Winter at the Indianapolis Zoo

It's been years since I've been able to easily budget both a membership to the Indianapolis Zoo AND the Indianapolis Children's Museum, so I took an acquaintance's advice and started staggering our memberships--last year we had a membership to the Children's Museum, and when that expired, we instead bought a membership to the zoo. By the time our zoo membership expires, the Children's Museum will seem brand-new all over again to the girls, and in the meantime, we've been taking regular advantage of our zoo membership!

In December, the Indianapolis Zoo offers special night-time activities, along with lots of Christmas lights, carolers, and Santa Claus, so the girls and I did some shopping in Indianapolis, then headed to the zoo for the afternoon and evening.

The zoo is an entirely different experience in winter, I was fascinated to discover. The animals that enjoy the cold weather were much livelier and happy-looking:

I really like the expression on Willow's face, reflected on the glass wall of the enclosure

Until the late afternoon, we had the entire zoo pretty much to ourselves, which seemed to make the zoo animals more likely to engage in direct interaction with us. I have never before gone to the zoo and experienced the monkeys just as interested in staring at us as we were at them, and this encounter with a lioness raised my heart rate, quite frankly:

I was all, "Look, Sydney! The lioness wants to eat your face off!"

It's one of my hobbies to plan strategies for emergencies; my strategy in case the lioness managed to jump the fence was to yell for the girls to run while distracting it with my body. Hopefully, the lioness would be happy to settle down and just eat MY face off so that the girls could make it back to the safety of the indoor cafeteria.

The tiger also kind of wanted to eat the kids:

In an action that is the opposite of the responsible, careful parenting evidenced by my willingness to be eaten by a lioness to save my children, I also took advantage of the de-population of the zoo to permit the girls to reach their arms into this flamingo enclosure--

--and collect pink feathers for themselves:

Although the weather wasn't too chilly (at least until the sun set!), the indoor exhibits remained good places to warm up fingers and toes, and we ended up spending a lot of time, in particular, in the Oceans exhibit:

I still remember when this exhibit opened, and visitors were packed in six deep in front of the reef aquarium, so it always gives me an extra sense of peace and happiness to watch my girls able to just chill out and pass the time here.

Ah, I LOVE mid-afternoons on a public school day!

It was especially pleasant to have the shark touch tank to ourselves, since it can be tricky to get a shark to permit you to pet it when the room is full of other visitors talking loudly, splashing the water, and making scary shadows on the surface of the tank. However, with just us in sight, many sharks seemed happy to come over and engage us:

Willow, especially, was the shark whisperer here--several times I witnessed a shark make an obvious beeline to be stroked by her, and sometimes they'd turn around right after they'd been stroked going one way so that she could stroke them swimming the other way! Sydney was PISSED by this because, even though she'd stroked many sharks, and probably as many as Willow had, she nevertheless...

Actually, I have no idea what pissed Sydney off about her sister petting the sharks. Ah, sisters.

We watched the penguins, who were pretty thrilled about being fed--

--and the seahorses, who got fed and didn't care:

The piece of food near the bottom of the photo actually bonked that seahorse on the head as it floated down. The seahorse shook it off and was all, "Get off me, Food! I hate you!"

When we go out for the day, I usually require the girls to pack themselves a lunch, and when we go out for the day and the evening, I usually require them to pack themselves a lunch AND a dinner. My metabolism and hunger cues are so screwed up that I'm pretty much fine not eating until later that night, and in my opinion, if the kids are just as happy eating packed food, and it saves time to have them do so, AND it's a ton cheaper, then it's a no-brainer. 

Besides, that leaves room in the budget for the occasional pressed penny, of which I am highly fond--

--and the zoo's evening special of one $8 mug, in which one could obtain unlimited refills of hot chocolate with a big scoop of marshmallows on top:

NOM. We refilled that mug a lot.

The zoo has lots of pretties set out for the holidays--

--but by far the coolest thing about being there was getting to see the animals at night. The meerkats snoozed in their eensy clear-walled meerkat den, but the bats that are always deeply asleep whenever we stop by to visit them during the day?

Holy cow, THAT'S what nocturnal means!

