that they are really keeping themselves busy. I think that they think that we're staying here and not doing any sight-seeing...hah! We'll be busy for the next few days :) we're going to have fun!

Noah is being a chef

Ben found a tub of letters and wrote "Scoait on a bed" (Scott on a bed) and made a little man on top.

Aquarium...

The aquarium was great! The kids really liked doing the hands on stuff in the kids areas. Noah really liked picking up the sea stars in the small pools, he loved seeing the sharks since he's been begging to go to Sea World. Hopefully that will satisfy him until we can go to Sea World again. He didn't like the wave going over his head though, Ben and Hannah loved that, they wanted to stay and be inside the wave forever. It was a little space with glass overhead and waves rolled over at 20 second intervals. Hannah could've stayed there forever. We did get there a little later than we should've and Noah was starting to get tired and cranky and clingy so we decided to head out. We went to a little diner on the side of the road and had lunch and left Monterey for San Francisco.

A big thank you to our friends Dawn and Paul for letting us sack out at their house and for treating us to be their guests at the aquarium! It was great!!

Long drive...

What a long drive! We went from San Diego to Monterey today and it pretty much took all day. We got here at 10pm, a lot later than we anticipated but we're here! We're staying at some friends house for the night and they had it all ready for us. Ben and Noah loved the giant aero bed and jumped on it for a long time. Ben even figured out how to do a gymnastics flip onto it (we were watching the gymnastics for a bit on the Olympics last night). We were pretty impressed and think that maybe he should be in a gymnastics class...because he's good and has no fear! They weren't disappointed about not being in a hotel at all. It did take a long time for the kids to wind down and fall asleep but they finally did.

Tomorrow we're thinking of going to the Monterey Bay Aquarium depending on how late or early (more like it) the kids wake up.

They just can't wait to go to San Francisco and then camping is big on their list too!

On the road!

And they even took a nap on the way (I think Ben is faking)

Packing up...

We've been busy packing up for our trip today and the kids are going wild around the house. They love trips and they love to camp so this is perfect for them. Tomorrow we are heading to our friends house in Salinas (near Monterey) for our first night. We hope to leave early in the morning because most of the packing is done, so all we have to do is get in the car with our last minute stuff...that's the plan at least, we'll see how we do.

I asked Hannah what her favorite part of traveling was and she said "watching TV in the car." hmmm... like they don't do that enough at home.

Seaweed...

That's the word of the day. We were inundated with seaweed today at the beach. It wound around our legs with the waves and washed into our suits...it was everywhere! The waves were rough and still pulling everyone north. But we had fun again. We all went in the water because it is so hot and humid these days and the water was so refreshing. Noah spent most of the time with me in the water today. He loves to jump over the waves and get carried by them. Ben lost Daddy's hat in the water and spent a lot of his time following Katy around (& had FUN). Hannah hung out with Daddy and then a bit with Sara too. They even tried to build another sand castle. Today, Uncle Dennis took her to get ice cream, and she scored some cotton candy too... Yummy lunch! It was a beautiful day at the beach, we all came home yesterday a little pink so we lathered on more sunblock than ever before...we'll live. 

We hope to see them again while they are here, we're all having fun!

Hannah, Noah and Daddy with the seaweed

Splash

Ben and his boogie board (the blue one)

Ben dragging behind Katy

Corvettes...

We went to dinner at Corvette's tonight. What a great place to take kids, they don't care about messes and noise. We had a big group of people sitting with us and they were pretty quick with brining the dinners out. Ben and Hannah sat next to Katy and Sara and Noah sat between me and Daddy. Noah looked all around and found the cars fascinating, he loved everything. Ben and Hannah collected the straws that they threw on the tables and then the gum... They tried to collect all of that too (I intervened). Ben brought cards and all the kids at the end of the table played war together. With going to the beach and not having a nap though, Noah was tired. After he ate a few bites of his dinner, Noah folded his arms together on the table and tucked his head inside and closed his eyes and fell asleep...right on the table! He was out for the night. Poor baby, hopes he sleeps through the night without any problems.

Noah and the yellow car

Kids end of the table

Hannah and Sara

Hannah taking a pic of Ben and Katy

Noah...asleep

Beach...

We went to the beach today with the Ohio cousins. There are a lot of their family members here too so we met a bunch of their other cousins. Ben, Hannah and Noah love their three cousins and couldn't wait to get there to play and swim in the water with them. They went boogie boarding and jumped the waves together. The current kept pulling everyone down the beach so we kept having to backtrack and get back to where our towels and stuff were. Uncle Dennis took Ben to get an ice cream...yum! He loved that as his lunch! We are coming back to the beach tomorrow so I'll probably have more beach pics...

Here they are building and digging in the sand.

Visitors...

We have visitors today! Corey's brother and his family are here from Ohio for a wedding and they came over for dinner tonight and the kids played all evening long. Their cousins are much older than they are but they still had so much fun. They drew pictures and played cards, played hide and seek and other stuff trying to get to know each other better. It was great to see them again, the last time they were here was in 2004! We'll see them a few more times this week so until then!

The six cousins

Vacation...

Daddy is off for the month and we've been doing lots of work around the house. We have lots of unfinished and little projects around the house. We want to get them all finished so that when we decide that we're putting it on the market, we won't have to scramble to clean up the marker mess on the walls, install the already bought cover plates for the light switches and such. We're doing lots of painting too to make it look fresh and new and we're tending to the yard and getting rid of all those weeds! Lots to do around here and having the kids running in the other direction making messes...well, that doesn't help.

Also we are going on vacation on the 10th and we'll be gone for 15 days! I'm sure I'll blog about it along the way because I'll have the computer with us. Ben can't wait to check out volcanoes and see fault lines, Hannah is looking forward to the Jelly Belly factory tour (so are we!) and Noah doesn't know what is going on, he just knows that we'll be camping someday soon! They love camping :) which is good because we love to camp too!