San Fran Sans Kids......

I've been whining to go on vacation with Shawn (without kids) for quite awhile now. Seems like my efforts are fruitless. So. When I heard that Shawn would be taking his oral boards in San Francisco, I booked me a ticket too. I figured he could take his test and then we could stay the rest of the week and explore the city. He was all game. It wasn't until a month before the trip that I discovered it was also the week of the Annual Anesthesia Convention. Which he needed to attend for Continuing Education Credit. Boo. A working trip. I admit. I was irritated at first. But. Then I realized something. I'd still be in a glorious city. Without kids. With Shawn. My irritation abated. (Did I mention I wasn't taking kids?!)

Kate flew in to take care of my babies. All 5 of them. (Which she rocked the motherhood role by the way) Shawn flew out Friday, took his test Saturday. I flew in Sunday. He met me at the airport and we caught the free shuttle back to our hotel. There was one flaw in this trip. And it was kind of major. The hotel where the convention was taking place (and where we were staying for close proximity to said convention) was 30 minutes away from the actual part of San Francisco that we wanted to be enjoying. I'm sure San Mateo is fabulous......if you have access to a vehicle. Which we didn't. We learned how to work the cities transportation system quite efficiently. But it took serious planning and time to get where we wanted to go.

Day 1: After we dropped my luggage at the hotel, we caught the free shuttle back to the airport. (It only leaves on the hour every hour. Time constraint) 20 minute ride to the airport where we hopped on Bart. The Subway system.

Thank goodness for Bart. Or we'd still be wondering what San Francisco actually looked like. 45 minutes on Bart dropped us at a mall right in the heart of the shopping district. Lovely. This particular day it was pouring rain. We weren't sure what we'd be able to do and see. If anything. We grabbed lunch (nothing special because we were starving!), and then walked around inside until we couldn't take it anymore. (20 minutes) Outside we discovered it wasn't raining all that bad. Drizzle never hurt anyone. We headed in the direction of Pier 39. We passed up all opportunities to hop on the trolley and decided to use our legs. There are some serious hills in this city! But. We didn't think we could see all that we wanted by riding. It took a lot of walking to get to our destination. What a great city to walk in. So much character.

We walked to the ends of one pier, and noticed the seals across the way. We wandered over to where they were and watched them for awhile. All the while it was sprinkling rain. Best. Day. Ever. My main squeeze and no obligation to be anywhere or doing anything. Just exploring. Awesome. And extremely rare.

We started to get hungry and the restaurant "Players" smelled good to Shawn. So he said. Come to find out with a HDTV at every table or in every corner playing the game he was hoping to catch smelled better to him than the food. No objection from me. They had clam chowder in a bread bowl. And I didn't have to help anyone else eat. Just myself. (Am I a little too excited to be away from my kids?)




Sadly, we had to start heading back at this point. It was nearing 7 o'clock and we had to catch the last shuttle back to our hotel at 9:15. And it would take that long to make it there. We hopped on the trolley for our return trip.

We made it back in time for the last shuttle. Barely.

Day 2: Alcatraz

We were going to Alcatraz with the anesthesia group at 3. So. I slept in. Spent time in the hotel's gym. And read my book. I was all done doing all those things by 11 when Shawn finished. Remember the location issue? It was also a food issue. The only place near the hotel was 7-11. With hot dogs. Pretty pathetic. Or. We could spend 10 bucks on a sandwich made in the hotel lobby. Sad. Especially when food is one of my main reasons for travel! We ended up walking to explore and wandered around for 2 hours. It was fun to see the local neighborhood.

Because we were traveling with the conference, we all rode on a bus to the Alcatraz departure boat. Nice. Otherwise we would have had to have left at 11 just to make it to the departure dock.

Alcatraz is an island off San Francisco that housed criminals for a number of years. "If you were trouble, you were sent to prison. If you were trouble in prison, you were sent to Alcatraz."

It was interesting to hear the evolution of Alcatraz Island, and all the stories that went along with the history.

We were there for a few hours. When it started to get dark Shawn snuck outside to watch the sun set over the Golden Gate Bridge. By the time he found me I had missed the best part. But was still able to enjoy the view of the city.

We headed back to our hotel on the bus, without having a chance to grab dinner. We couldn't stomach 7-11 hot dogs twice in one day, so decided to take a cab to a Vietnamese restaurant close to our hotel. Not close enough to walk at 8 pm, but not an hour away. We enjoyed dinner, and headed to bed.