I feel like we have been out traveling SO much lately--trips to one coast, trips to the other coast, weekend trips down south, day trip after day trip to special Christmas events, and another trip down south FOR Christmas coming up in just a couple of days (although we might go on a day trip to Louisville first, sigh). I want to be weary of it and just stay home, skip the next holiday party, cut short the visit to my family, but I'm trying to instead stay excited, stay eager, stay adventurous.

Because sure, November is wild, and December is wild, but after that comes January. Nothing happens in January. And then we've got February. Not much happens in February. There will be a lot of home time then, a lot of school AT home, a lot of days when there's no way I'm going to dig out the car or risk the weather forecast to take the girls away for the day.

And when those months come--and they're coming soon!--I'm going to rely on this travel-weariness that I'm really feeling right now to keep me content for just a couple more weeks before I succumb to cabin fever.

And then will come March. I think the girls and I might drive up to Connecticut to visit a dear friend in March.

My Latest over at Crafting a Green World: Ornaments and Ornaments (and Newspapers)!

a tutorial for making large-format newspaper structures

a recipe for cinnamon dough ornaments

and a tutorial for the Wish List ornaments, made using upcycled CDs, that I offered at this year's homeschool ornament party

Wednesdays are our mid-week day off of school, so yes, there has been more ornament making today, as well as gift wrapping, creche painting, the downloading of brand-new computer games, Christmas present purchasing and wrapping, cookie baking, cleaning, a haircut for Willow...

...and it is my dearest hope to leave the house at some point today!

Medals for My Pappa

My Pappa joined the Army before World War II began, because it was a steady job that let him send money home to the family. In the time in which he was growing up--the Great Depression--and place where he grew up--the Ozark Mountains in Arkansas--that was a pretty big deal.

Pappa was stationed in California when Pearl Harbor was bombed. He was out on leave at the time, and by the time he'd meandered his way back to base (having purposefully ignored the radio announcements that all soldiers return to their bases, because seriously, who wants to cut short what is clearly going to be their last vacation for a while?), his entire contingent had left, and he and his buddies were just in time to follow the last supply truck to their new base, where they prepped for being shipped overseas.

As a driver of heavy vehicles in the 39th Engineering Combat Group, Pappa was part of Darby's Rangers for several of their notable campaigns, including the Battle for Gela, storming the beach at Anzio, and liberating Rome. During that time, he also received a promotion that he didn't want, shot down an enemy plane, and helped build a lot of things and blow a lot of other things up.

Pappa was sent home in July 1945. After he was discharged, he could have stayed on base for a couple of weeks, getting his physical and receiving his medals and enjoying some down-time, or he could leave right that second from St. Louis and head back home.

Would YOU stay for a second longer than you had to?

And that's how Pappa never came to receive those last medals and campaign pins that he earned.

Until last weekend:

My aunt contacted an Arkansas state senator, who found out what awards Pappa had never received and arranged for him to be given them. Pappa's friends and family gathered in the parish hall of my aunt's church, where a military official first gave the bloodiest, most interesting history of America's involvement in wars since World War I (I sent the girls outside to play after he put his hand on Willow's shoulder while he told all present about how children "just like this little girl were euthanized and exterminated," but I paid rapt attention to the entire lecture, myself), and then presented Pappa with his awards.

And, of course, on any family occasion when we're all as nice and cleaned up as we're going to get, it's family picture time!!!

Does Willow not have the NAUGHTIEST smile on her face?

She has always been a brat in front of the camera, and it's gotten much worse since she read the complete collection of Calvin and Hobbes comic strips several months ago, so whenever I have to take a photo of her, I put my camera on its rapid-shot mode and just keep taking pictures--if I'm lucky, I'll later come across one in which she's between naughty poses in a way that looks smile-ish, and in which everyone else's patient smiles haven't withered too much during the process. Fortunately, Pappa was so amused by my millions of photos plus Matt's patter of threats/encouragements to get Willow to smile, that he's wearing one of my favorite smiles of his, too.

