Quick Trip

Not only have we managed to have one or more members of our family away on a trip, short or long, every weekend since the beginning of the year, but our lives have been crazy and between those little jaunts. So naturally we decided to go on another quick trip. Saturday night Scott and I went up to Park City. I am in the process of buying a music store and we had a lot of things to talk about which we never have time to talk about it home so it was a really nice getaway. I can't even remember if we did anything except a lot of talking.

The next day we went home for church and a Sleeping Beauty matinee and all the responsibilities that come with Sunday. Trajan and Micaela and Coco and bill went to the Sleeping Beauty performance with me, as well as Ruby and Araceli.  After Sleeping Beauty Scott met me in Salt Lake. Ruby drive Freestone and Araceli home while Scott and I took the little kids to price. Ptolemy and Tziporah were the only ones who wanted to go. Ruby is so funny. A week ago she was SO tired and I said, "Ruby, you can rest when there's a school holiday." She looked up at me with a smirk and said in a mocking voice, "Hey kids it's a school holiday! We're leaving for great basin national park at 2 a.m.!" Touche. We let the big kids stay home and relax.

We loved having only two kids! Family of four! Easy! We stayed at the Holiday Inn Express in Price which is an hour and a half or two away from Salt Lake. We swam, we got in the hot tub, we went to Dairy Queen and got blizzards. It was a rip-roaring time in Price, Carbon County Utah.

The next day was Martin Luther King jr. Day and we made our way to Canyonlands National Park. Our goal was some short hikes with some scenic landscapes. We chose Mesa Arch and a couple of other short hikes. Did you know the national parks are free on federal holidays? Yeah, you just drive right in.

Puddles, stacking rocks and being generally enthused.

With apologies to dancers everywhere, this is Scott's arabesque.

Tziporah's cairn. We looked for fairies in all the crevasses. For a good while, we just relaxed on the edge of this massive drop off. OK, it may not have been the most relaxing venue in the world but as long as you don't fall to your death it's pretty chill. There were lots of holes in the rocks where fairies may have lived. I think we saw some. We can't be sure. It was pretty great having only two kids who are both in basically the same phase. We didn't have any bored teenagers rolling their eyes and wondering when we were going to go on to the next thing. We just slowed down and lived in the moment. It is such a good feeling to be out there seeing new vistas.

Funny story. Driving home we stopped at a Burger King in Green River. It was one of those restaurants attached to a gas station. The guy that took our order was less than friendly. I was probably preoccupied with wondering why he was so sad or why he didn't like friendly little me, and I left my purse on a table at Burger King. There were some crazy vibes in that burger king. I didn't realize it at the time but I did realize once we got on the road that I had left my diet coke back at Burger King. I thought to myself "I'm not going to tell Scott about this. That's so annoying that I did that. I just wasted a dollar and now I don't have a Diet Coke to drink." I didn't have any phone service for the next couple of hours but when we got back to Price I listen to my messages. There was one from the woman that works at the gas station adjacent to Burger King and she informed me that I had left my wallet. For hell sakes! Turns out that the guy that works at Burger King found my purse and being the nice guy that he did not appear to be on the surface, he took the purse to the woman that works at the gas station so she could go through it and find my ID. She promised to mail my purse back to me the next day.
Incidentally, the reason we stopped in Price on the way home was to pick up Ptolemy's Kindle that he left in the hotel. We cannot be trusted! Something weird was going on on this trip. Maybe it's the fact that I am trying to buy this music store and there are so many things going on at home that we're just completely unfocused. Ptolemy ran into the hotel to retrieve the Kindle and came back out saying, "I need Mom's ID." Scott and I just laughed. My ID was in my wallet two hours back in Green River. Who are we?! We did get home in one piece and my purse arrived two days later, complete with the popcorn I was eating and the newspaper I was reading and had set down next to the purse. I sent the nice woman a thank you note and a "finder's fee." I love the expression "Live by what you know, not by what you fear." I know that people are basically good. I don't live in fear because I know through experience that there are a lot of good people out there. I could be wrong, but I have certainly encountered some good people.

Last Day in San Francisco

Our flight home wasn't until 9 p.m. on Tuesday night so we had the whole day. I got up early and walked through Chinatown. There were some places I wanted to see. I went back after everyone was up and took them to a temple. The owners were curt to say the least. At first they told us it wasn't open yet to then we came back. The temple was half Shrine half storage room. Very interesting place. After we looked around for a few minutes we appeared to be standing in the way of the guy who was dragging a table across the shrine slash storage room. He said, "Okay that enough bye bye!" These people are not shy!
Earlier I had been standing on the street looking up at the temple. A Chinese American woman walked right up to me and demanded "What you want?" I said I wasn't sure if I could go in the temple and she shoved me. She said, "You go! Go in!"

I love the energy of this neighborhood.

And in the top 10 free things to do with kids in San Francisco is the cable car museum. It was actually really interesting.

