san francisco

Our big trip this summer was driving as a family to San Francisco to visit Cale and Hailey. Despite my trepidation on taking a 12 hour car trip with the kids, it actually was quite pleasant, probably due to the fact that Josh's parents took Luke in their car with them, and Ava was sick, so she just rode mellowly along, with a diaper change needed almost every hour. Some stomach bug, I guess, but pleasant driving. So twelve hours, and six outfits (Ava again) later, we arrived. I cannot even begin to tell all the fun things we did, saw the city, redwood forest, coast, swimming in the pool at the condo where we stayed, catching up with old friends. It was lovely. Here is the whole family at the coast. Despite my aversion to cold wind, it was actually quite pleasant weather-wise, and extremely beautiful and mysterious what with the fog and the water and the dark rocks.

This here is Josh's favorite picture of the kids. They found a few treasures and loved running in the sand. Notice Ava like a little hermit crab off at the back left side. This was how most of her vacation was, due to not feeling well, poor thing. Just taking a back seat and enjoying from afar. She (along with us all) really enjoyed Golden Gate Park. there was this really cool carousel that the kids could ride for 50 cents. It was refreshing for once to not be charged an arm and a leg for entertainment for the kids. Way to go Golden Gate!
At the kids playground part of the park, there was this amazing slide for the kids to ride down on a piece of cardboard. Look at that cavegirl go!

And here we all are at the end of the day, Josh, his brother Nick, his dad and mom, Cale and hailey in the front with their little Kira in the pink, and me holding Ava-Luke ann Ally in the middle. The drive home was not quite as fun as the drive there, but then again, we had all the ruffians then and Ava was back in full swing. We made it though, and can;t wait to go back.