To be able to come to this ceremony, Matt and I drove a 20-hour round trip, with about 20 hours spent in Ft. Smith. We've been keeping the road hot this fall, but I wouldn't have missed the ceremony for the world. It's even better, I think, that instead of receiving those medals with the remnants of his company in the final days of his enlistment, weary of the entire experience, Pappa got to receive them 67 years later, his military efforts understood and put into the larger context, surrounded by friends, his three surviving children, three grandchildren, and two great-grandchildren.

Most of those attending Pappa's ceremony weren't even alive during World War II; we've never seen Pappa in his uniform, nor witnessed him being praised for his military accomplishments. I explained to my girls over and over that what they were watching was a very special event, and reminded them over and over (as I often do) to make a memory of it. Because one day, when my girls are all grown up, there will no longer be any World War II veterans alive to be acknowledged, and this memory that they'll have of watching their great-grandfather receive his World War II medals will be a very special, and very rare memory for them to have.

As it is for me.

Polishing with Lemon Juice and Salt

You can take the girl out of Montessori, but...

Actually, I don't remember if Will learned how to polish with lemon juice and salt from Montessori or from me, but either way it's such a Montessori-style activity that whenever she sets it out for herself, it reminds me of her preschool afternoons spent at our local Montessori school, rolling out work rugs and carrying activities on trays and sitting on the ellipse to sing the friendship song.

Tangentially, if you're ever looking for a preschool, but have the long-term goal (or even just the possibility) of homeschooling, then I can't recommend a Montessori preschool highly enough. Montessori children are encouraged to be so independent, and so focused in their work for long periods, that they're practically tailor-made for homeschooling.

Anyway, sometimes of a morning Willow will decide that my teapot is looking especially grungy (In my opinion, it's ALWAYS looking especially grungy, but I also never polish it, myself, so I don't have much room to criticize). When that happens, she'll take it to the table, then set out for herself a little dish of salt that she gets from the cabinet and a little dish of lemon juice that she gets from the refrigerator, and a dish towel.

She wraps a couple of fingers in the dish towel, then dunks them first in the lemon juice, and then in the salt.

And then she rubs away the grime!

You can see EXACTLY where she's polished, on account of my teapot is otherwise so grimy.

Polishing with lemon juice and salt takes surprisingly little brute force, although you do build up your muscles through that repetitive motion. I'm especially happy when Will chooses to polish something, because she's still such a reluctant writer that I know that any extra bit of muscle-building in her hands and arms can only help.

And no, she never polishes the entire teapot! Whenever she's done, I remind her to wipe down the teapot with a wet dish cloth to rinse it, and then she puts away her supplies and runs off to do something else.

And then I'll just put the teapot back on the stove top with the clean spot facing out.

Such an improvement!

Her First Language Lessons

I still don't know if I like it or not, but thanks to the public library, I HAVE been using it!

First Language Lessons for the Well-Trained Mind goes really slowly, and it's really repetitive, which drives me nuts, and would have driven Willow nuts, too, but six-year-old Sydney loves stuff like that. She REALLY likes right answers, so she thrives on the repetition that allows her to give the right answers every day. And while the script that First Language Lessons asks the instructor to follow also makes me crazy (Seriously, why on earth would Wise insist on using the word "persons" instead of "people?" WHY?!?!?!?!?"), Sydney loves the one-on-one time, I have to admit.

So while I haven't yet decided if it's a resource that I'll want to use for the long-term, it is working well for us right now. Willow works best independently, so since I prefer that the girls do the same number of subjects daily, it lets me slot an additional math enrichment activity, extra reading, a science project, or a more in-depth assignment related to one of our unit studies into her schedule each day. It's our homemade gifted program!

And how cute is Syd's first recitation?

Excuse the chaos--one of the benefits of homeschooling is the ability to do grammar with one kid while the other kid is in her ice skating lesson.

It cracks me up, by the way, that Syd's reciting a Christina Rossetti poem; I know that Rossetti wrote religious poetry, too, but my favorite of hers is "Goblin Market," which has some SERIOUS sexual connotations. Woo-hoo!

Here's the exact text that we're using:

First 5K

Guess who ran her first 5K?

No, not me.

HER!!!