At this point we separated and Araceli went shopping around Union Square with cocoa and Bill. I took the three other kids with me to the Contemporary Jewish Museum where they have a kid area. The kids were highly involved in building in creating with blocks and a giant Lite-Brite for a while. Unfortunately the exhibits were not my favorite so we moved on.

I took them to the Museum of Modern Art. SF MoMA. My plan was to just let the kids go in by themselves and look around for a little bit because they could get in free but my ticket would have cost $25. We didn't have a ton of time so I didn't want to pay that. Especially when I was with kids that I didn't know how long they could appreciate Modern Art. I told the lady at the ticket counter that I just wanted 3 student tickets and that I wouldn't go in because I was too poor, har har. She slyly held up four tickets instead of three and put her finger to her lips. She really made my day. I was so grateful for that free ticket and so grateful for her generous heart. It doesn't take much to make someone really happy and to make the world around you a better place with your positive vibes.

Even the bathroom struck me as art. I have to say I love modern art. I love how it makes you feel uncomfortable or inspired or how it makes you think of things in a different way or see things in a different way. I convinced Frank to go look around by himself and I walked around with the two little kids. I was so pleased that they were so interested in the art. I think we saw everything in the whole place and stayed longer than we had planned.

On our walk back through Chinatown we happened upon the Golden Gate Bakery when it was open which according to Legend is not an easy thing to do. We rushed in and bought eight or nine of the famous egg custards. They were warm and delicious. Worth the wait and worthy of the hype.

I was genuinely sad to leave San Francisco. I don't think I've ever enjoyed it quite so much as I did on this trip and I think it was just because we were in Chinatown during their magical time of year, thinking of Golda, and watching the reactions of four of our cute little kids including Frank. It was nice to see him get some good Chinese food. And it was fun to see Araceli back in her favorite city in the whole world. My parents were in good health and strong and fun to be around. It was a great 4 days with beautiful weather and wonderful people. I love traveling with my people. There's nothing better.

Muir Woods and Mill Valley

Ptolemy was musing, "Why does this taste so yucky?" He actually likes the bubble tea that doesn't have any tea in it. Oops.

Bill rented a car and off we went. First stop was Golden Gate Park. The Japanese tea garden is free if you get there between 9 and 10 o'clock in the morning so of course that was our goal. It was a nice cool morning to wander through the garden. Then we drove over to the Presidio so we could admire the Golden Gate Bridge from that vantage point. Again, a beautiful day. We took some time to drive around the ritzy neighborhoods and choose which house would be ours in our dreams.

This is Xanthe jumping for joy at Stinson Beach. I told the kids the story about how Scott and I did not get engaged at Stinson Beach. Good story huh. It's okay. I already had our wedding planned at that point anyway. Scott just didn't know it

The pictures here are slightly out of order. This one is hilarious. It's one of my apps that does funny things. It's called airbrush. It puts makeup on you and I think my dad looks glamorous as a drag queen.

So these pictures are from House of Nanking. This was when Xanthi was really worried about the food arriving.

And back to the day that I was talking about. Japanese tea garden. Frank said there are bigger Tea Gardens in China and he didn't know why this one was considered Japanese. I'm not sure what he was getting at but he said it was really small. Hahaha

This exhibit was closed during. I don't think Frank Stella would have been worth the admission price of over $100 for us anyway.

Xanthe and Araceli were great friends on this trip. They often went out and wandered around alone shopping and had fun together.

The Legion of Honor was also closed which was fine because we didn't want to spend the day at a museum when we had the car. This WWII Holocaust installation was outside and I thought it was really moving.

Driving across the Golden Gate Bridge was exciting for the kids. We stopped on the other side and took more pictures and admired the view from that vantage point. San Francisco is so beautiful from across the bay.

This guy was so cute with the kids. I'm not sure if it was his official job to pose people but he really did act like it was his calling in life to help people pose as if they were holding up the Golden Gate Bridge. And it worked! His pictures turned out really good.

Araceli and Frank acting like siblings. Frank got pretty teasy on this trip. He's never had siblings, and he's starting to catch onto the banter. One more sib to drive Celi nuts!

Sans makeup

This was a trendy little restaurant with Asian street food in Mill Valley. Good food.

My national parks pass sob story didn't work at Muir Woods so Bill had to buy his third lifetime Golden Eagle Pass. They're only $10 so it's worth it and it got us all in. He's going to keep this one in his wallet instead of on his desk at the office so it can actually come in handy.

It's pretty incredible to walk through the tall trees in the Muir Woods National Park. I love these protected lands. I love them so much. This is the view from the car driving back to the Golden Gate Bridge from Stinson Beach and the Muir Woods.

What do you expect? The bubble tea place was right downstairs from our hotel. Can you blame us for over indulging? The owners were really nice. And also, they had a special with fish and chips and bubble tea for 7 Bucks. You can't beat that than the kids love it as long as you tell them the fish is chicken. ;)