San Francisco!

We had the priveledge of traveling to the skinny pants capital this past week!  I love this city and the surrounding towns, minus the possible earthquakes.  This is my 5th visit out there, and I still have not seen everything.  I could totally live in either Napa or Sonoma if I could convince Lyndon to move there and if I was not concerned about falling off into the ocean.  But, otherwise, I would go in a heartbeat.  Oh, and I guess we would have to have A LOT of money seeing that it boast one the othe most expensive areas in the U.S. to buy real estate. In the meantime, it is a great place to visit! Here are some pics for you to enjoy!

We had to take a trolley ride!

It is difficult to see in the picture, but our hotel is the one with The Palace on the top. It is the oldest hotel in San Francisco. It is really a beautiful hotel and right in the middle of the city!

Pier 39

Napa!

This was our first stop.  We did a tour and tasting at this place!  They make yummy champagne!

Our second stop, Rubicon winery! This winery is owned by the Coppola family as in Francis Ford-Coppola!

This tree was on the property.  It has both oranges and lemons, on the same branch.  I have never seen anything like it!

We at lunch at this amazing winery! The building was old but very beautiful!

Our third stop was the Robert Mondavi winery, the oldest winery in California!

This is a statue of St. Francis, the patron saint of nature and animals...and wine?

Mondavi wine barrels!

Our last stop was the Beringer winery!

This house was built by the original Beringer proprietor.  It is gorgeous, and they use it now for wine tastings!

These bottles date back to the 1940's!

Beringer winery had tunnels that were used to store wine back in the day.  They still use them for storage and for tastings and parties!

We also took a day trip to Sausalito!  It had great shopping and beautiful houses...very expensive houses!

A little rock art in Sausalito!  They had some great art galleries one of which had some original art by Dr. Seuss!

Just one of the examples of some of the fun things one can see in San Francisco!

Alcatrez

Something that I found interesting and never knew about Alcatrez is that there were several families that lived on the tiny island.  There were schools, and stores and a small post office.  I guess I thought that the guards and staff simply lived in the city and only worked here.  They said that they never felt unsafe or even locked their doors.  I am not sure I would be ok with my children inhabiting a tiny island with a man named "Machine Gun" Kelly...

This man was an inmate at Alcatrez for several years.  He was there to talk about his experience which was very interesting.  He was one of only six inmates that was actually released from Alcatrez!  The others either died at Alcatrez or were taken to other facilities when they finished their time there.

Solitary confinement...very creepy. 

The cells are tiny, but the inmates seemed to use what space they had to make it their own. 

This is a very small window in one of the halls that looks out over San Francisco. 

This is another view of the city from the prison.  This is basically what the inmates saw when they got a glimpse outside parts of the prison.  It is just a mile away but very out of reach.  There were several escape attempts because I am sure a mile swim seems attainable, but that water is miserably cold and rough. 

I will leave you with this picture.  This is just one of the houses that I would be happy to live in if we lived in Napa, had a lot of money and did not mind living in walking distance from one of the oldest wineries in California!

Important phone calls!

I am not sure who he was talking to, but haven't we all been here before?? Here's to midnight phone calls and not wanting to let go!

More outside fun!

This past week, we have worked very hard to spend as much time outside as possible!  I actually really don't mind yard work.  I whine about it, but secretly, I love to mow and trim hedges.  I also get a little too excited about mulch.  I have been begging Lyndon for a couple of weeks now to help me get mulch to the house.  So, we took a trip to Lowe's.  I am pretty sure he hated me on this particular day...

...but the end result made me very happy! 

One of the reasons we picked this house was because of the yard. The people who lived here before us spent a lot of time (and money) on the landscaping.  They have beautiful flowers that miraculously keep appearing every spring with no help from me.  We have also had a ridiculous amount of rain in the last few weeks, and while I HATE being stuck in the house, I can't complain about the beautiful green grass!

We have also had a lot of wind which prompted my very sweet neighbor to get kites for the boys!

Thank you Miss Liz and G and S for the fun gifts!

