San Francisco

With Wachovia and Wells Fargo still in its merging process, Jake needed to go to San Francisco for business. We were back and forth on the idea of me joining him for a couple days and two weeks ago we decided to go for it. My mom was already coming out, so we changed her flight to come just a couple days earlier to watch the kids. I'm SO glad we did it. It was so much fun!!!

Jake arrived Monday and I flew by myself on Wednesday. I was definitely out of my element without kids. Plus just a carry on bag, no car seats, strollers...security was a breeze. But the airport is never dull for these Herways. Forgotten passports, missed connecting flights, this time...I left my purse in the car with my mom, with no cell phone. Luckily she noticed before she got too far and it all worked out, but I got pretty worked up. Sigh. It was a long journey across the country but I really enjoyed reading and sleeping, and just not having kids.

I spent the first morning alone with Jake in meetings. As I walked along the financial district it was like deja ju. I was taken back 4 1/2 years ago when I used to walk the streets of New York City while Jake was at work. Anyway, I had the best time going to Pier 39, looking at all the shops, and I stood for several minutes in amazement at these sea lions.
I also enjoyed all the free samples I received from Ghirardelli
I lived in San Jose for 6 years when I was little and my dad would take us to San Francisco about once a year. Unfortunately I don't remember much. One thing I do remember is their amazing sourdough bread. I did a tour of the Boudin Bread factory, got some more delicious free samples and watched the process of how it is made.
My dad had meetings in California, not too far from SF and came to join me. If was fun to go to places that I wanted to see, but couldn't without a car. So we did Lombard Street.
And this, I thinks it's called the painted sisters. Anyone recognize it? Brooke? This one's for you, "What ever happened to predictibility...the milkman, the paper boy, evening TV!"
Then we went to Golden Gate Park and enjoyed the beautiful Japanese tea gardens.
This is a classic shot, eh? This is my dad. The professional photographer. San Francisco is one of his all time favorite cities.
Joined my hubby for sunset on Thursday evening.


Friday morning we did the Redwood Forest. A pretty spectacular place. Our necks were a little sore afterwards :)


Met up with Jake's cousin Cindee, who lives in San Francisco. Or at least did...we barely caught her before she moves. We enjoyed a fabulous lunch with her.
Then we took the trolley to Fisherman's Wharf. Fun fun! Although I think my arm almost got chopped off from another passing trolley car :)

We rented bikes to ride across the bridge over to Sausalito. I made all the steep hills without having to get off my bike. I was quite proud of myself. What a great ride!!

Sausalito. Cute little place with a little European feel to it.
Jake is quite uneasy about the idea of their once being the worst criminals out there on the island of Alcatraz.
Friday night he surprised me by taking me to Wicked. We love it more and more every time we see it! An AMAZING production! We have such fun discussions afterward on the meaning of "good"
It was a jam packed 2 days...I'm totally exhausted. It's a good thing my mom is still here to help me with the kids while Jake is at school this week.

Rachel is 4

Rachel's favorite color is pink, and one of her favorite books right now is Pinkalicious. My sister-in-law gave me the idea to do Pinkalicious party. For those who had not read the book it is about a girl who makes pink cupcakes with her mother on a rainy day. She eats them and turns pink, and thinks she's beautiful. Her mother takes her to the doctor, who diagnoses her with pinkitis and tells her she needs to eat a steady diet of green food. She pretends to eat her vegetables that night, then sneaks another cupcake and turns red. She finally gets the courage to eat her greens and returns to her normal beautiful self.We started the party reading the book, and the rest of the party followed the book.We decorated pink cupcakes, ate them...and turned pink!
The girls (Ava, Ellie, Evy, Rian, Claire and Layne) all came dressed in pink.After Pinkalicious turns pink she puts on her princess dress and "twirled in front of the mirror." Being the dancer that I am, I made the girls ribbons and had them "twirl" around the room to songs from "Pinkalicious the Musical" (Yes, it is a musical...I found out last Thursday). I told the girls they were magic wands and they were to make the whole room pink.After playing around out back they came inside to eat a green lunch so they could turn back to normal before they went home. We had pesto pasta, green chips with avocado, green apples, pears, kiwi, green grapes, cucumbers, and broccoli with cilantro dressing.The "brothers" were green with envyIt was a big hit...I think. Rachel sure had a lot of fun!


This is Rachel later that day ready to go outside with fancy shoes, her ballet skirt, and a life jacket. It's just so Rachel.
Saturday was her actual birthday. We had waffles for breakfast and we went to another free fall festival. Sadly I forgot my camera. She got a free pumpkin, bounced on inflatables, played games and did a hayride. It was fun but freezing. It may have been only 55 degrees, but it really was FREEZING.

We came home and when Tommy woke up from his nap she got to open her presents. Was she excited?
Only Rachel would take a break from opening her presents to read a book. (I don't know, maybe other kids do it)

One of her big presents was an art easle with chalkboard, white erase board and paper to paint. It's very fitting for her because she's very into these things right now. She's always doodling on printer paper, post-it notes, my journal, notebooks, programs, anything she can find.
Tommy loves it too and it has already provided hours of entertainment in the few days we've had it.
Cleaning up...too cute!
World's Greatest 4 year old. Last year we took Rachel to Red Robin and had such a great time we decided to do it again this year.
This kid loves balloons. Really, loves balloons. The past couple of days he's either been holding one or looking up because he let go. He even fell asleep Saturday night still holding on to one.

It's true, as we mother's always say, it's hard to believe she's 4. But what's harder for me to believe is that she will be 5 in a year. She misses the cutoff date for Kindergarten by 3 months here in Charlotte, so I consider myself lucky to have her around for a couple more years. She can be a pain sometimes but she's a really fun, very energetic, sweet and sensitive girl.

A Weekend in the Mountains

We just had one of the best weekends ever!! I have been wanting to see our mountains with all the fall colors for a long time. We planned to go see our good friends the Van Brederode's (who moved there in the spring) over Columbus Day weekend. About a week ago I talked to Darcie on the phone and she said the leaves hadn't changed much...so we were pleasantly surprised! It was incredible!!

We arrived Saturday afternoon and went on a hike to a peak that was suppose to have a 360 panoramic view, but it was too foggy and rainy. We enjoyed going out to eat at local southern diner with Rob and Darcie that night and catching up.

Rachel's reunited!Views from the Van Brederode home

Sunday we had gorgeous weather! We took advantage of it by driving around and taking lots of pictures. I also really enjoyed church that was a little "deerfront." We were welcomed so much that they were doing their best to convince us to move here.
We had a full day on Monday. We started off gem mining, which was a lot of fun. Rachel loved searching for the colorful jewels. And the scenery was amazing.


We then went to an apple orchard. It was pretty foggy yesterday so we missed out on the views from the orchard and it started to rain too. We did manage to barely fill two "pecks" of apples.
This was one of my favorite views of the Blue Ridge Parkway. It was just SO much color. WOW!
We were all wet, cold, and hungry. We found Louise's Restaraunt. Don't you just love that name? Chicken pot pie, corn chowder, mashed potatoes, baked apples, barbequed pork, biscuits, and homemade pie. Perfect southern country comfort food! I was more stuffed than a turkey!

This is Linville Falls. We had to purchase rain coats and as soon as we got them on, it stopped. As we totally expected. But it's good we still had them, with all the water that was dripping off the trees. Plus, I thought my "Poncho Princess" was rather cute!
Just beautiful!!! I only took 200 pictures. So I had to put them in a video. It may be a tad long but it was hard to narrow down. It was all too picturesque!

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