Last, but not least, Brian cooking!

I came right out and told Brian D that I wasn't leaving until I got Chocolate Chip cookies.  If you love cookies like I do, which might include a few of my friends and family (love you April!), Brian makes heavenly cookies.  I adore them.  We also got to have fresh homemade pasta which I was also pretty amazed by.  He is quite the renassiance man.  I even got to bring home some homemade soap that has tiny coffee beans in it and makes a fabulous exfolliant.  It is like a resort, being with them. :)  We also managed to squeeze in a short visit with Michelle, my adopted sister in law.  Her husband Pete was unfortuantley out of town, but I did get to finally meet sweet baby Kai!  Love, love, love my CA family (and Michelle, Pete, and Kai are a part of that.)  One last lunch with Becky, who is now back in Dallas.  We are thrilled to be able to celebrate holidays and happy events with this girl whom my girls (and Matthew soon!) love so much.

The beach house

 We had a blast at the Brians' beach house.  It was amazing.  It was around 60 in Bodega Bay, where they have the house, but we drove for 20 minutes and it was sunny and hot.  You can see our quite different wardrobes.  That was all in one day!  We went to the beach at a local river and then went to a cute little town that had an incredible bakery and farm.  I could totally see myself living up there.  It is very peaceful....

 

 

 

 

 

Randall Museum

The first of the SF pictures-The Exploratorium

We loved this museum!  It is awesome.  It is completely hands on and I wished desperately to be able to bring my students there.  They even had these trays where you could see real living chickens in development and they are much like humans.  When you put the magifying glass over them, you could see the beating hearts.  The girls loved all of the sand exhibits, of which there were many.  Natalie loved the strong magnet sculpture that you used to put little metal circles on to make designs.  They had instruments you could play, cool things with sound, and artistic hands on exhibits.  All in all, one of the best museums that I have ever been to, even as an adult.

City by the Bay

I won't go crazy and start quoting Train, who apparently love San Fransisco as much as I do.  This is my second visit in less than a year and I feel lucky to get to go.  It never gets old.  It is beautiful, it is cool, 2 of my favorite Brians live there (and I know a lot!), and I love showing it off to my children.  Meagan and Natalie are coming with me this time since they stayed home last time.  I can't wait to take them to the places that they last went to when they were very young.  I also want to wipe out my memories tying SF to Natalie's God-awful seizure that she experienced there the last time she went there.  This time will be filled with happy memories, lots of time with their uncles, hanging out with cousin Becky and getting to see the Brians' beach house out near Sonoma for the first time. Of course, I have places that I have to eat at.  I have to get Indian Pizza (I haven't seen it anywhere else.  An Indian restaurant bought out a pizza place and they make the most amazing pizza!), get gelato (there are a lot of yummy choices), and spend quality time at Trader Joe's which still won't be in Austin for a year or so.  Natalie has an addiction to freeze dried Mangos (yeah, they sound weird, but they are tasty!) so she is excited to finally go to see where we buy them for her.  It is the little things. :)  Neither girls are excited about the 5:15 wake up call that they are going to be getting and Meagan informed we that she plans on sleeping in her clothes, including Jeans, tshirt, shoes, the works.  Not too sure about that plan, but I am hoping we can get out of here smoothly and that it isn't raining too hard. Of course, the one week that I am going to the winter temperatures (they really are our winter temps in Austin) of SF, it is only going to be in the high 80s here.  Oh well.  I had better get ready for bed because that alarm clock will be ringing soon....

Dressed up!

In honor of Aunt Summer, a few shots of Jenny

 

Dropped Blog Enteries

I have had some bad luck lately with Blogger not printing the typed part of my blog enteries.  It will post the pictures, drop the copy.  Anyway, to sum up what has been going on in our house....I am having trouble believing that it is July already.  Not too keen on that.  Feels like summer is almost over, but not so much.  The girls are still loving camp and had a blast in Denver.  We are looking forward to the big fireworks display that Avery Ranch puts on each year (although, due to our horrendous drought last year, it was cancelled.)  We are having some of Natalie's friends from Faith Montessori coming over to watch and have dinner.  Andy and I had a lovely dinner at Truluck's to celebrate our 13th anniversary this past Wednesday and went out to dinner with our friends Summer and Brandon to The Melting Pot yesterday.  Andy had never been and I hadn't been since high school.  We had fun and ate way too much.  Charli is settling in well and it seems like she was always here already.
I believe that I also had the posts from Stephanie and Mike's wedding on 6/22.  It was a beautiful night and few things bring me as much joy as watching one of your best friends truly achieve happiness.  The girls had a great time too, but Matthew stayed at home and had fun with TopaJoe and Ms. Alice!