Our local YMCA has a children's running group, and Willow joined them for a session as they trained for and ran the YMCA's autumn 5K. My quirky, introverted girl did amazing, not just in the six weeks or so of regular training, but she also paired up without protest with an adult buddy whom she didn't know, and made her way without freaking out through a crowd of unprecedented proportions--

--and thoroughly, THOROUGHLY enjoyed the post-race buffet of delicious snacks:

Although Will was hugely proud of herself afterwards (as she ought to be!), she decided not to enroll in the running club's next session: her tender, growing feet hurt in those Nikes that I don't approve of but bought anyway because I thought they'd be good for running, and my little homebody grew weary of the twice weekly practices on top of her weekly ice skating lesson, volunteer gig at the local food pantry, and park day with our homeschool group--for a kid who's happiest reading at home for as many hours as there are in a day, that's a LOT of scheduled extracurriculars!

But that's not to say that she won't be running, because guess who's trying (AGAIN!) one of those Couch to 5K workout programs that everyone keeps raving about on my Facebook feed?

Yes, ME!

I am so out of shape that I won't even estimate how long it will be before I have enough stamina to run with my kid, but 60 seconds of running alternated with 90 seconds of walking for a total of 20 minutes is more running than I was doing last week, so there you go.

And if anyone has a better suggestion, ideally non-sweatshop originated (I can't BELIEVE I bought those Nikes, and they weren't even any good!), for a children's running shoe, I am seriously all ears.

Little Girl-Led Baking Soda and Vinegar Volcano Play

When a little girl gets in the mood to make a baking soda and vinegar volcano eruption, then off she goes:

Willow and I made this plaster of Paris volcano together years ago, and it still sits on a shelf in her room, and is still brought out for the occasional eruption, as it was on this day.

It's fun for me to sit quietly and watch my girls work together, negotiating and bickering and problem-solving, in their kid-led, kid-chosen, kid-created activities. They're so darned independent these days!

They bicker like an old married couple.

Or, I suppose, like sisters.

My Latest over at CAGW: Beeswax Sourcing and Roller Shade Redos

a review of Knorr Beeswax's rolled beeswax sheets

and a tutorial for mending a torn roller shade with vintage and stash fabrics

I am THRILLED about how nicely my roller shade repair turned out, which makes me all the more irritated about how long I left the torn roller shade looking that ugly. 

Let's see...the weather had just turned warm for Spring, so I'd gotten into the habit of leaving the window entirely open, and Willow got this great idea about how she was going to climb out the window, using the roller shade, Rapunzel-style, to belay from...

Late Afternoon at Ocean Beach

When we're on the coast, any coast, we HAVE to go to the beach. I don't care if it's foggy, I don't care if it's windy, I don't care if it's almost dark, I don't care if the section of beach just north of us has been closed off because of a massive sewage spill--we HAVE to go there.

I know it doesn't make total sense; I grew up in Arkansas, so I should be finding my greatest pleasure on the river, or in the mountains, or driving out to the countryside, and I do enjoy those places, but not as much as I love the beach.

So on our last day in California, after a long afternoon at the Children's Creativity Museum and the perfect playground on the rooftop of Yerba Buena, Matt's parents drove us across the city and straight into the fog so that we could visit Ocean Beach:

The kids had their usual fabulous time, running around like maniacs, soaking themselves in freezing water, grubbing like the wild little critters that they are, as seemingly happy playing to the tune fog horns in this low visibility as they were two months ago in the bright sunlight and the pleasant water of Florida:

And the next day, we flew home!

Let Your Girl Shoot a Gun

On the day after Thanksgiving, there is a selection of activities from which the 45 or so Thanksgiving guests of Matt's Aunt Mabel can choose:

1. Sydney chose to go shopping with her Grandma Janie and a bunch of people.
2. A bunch of other people went golfing.
3. Matt, Willow and I chose the obviously best activity, however--a trip to the firing range with a third bunch of people.