Day 3:

Shawn was booked with meetings all day, so I decided to venture downtown all by myself to enjoy all the H&M's and Gaps I'd seen while wandering earlier in the week. Turns out some friends from medical school were there for a different medical conference. Alana and Brett invited me to lunch this very day. Sushi. Yum.

During lunch Shawn called to say he finished early. Like 8 hours early. So. I changed my shopping plans and we explored China Town that afternoon.

The commercial China Town was just that. Commercial. Two hours down a street full of vendors trying to cater to Americans. The best part of China Town was our return trip down another street. The one where Chinese were catering to the Chinese that actually live in China Town. The culture was awesome to witness.

I seem to have lost whatever it was we did the rest of that night. I'm sure we ate somewhere, at some point. I know we made it back to BART and in time for the last hotel shuttle. Hmmm. I'm pretty sure I was tired that night.

Day 4:

Our last day to explore. I know we were both tired by this day. Shawn had been trying to soak in all things anesthesia while also trying to enjoy the city life. I was trying to do everything I can't normally do with kids. Tired. We heard about a McDonald's 2 miles from our hotel that we thought would be worth the hike for lunch. Only because it sounded better than 7-11. (sad that those were our best options) We enjoyed the walk, however. Perfect weather, perfect company. We noticed some duplexes for sale while on our adventure. Small 2 bedroom, 1 bath places that cost more than our entire home in the Midwest. How do people afford to live in this city?! After lunch? Nap time. Glorious. Then. I wanted to shop. To shop at those places I missed the day before by changing my plans. So. 2 hours later we were finally in those lovely places. After a few hours we ate in a restaurant called "Mortons" which had rave reviews. Superior Service. Fancy Schmancy. But. The food? Mediocre at best. (remember we had been eating at 7-11 so this can be regarded as a serious assessment) While eating and looking around at other tables, we decided Mortons ploy was to get all their customers liquored up and then serve them food. Since we don't drink, their ploy failed. We didn't regret eating there, because now we can say we did. And won't again unless it's on someone else's tab.

I didn't want to leave this city without seeing Ghirardelli square for myself. And Shawn has never had one of their hot fudge sundaes. We took a trolley car to get us closer, then walked the rest of the way. I indoctrinated Shawn to the world of Ghirardelli. He was an instant fan.

After all our indulging of the stomach, we decided to enlighten our minds by viewing the art galleries. Unfortunately, we got trapped in one for at least an hour by an art vendor that was determined to decorate our entire home from his particular gallery. No dice. But we did enjoy the art. We trolleyed our way back to Bart, barted our way back to the airport, and then had to pay for a taxi. We missed the last hotel shuttle. And it was worth it.

Day 5:

Home. Early to the airport (which has zero food selection). Then home by 9. Kate was excited to see us. Kids were already in bed ready to awake early to don Halloween costumes for their school parties.

We had such a great time. It's trips like those that remind me how much I enjoy Shawn and spending time with him without all the competition. Thanks Kate. Couldn't have done it without you.

**Girls (you know who you are) if we ever decide to do a trip to San Fran, we are staying downtown and eating our way through the city. I know I can count on you to find some seriously good eats! That was my only disappointment this trip. Food. You girls have obviously taught me well!**

Archive retrieval....

My title is simply because everything I'm about to blog about happened waaaaay back in October. Before Halloween even. Yes. I've turned into a sporadic blogger. I no longer think in blog. Sad. But. It also means I'm fulfilled in other ways lately. Which isn't a bad thing. For my journaling, yes. But not for life in general. Moving on....

My little sister (only now she's grown up and married) came to visit. She is known as Aunt Kate in these parts. And boy is she loved. We only had one day together before I was flying off to meet Shawn in San Francisco (another post). I wanted to make the best of it. We started out the morning by attending the local Universities homecoming parade. We parked for a quick get-a-way and arrived just in time to start collecting candy.

After the parade we headed a few miles out of town. We stopped at Burger King for lunch, then headed to a pumpkin patch/corn maze. It turned out to be on the pricey side, but when you've been driving for awhile, you just do it anyway. There were quite a few activities for the kids to enjoy. This little "ride" pulled by a tractor was mostly enjoyed by the 3 little ones

while Ethan and Kennedy tried out the zip-line.

All the kids enjoyed the "corn box". A giant sandbox full of corn kernels. Burying each other is apparently fun stuff.

Jumping off hay bales proved to be exciting. You can actually see what the sky was starting to look like at this point. A little bit on the scary side. It was warm outside. When the sky looks like that and it's warm it's prime for a tornado. Or a really nasty thunderstorm.