The boys also started their new swim classes this week.  We are almost ready for Nana and Papa's pool!

Meals...

Ok, I am going to have to come up with something else for meal posts!  The Saturday thing is not working for me seeing that I am always late with them.  SO, I think I will have to start posting on Monday for the week ahead. I am not sure if anyone is still looking at the meals, but I hope that this is not inconvenient.  With Logan doing his games on Saturday and the promise of nicer weather outside, sitting at the computer on Saturday has been challenging. With that said, I am posting the next two weeks because we are going to be out of town the later part of this week and early part of next week.  Happy meal planning!

April 2-17
2) Stuffed pasta shells with a green salad and rolls
3) Chicken pot pie and raw veggies
4) Waffles and eggs
5) Pulled chicken sandwiches
6) Chinese almond chicken
7) Red beans and rice and avacado salad
8) leftovers
9) Fettuccine Rustica and asparagus
10) Baked salmon with mashed potatoes and green beans
11) Greek ragout and rolls
12) Paninis
13) Stuffed peppers with fresh fruit
14) Homemade sloppy joes
15) leftovers
16) Shepard's Pie with rolls
17) Three Cheese pasta with chicken and broccoli

My go at art!

I joined some friends tonight for a lesson in painting at a really cute place called Cajun Canvas!  I was expecting that I would be terrible seeing that I really cannot paint, but I wanted to try and see what I would come out with.  Plus, it was a nice break from the this insane week! So, here are the pics from my go at art. Please try and keep the laughing to a minimum!

The background which I was excited turned out well.  I was feeling pretty good about it at this point!

My friends who did a much better job!

These are branches in case you thought it was hair...the instructor called them "swoopie" and suggested large flowers to go with the large branches.  She was very kind about it...I am sure she went to the other room and laughed.

Hard at work! That is baby G.  He is precious!

So, the end product still did not turn out as good as I wanted.  I managed to do the large flowers, but I had a hard time shaping them correctly.  I finally got the hang of it on the last two smaller flowers.  I plan to tell everyone that I was going for a tropical theme all along...

Do you see the cute, SMALL flowers and branches on my friends' paintings?? Yep, that was the intention. My dad can paint and a great aunt on my mom's side can paint.  That means someone on both sides of my family has real talent when it comes to this stuff, and I somehow missed that gene! I will say that it was a lot of fun, and I will give it a go again sometime! For now, I think I will stick with paper and glue!

The intention of indoor camping and meals!

This past week, we experimented a bit with the sleeping situation for the boys.  We have had a big problem with Logan sweating at night to the point that we are having to change his shirt and pillow case before Lyndon and I head to bed.  He has been sleeping on the top bunk, and we were making every effort to keep the room cool for him and comfortable for Bubba who sleeps with two blankets and still has ice cubes for feet in the morning. We suggested to the boys that they switch beds and let Logan sleep on the bottom.  They weren't on board with that, so we dismantled the bunks and they now have separate beds.  It is working great, and we have not had a sweating issue at all!  At any rate, the top bunk, once dismantled, created this really fun fort area under it.  It is too small for the boys to sit up under, but we found another way to make use of it! Bring in indoor camping and movie night!

A little snack for the movie! More on this in a bit.

Daddy created the tent! He obviously does not fit in it very well!

We brought up our portable DVD player and watched Despicable Me, very cute movie!  The intention was that the boys would sleep on the sleeping bags for the night, but Bubba gagged on a piece of popcorn (the healthiest part of the treat) and puked a little leaving a slight smell that I was not comfortable sleeping in. But, we did have a good time watching the movie and spending time together! Maybe next time, we will try sleeping there...or at least let the boys try it!

Meals for the week of March 26-April 1

26) Incognito Burritos with Mexican rice

27) Beef Bourguinon with potatoes and strawberry salad

28) Mini cheddar potatoes with fresh veggies

29) Tomato soup and grilled cheese

30) Italian Beef polenta with broccoli

31) Angel hair pasta spaghetti and asparagus

April 1) out to eat/leftovers

Have a great week!