I did plenty of shooting as a high school kid back in Arkansas, and I'd forgotten how much I love it. In JROTC, however, we only shot air rifles. But Cousin Jim and Uncle Lynn, whose hobby is shooting, own a wide variety of weapons, and they were very generous and let us try out all of them. The other guys who were there seemed to prefer the big guns, the kinds with laser sights and kicks that whomp your shoulder when you shoot. I liked those a lot, too, of course, but for me, nothing beats the familiarity of a .22--it's light, has no kick, sports a simple sight, and is plenty effective for the types of shooting that I like to do. I had a fabulous time getting acquainted with this particular lovely rifle:

Matt tried out all of the weapons, too, and I tried to sway him in favor of my favorite, but in the end, he fell hard for the pistol:

The biggest surprise by far, however, was Willow. Poor Will, it turns out, although she HAS shot rifles before, has never, of course, been to such an overwhelming place as a firing range before. It turned out that she didn't really so much want to go to a firing range this time, either, but just chose it as preferable to shopping or golf.

I don't know what she was imagining the firing range would be like, but as we waited our turn, and as her cousin Jim gave all the kids a lecture on safety, and as we tried the heavy ear protection on her, she steadily began working herself up into such a fit of nerves that, by the time it was actually our turn on the firing range, she was in tears. 

Since Matt had never had a chance to be in a firing range before, and I have, I took Willow back out to the car to sit and wait for the rest of the guys, but I was VERY upset, and I'm afraid that I let her know it. It's a selfish personal peeve of mine that I take the kids to all kinds of places that I find incredibly boring, but whenever I want them to come with me to something that I really, really want to do, they often find a way to throw a fit and ruin my fun.

So selfish of me, I know, I know. And on our walk back to the car, I gave Will a selfish lecture about it, about how the firing range was perfectly safe, and a huge amount of fun, and I'd been looking forward to it so much, but now instead we were going to go sit in the car and read quietly to ourselves for two hours while everybody else had fun. 

To be fair to myself, I did ask Will several times, in several ways, if she could vocalize what was upsetting her, but who knows if she even understood, herself, what was upsetting her about the firing range, much less knew how to put it into words for me. Poor kid.

Also to my small credit, it took me about ten seconds in the car to realize what a huge asshole I'd just acted like, to my own kid, even. So I apologized, lied and said it was fine to hang out in the car, and comforted myself with the thought that Matt would certainly come and switch off with me at some point. 

I'd barely managed to finish apologizing and lying and not sounding like an asshole this time, when Willow piped back up and said that she wanted to go back in. So now I REALLY felt like an asshole, and pumped up my enthusiasm for just how totally okay it is! To sit in the car instead of going to the firing range! But Will, perhaps having renewed her courage in the quiet space, hopefully not having been cowed by what a jerk I am, but probably having realized that she didn't have two hours of reading material there in the backseat of the car with her, insisted.

So back in we went.

And to my brave girl's HUGE credit, she had an awesome time:

There's no better children's shooting instructor in the world than Willow's Uncle Lynn, and he talked quietly to her, patiently instructed her, and, completely giving up any shooting himself, gave her and the other two girls who'd come all the time in the world:

With Uncle Lynn assisting Willow, I got my selfish shooting time that I'd privileged over my kid's happiness, and Matt got his shooting time, and Willow got her shooting time, too:
And guess what?

She LOVED it!!!

Look at my kid with her very first bullseye!

 I knew she would, which is, honestly, partially why I'd been so frustrated with her. Shooting is precise, encourages focused concentration, involves some pretty awesome equipment, and can be clearly, easily, and immediately evaluated. It's individual, with your main concern being your own improved performance. It's basically everything that Willow would like, including the cool shell casings that you can collect and sit on the floor playing with when it's not your turn to shoot:

Will pocketed a ton of these, by the way, even finding the bucket where they're thrown at the end of a session and pulling out some other casings that made Jim, later, look at them and say, "Whoah! What was THIS from?!?". Flying home with them was monumentally stressful for me.

Willow spent most of her time on the rifle, including a super bolt-action one that reminded me so much of my JROTC days as a kid, but after watching me and Matt take turns shooting Uncle Lynn's pistol, she requested a turn for herself, and Uncle Lynn gamely complied:

It ended up, thank goodness, being a terrific morning, and Will ended up, thank goodness, having a wonderful time. She's such a great kid in that, even when she's protested something and thrown a fit about it and everything, when she finally submits to doing it and discovers that it is, in fact, just as great as I'd been telling her it would be, she doesn't have an attitude about it, or pretend to still hate it just because she doesn't want to be wrong. She still hates it when I attempt to gently remind her that this is why it's good to try new things even if you don't want to, but she still admits to genuinely liking what she's come to like.