Regardless, we kept playing. We attempted the corn maze, only to lose Landon and scramble out really quick to find him. Once we were all gathered, we decided to rest on a tractor pulled hayride.

I learned something 5 minutes in. When the sky looks like it did, don't position you and your small children in a situation that "traps" you in one location. Without covering. Exactly 30 seconds after I snapped the above pictures, the sky opened up. Torrential downpour. Like nothing I've ever seen before. Well. By seen I mean been outside in. The tractor took a detour through the corn maze and deposited us at the entrance where we'd parked our stroller. Kate ran ahead with the boys while I held Presley. Kennedy's job was to push the stroller. The wind was blowing so hard this wasn't an easy task. And the rain. It felt like hail. It was coming hard and fast. And it hurt. We finally made it to the car and scrambled inside. I started to laugh. Looking at my wet little monkeys, and looking myself like I'd jumped in the shower with my clothes on, I couldn't help it. We kind of sat for a few minutes not knowing what to do. Then it stopped raining as quickly as it started and the sun was shining like nothing ever happened. Only. We were way too wet to venture back out and enjoy ourselves. Kate volunteered to go back to the entrance and see about getting us a refund. Which she did. She used her sweet little charm and they refunded every single penny. Best of both worlds. We played for a little over an hour.........for free. Perfect day. Even if we did look like drowned rats.

Halloweenies.....

Halloween fell on a Sunday this year. My kids were ticked. However. Trick-or-treating on the town square Friday, coupled with the ward trunk-or-treat Saturday provided them with enough loot that all whining ceased. (At least in regards to candy retrieval).

Ethan was a guy getting a piggy back ride.

Kennedy was a dead bride. (or something like that)

Jack was Luigi.

Landon was Iron Man 2 Mark IV. (not to be confused with just plain Iron Man. Duh.)

Presley was a bumblebee. That looked more like a ballerina in black and yellow. Call me lazy.

Presley was touched up with a wig owned by one of the Young women in our ward. Adorable.

I am now done with this obligatory post that has me stumped as to what else to say.

Metal Coverings....

Ethan is sporting a new smile as of yesterday. Metal will be added piece by piece until all of his teeth are eventually covered. Doesn't he look so grown up?

Second Chances....

Remember last year about this time? Probably not. But I won't ever forget. I vowed after that day that I would redeem myself one day. Only. Winter hit and I vowed I would never run another half marathon again in this lifetime. Every time I ran with my girls they'd talk about training for one. I'd completely ignore the conversation. I ran a 10k in March with them and renewed my feelings of complete devotion to the 10k. I love them. Summer hit and I started training with a personal trainer. My running severely suffered because I was sore and exhausted all the time. But I still managed 3 or 4 miles a few days a week. My trainer moved, summer ended, and I somehow was convinced to run 7 miles with a few of my girls. One girl (Michelle) that particular day needed to run 8 because she was training for a half. Guess what? After 7 miles I felt good. Good enough that I went the 8 distance. It was that day that I decided it was time. Time to redeem myself. And to prove to myself that distance isn't my mortal enemy. So I did it. I signed up for the Waddell & Reed Half Marathon slated for October 16th. This was early September that I decided. The race? Today. This morning. Some of my girls got the bug too, so Jennie, Sarah, Michelle, and I headed down yesterday afternoon. We shopped our way to our hotel, then headed over to the race expo to pick up our packets. We were a giant bundle of nervous energy. So was the feeling of the entire expo. Glorious.

We were starving after the expo so we headed to Noodles & Company to load up on carbs. No pictures taken because by the time we got there I was starving and inhaled my food too fast to even think about photo ops. Back to our hotel and all ready for bed by----8:45. We couldn't believe how early we were ready to settle down. Of course, we chatted until 10:30 or so. But. We were actually in bed. Fabulous.

5 AM came pretty early. Because it is just that. Early. Nerves. What to wear? Long sleeves? Jacket over short sleeves? Too hot? Too cold? We questioned every move we made and everything we put on our bodies. We opted for short sleeves and shorts because it was 55 degrees out. Exactly what weather we'd been training in. Perfect running temperature.

We drove to the race start, parked our car, then waited. And waited. For 1 hour. With 2 bathroom stops to kill time. Nervous bladder. Gets me every time. We lined up at 7:15 with 11,000 other runners. Amazing feeling to be surrounded by so many people. Excitement was abundant for sure.

