Ca-li-for-ni-A!

At the end of May we left on a ten day vacation with my sister Sarah, her husband Bob, and their two kids. They had invited us to go to San Francisco, and to stay with Bob's parents in Santa Rosa (about an hour from SF).

On the way there (a grueling 13-hour drive) we stopped in Elko, NV at one of the coolest playgrounds ever. But did I take any pictures of it? Noooooooooo. You can kind of see it in the background of these two shots, though.

Annalee taking a drink break.
Paisley moving in for her close-up.
The playground was a miniature village--it was so cool! Annalee was a little too little to appreciate it, but Paisley had fun, and Calvin was unstoppable. (Sorry, no picture of Calvin here.)

When we got to Bob's parents' house, Denise and George were so welcoming and kind, treating us just like their kids, and treating Annalee like a long-lost granddaughter. We were given our own room, and it already had a pack-n-play made up in it. Denise had even dug out her vintage high chair that she had used as a child so that Annalee would have something to use! I was just amazed at their hospitality. Denise didn't even mind that I was using cloth diapers, having to use her washer and dryer every night. She just told me about her cloth diapering days! As you can see, I can't say enough about George and Denise. Unfortunately, I don't have any pictures of them at all! (I took 132 pictures, but not one was of them!)

They live in a very nice neighborhood, right by a state park that has a lake and a walking trail. The first morning (Saturday) Sarah and I went down there with the kids to play. Sarah took Paisley in her super-duper backpack and I took Annalee in an umbrella stroller while Calvin ran around, gleefully. The rest of that day we pretty much relaxed and recovered from the trip. That night, after the kids were in bed, the six adults stayed up to play a game of Killer Hearts. Never heard of it? It is the most ruthless, cutthroat game you will ever play. It is played almost like regular Hearts, but you play with two decks. The catch is that doubles of the same card cancel each other out. So imagine: Bob plays a 3 of spades, Sarah plays a 10 of spades, Sandi plays a club (she is out of spades), Nathan plays a 10 of spades (the double), Denise only has the queen of spades and has to play it, and George follows up with the double of the queen. Who took the trick? Bob did, with his 3! That because the 10s and the queens were canceled out. Still, Bob ends up with 26 points (points are bad in Hearts). It's nearly impossible to shoot the moon in Killer Hearts. It's also nearly impossible to avoid taking some points, especially if someone is gunning for you. It's easy to be vengeful to whoever you want because you could decide whether to play low and let person A take the trick like they were going to, or you could double person A's card and let person B take it. Very fun!

That night Annalee did not sleep well at all, which meant that Mommy and Daddy didn't either. The minute we'd set foot in California her nose had started running, and it made it hard for her to breath, and gave her a cough. We skipped on church and tried to catch up on sleep while everyone else was gone. Later that afternoon, while Sarah was napping, Nathan and Bob and I took the kids back to the lake.The guys did the grunt work with the backpacks while I ran free with Calvin. (Good plan, or what!)Calvin was mesmerized by the lake, seeing how close we would let him get to it. His favorite thing to do was throw things into the water.Denise made a delicious Sunday dinner that night.

On Monday, the guys went to "The Land," a piece of wild, undeveloped property George owns where the guys like to go to fish, build mammoth bonfires, play paintball, and participate in other paleolithic male-bonding rituals. Unfortunately, few artifacts remain from that prehistoric era, including photographs.

Meanwhile, Sarah and I took a jaunt to San Jose with Paisley and Annalee to see our Great Aunt Donna and Great Uncle Doug (the girls' great-great). We had lunch and a nice visit. The girls were quite taken with a rocking horse that Uncle Doug had made.

When we left, Aunt Donna gifted the girls two American Indian Barbie dolls that she had collected. She has a massive doll collection (porcelain, wooden, plastic, etc.) and these were still in the boxes. It was a touching gift, because long ago she had given Sarah and I matching Garden Party Barbie dolls. I still have mine!
(This is a picture I found on the internet; my doll is no longer in its box.) Garden Party Barbie (1988) was so cool because she had this elastic half-skirt thing that you could use to change her look. It could be a sweeping veil, a fabulous cape, or turn her skirt into a flamenco dress. So fun for a little girl! Ahem. Returning to adulthood. (You didn't see that.)

Since we were close, Sarah took me to see the famous Winchester Mystery House, a house built by a crazy lady who was told by a psychic that in order to appease angry ghost she must never stop building this house. Consequently, construction went on around the clock for 38 straight years, and when she died (ceasing construction) 160 rooms, 10,000 windows, and many oddities like a window in the floor, a staircase leading nowhere, and a 3rd-story door that lead outside to a long drop. How did she fund this construction? Her income from her deceased husband's fortune was a meager $1000 a day . . . fancy enough now, but for back then it translates into roughly $21,000 a day in 2008!

It was an interesting tour, and I'm glad we went, despite a very rude tour guide who had obviously never been within 5 feet of children before.
On the way back from San Jose Sarah and I went out to dinner in San Francisco at the Cliffhouse Restaurant.This, as Sarah says, is a real restaurant. (She was appalled at my naivety when I declared Macaroni Grill to be my favorite restaurant of all time.) I have to admit, the food was good, and the scenery was stellar. The girls put up with things rather well, considering it was cold, rainy, windy, and an hour past their bedtimes.We were trying to capture the awesome view of the ocean in this picture, but it didn't work.

On Tuesday we relaxed at the house some more, until that evening. Denise bravely watched all three kids while Sarah and Bob treated us to dinner at Johnny Garlic's. It was insanely-good food, no doubt because Guy was the chef! Yeah, this guy from the Food Network! The food not only tasted great, it looked like art. Check out my Volcano Chicken (mmm...spicy) complete with edible orchid.
Whew! I know that was a lot of info, but we're not even to the part where we went to San Francisco yet! More coming soon!