And when I suggested that when we finally get our dream house with five or so acres surrounding it, we should totally buy a rifle of our own and set up a target range with a bunch of hay bales, she agreed that that was a very fine idea, indeed.

At the Tech Museum

What do you do on the busiest cooking day of the year?

Yeah, we left my mother-in-law chained to the oven and escaped to the Tech Museum.

Free with our ASTC Passport reciprocal membership to the Wonderlab, the Tech Museum was a huge hit for three of us and a dismal bust for the fourth of us. Poor Syd didn't WANT to explore math and hard science using interactive technology; Syd wanted to go a hands-on children's museum like we usually do!

And is Sydney a good sport when she doesn't get what she wants, but instead has to play along with what everyone else wants to do?

No, she's not!

Mind you, I could also go on and on about cross-country jet lag, that bugaboo that causes children to wake at 3:00 am Pacific Time; to need to eat when they wake, when everyone else is eating breakfast, an hour after breakfast when it's lunch time on the east coast, when everyone else is eating lunch, and then again at 3 pm; to be utterly exhausted by 5:00 pm Pacific Time but to want to stay up until midnight on east coast time; and then to wake at 3:00 am Pacific Time the next day. Cross-country jet lag does not improve the behavior, stamina, or attitude of children.

To make a long story short, I perp-walked Sydney out of the Tech Museum perhaps an hour after we'd arrived, followed by Matt and poor blameless Willow, who actually was a pretty good sport about being required to leave a museum she'd just gotten to, was enjoying quite a lot, and was behaving herself at.

We went back to Matt's parents' house, where the day passed by with several more off-hours meals, a visit to the park, and some quiet family time. Then, later that afternoon, Matt and I did something that happens to all of us so, SO rarely:

We left Sydney behind with her grandparents, and we took Willow, sans sister, back to the Tech Museum:

designing and testing a submersible

The Tech Museum has some of the same types of exhibits as other hands-on science museums that we've visited, as well as a lot of really special stuff, of course, but the unique thing about the Tech Museum, the thing that blows it WAY out of the water compared to every other hands-on science museum of my experience, is this thingy that they call the "tech tag." It's your ticket stub with a bar code on it, and when an exhibit in the museum has a bar code scanner, you can scan your code and later, at home, log into a free account and see digital passport stamps, or high-speed film containing the time frame that you visited the exhibit, or photos of you actually at the exhibit. You may have been in an earthquake simulator before, for instance, but now I have a photo of our family taken while we were in the simulator! I have a family portrait taken with a 360-degree panoramic camera, and I have a thermal family portrait:

How cool is that?!? Welcome to my new online avatar:

Of course, there were tons of fabulous and unique exhibits here. Many of them were so special that you have to see video of them to believe it. This is Google Earth, seen through a 180-degree surround screen:


This is a simulator of an astronaut's MMU, used during EVAs:

 There's a video camera that records your face for several seconds, then uses its facial recognition technology to merge your features with those of other visitors:


There's a robot arm that, after you type in a word or phrase, will spell it for you using alphabet blocks:

There's another robot that, after you pose for it--

--does a really funny, and REALLY abysmal, job of drawing a portrait of you that looks nothing like you:

This was Matt's favorite musical exhibit--

--and this was mine:

So much of my time parenting two children is spent mediating, moderating, managing, etc., that I feel like I often forget to enjoy them. Yes, I take them lots of places to do lots of things, but at the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum, for instance, I've just realized that while the girls were seeing the Wright Flyer for the very first time, instead of looking at them to enjoy their surprise and enjoyment, I was looking at the museum map trying to convince myself that surely there was some place besides McDonald's to eat, and wondering if the carousel takes credit cards, and trying to figure out if the girls could manage both the Natural History Museum and the Museum of American History without getting too footsore. 