The race was hard. We knew there was a nasty steep, long hill at mile 3. We were mentally prepared for that one. It was the other one at mile 4.5 that I didn't know about that caused a little bit of psychological warfare on my mental status. And then when I read that the last 3 miles would be completely downhill, but they weren't, I was almost spent. The wall at mile 8.5 was hard to push through. And then mile 12. My brother Ben recommended a song once that he used to run to that helped him push through tough spots. That song started to play. I started to cry. Ben was recently diagnosed with ALS (Lou Gehrig's Disease). Running isn't in his future. And it hit me at that moment. Hard. But then I couldn't breathe. So. I tried to calm myself down. But I had to slow down to do it. I honestly didn't know if I could make it the last mile. I also knew that I was too close to stop. So I pushed through. And I finished. 10 minutes faster than that dreadful last years race. I was tired. Shaky. And actually dizzy enough I thought I was going to pass out. We grabbed some water and made it inside the Crown Center where we laid down for a bit. Something we knew we shouldn't do for fear of seizing muscles. But had to do to avoid passing out.

Once we felt good enough we headed back outside to enjoy the sunshine. And of course document our accomplishments.

Then we headed back to our hotel to shower, get dressed, check out, and head to the cheesecake factory for lunch. But stopped for a photo op on our way out.

I've officially re-affirmed my feelings that I'm a 10k girl at heart. My body loves them. My mind loves them. I'll be rocking some of those out this next year for sure. As for Half Marathons? Right now I say I will never again participate. But. Sometimes words are just that. Words.

Running Girls. You. Are. Awesome. You make getting up at 5:30 to train for races enjoyable. Thanks for letting me be the one graced with your early morning presence, and the joy of finishing something we worked so hard for together.

The Picasso Period....

Sunday was one of those glorious stayinyourpajamasalldayandeatcinnamonrolls type of days. Because it was General Conference so church was on TV, it was easy to do. At noon, Presley went down for a nap. She kept chatting in there. I'd hear her every 15 minutes or so. This went on for close to 2 hours. But. She exhausts me and I needed the break. She wasn't crying or anything, so I let her be. She started to scream and cry after 2 hours, at which point Shawn went to get her. She'd served her time. After opening her bedroom door, Shawn says "Jayne. You need to get in here please. Now." As calm as usual. Only he never commands me to do anything now unless it's urgent. That's his panic word. Funny. I know. Unless he says it. Upon entering Presley's bedroom, this is what he found:

What the?! Her crib is behind her, you just can't see it. How she ended up managing to get into the drawer, I'll never know. How the dresser managed to stay upright and not tip (which would have crushed her chest, or head, or both) was a blessing. You think that's all for little miss mischief? Wrong. That was just her grand finale. The dresser was once full of "you can't touch these things" kind of things like markers and nail polish. Notice how it's empty in the above photo? She'd already used said items and had abandoned them to climb into the drawer. She used them on things like this:

And this:

And don't forget this:

These pictures don't even do her masterpiece justice. She had covered her shirt and pants as well. And her blankets. And the actual dresser itself. And pretty much anything else in her cribs radius. Did I mention the purple marker was permanent? It was. Thank goodness for Mr. Clean Magic Eraser. We did some serious bonding that day. So much for the sanctity of nap time. Good thing she's so cute or she'd be on the doorstep with a FOR FREE sign around her neck.

Family Time...

Two weeks ago Shawn checked into a hotel for an entire week. Only an hour away from us. He has his oral anesthesia boards coming up and has been seriously neglecting the books. The week gave him time to see "where he was at" and gave himself a jump start into diving in before the big test. It also gave me and the kids an excuse to meet him for dinner in the city. We chose Fritz's. Definitely for the novelty. The food wasn't anything to write home about.

The restaurant has a train theme. After you order by phone, a small train runs on a track above your head, places your food on a conveyor that runs down to deposit it on your table. Pretty cool for kids. And they thought it tasted better than anything they've ever eaten. I beg to differ. But the experience made it worth it. Because the weather was unbelievably gorgeous, we took the opportunity to run around outside for a bit afterwards. Too cold to play in the splash fountains, but perfect for running near them. And wearing out their little bodies.

Unfortunately, the pictures I have don't actually depict very much movement, unless you count thumbs hitting buttons as exercise. But I promise. Those kids ran. And ran. And we made it home just in time to get to bed.

Because this post seems pretty lame to me, I'm adding a picture of a recent activity between Jack and Landon. Jack likes to carry Landon around like this. And Landon actually encourages it. Crazy kids. But pretty creative if you ask me.