There was none of that this time. While Syd was having a ball back at her grandparents' house making rice crispy treats with her Grandma Janie, I got to really take the time to enjoy my Willow's surprise and enjoyment, to notice the exhibits that she loved and run her to the bathroom to puke, bless her heart, when the exhibit on genetics tweaked her tender stomach (needles and syringes, doncha know?). Matt and I got to play with Willow all together without her having to share, or us having to leave out the other kid. Matt and I got to talk to each OTHER, my goodness!

And THAT was a good vacation.

Afternoon In San Francisco

One of the many nice things about visiting California is that Matt has a ton of family there; it's like Family Central for his clan, and so not only do you get to see all the regulars when you visit, but if you're visiting for a occasion, such as a wedding or, I don't know...Thanksgiving?!?!...you also get to see many of the outliers, those relatives who live in Mexico or Germany or Washington or the East Coast, but who are also making their pilgrimage to Family Central for the event.

And that's also how you don't just go to San Francisco for the afternoon with your husband and kids--you go to San Francisco for the afternoon with your husband, your kids, their grandparents, their great-grandma, and their great aunt and great uncle. They drive, and they navigate, and they treat you to a restaurant that you'd never otherwise budget for!

We ate lunch at Fog Harbor Fish House, which I highly recommend if you're interested in trying seafood, because their seafood is sustainably sourced using the recommendations of the Monterrey Bay Aquarium, and so you don't have to feel too creepy about eating it. I was especially excited because since our mollusks study, Willow had been eager to taste raw oysters. At Fog Harbor, we had a sustainably-sourced menu from which to order a half-dozen raw oysters for whoever wanted one, and Uncle Carlos to demonstrate the proper handling, saucing, and sucking down of said oysters.

Dreams really do come true in San Francisco:
Add in a big bread bowl full of clam chowder, and all the warm sourdough bread spread with melty butter that a kid can eat, and Willow came away from the table with her tummy nice and comfy, indeed. I have no idea what Sydney ate, probably macaroni and cheese or some such nonsense, certainly NOT a raw oyster, but she came away with a comfy tummy, too, so lunchtime goal achieved.

After lunch, the rest of the family wanted to visit Ghirardelli Square, which is totally not our speed, and then to drive back home, which is TOTALLY not our speed, so Matt, the girls, and I unashamedly ditched them. We spent the rest of the afternoon and evening sightseeing--

Chatting with a baker at Boudin as she makes crab-shaped sourdough bread

Posing in front of Alcatraz (We'll save that one for a future visit, ahem)

 --laughing at the sea lions--

 --and riding stuff:

Cable car!!! We also rode aimlessly in buses and trolleys, just so you know.

The pinnacle of our "riding stuff" adventure was catching the CalTrain back to San Jose that evening, arriving back home with two sleepy, sleepy girls who were happy to be fed a quick dinner and put to bed before the grown-up dinner.

Now, I love spending time with my babies, but I could get USED to that!

Leaving on a Jet Plane

36 hours.

That's approximately the length of time that the girls and I spent at home, before we were off and away again.

Enough to sleep two nights in our own beds.

Enough to do the laundry, then repack it.

Enough to...no, not actually enough to do anything else. We slept in our own beds for two nights, we did laundry, we repacked, then we were off and away again--this time with Matt, at least!

Matt's parents invited us to spend Thanksgiving with them, and a visit to them in California is extra-special, not just because the girls adore their Pop and Grandma Janie, but also because...

Airplane ride!!! It's been a couple of years since the girls were on an airplane, so the adventure was exciting all over again. The girls packed their dino backpacks with healthy snacks, their favorite stuffed lovey (Foxie for Willow, Wild Pony for Sydney), a couple of toys (the paper airplane, shown above, really wasn't the abysmal choice that I'd feared it would be, considering how empty this early-morning airport was), LOTS of books, and a CD case each of DVDs and audiobooks. Syd also has a portable CD player, but I provided my laptop for movies:

I tell you what, that Magic School Bus complete series may be the most useful thing that I have ever purchased. This is the third major trip that it has entertained the kids, and they never seem to get tired of it! AND it's educational!

And that's how we went coast-to-coast in four days.