vacation catch up, part 2: china town & the warf

After leaving Lake Tahoe we drove into San Francisco late at night and, thanks to our GPS, arrived at our hotel without a hitch, carried our sleeping kiddos up to the room and crashed (as soon as Gene finished bringing up all the bags). The beds were realllly comfortable. I contemplated stealing a pillow for the rest of the trip, but didn't. Chill.

When we woke up early and went down to the lobby for (a quite lame) breakfast, everybody seemed to be surprised by the morning fog and cooler temps. I think they thought it would be like that all day, but California is famous for it's fog rolling in at night and out in the morning. Our first stop was Chinatown so that a few people could get a jacket and other souvenirs (I must've been out of it as I forgot to get myself a San Fran magnet). Emma loved Chinatown! She loved the oriental umbrellas and drums and purses. Sarah loved the dresses & jewelry and Morgan liked looking at the--still living & flopping--fish at the markets. It was fun to walk around up and down the streets. Gene said it reminded him a lot of Korea--that it was just like it only wider streets.

After leaving Chinatown we found a parking garage half a dozen blocks from the wharf and we all parked there. While waiting for other family members to arrive we were admiring a nice vehicle and the parking attendant told us it was Carlos Santana's car. The kids were posing next to it when, sure enough, Carlos Santana showed up. I totally wanted to get my pic taken with him, but my SIL said "No, let's not bug him." So I gave my camera to Brent to snap a pic of me with Santana in the background. Cool. Then we walked down to Pier 39 and looked around, checked out the Sealions (which look all peaceful in the pics, but they bark like a seal and so it was louder than I imagined) & ate clam chowder in sour dough bread-bowls.....
(next post: Alcatraz boat ride, Ghirardelli square & Lombard st.)...

View of the Transamerica building from Chinatown, San Francisco, CA!

One of the streets & shops in Chinatown

View down a steep hill in Chinatown

Waiting for others to arrive

Gene, Morgan, Emma, Hannah, Gianna, Sarah, Megan, Lorraine, Charlton

The most colorful fruit (or is it?) that I've ever seen!

Me holding Emma against her will while Carlos Santana pulls out behind us

View of the Transamerica bldg & Telegraph Hill from the piers

Emma, Megan & Sarah being 'attacked' by a giant crab at Pier 39

A very cool sculpture by Pier 39, San Fran

Morgan running along the docks

Emma resting on the docks at Pier 39

A Sealion and a seagull hashing out their turf

One of the floating docks at Pier 39 FILLED with Sealions

Lots of wrestling & 'barking' going on...

Some cute little Sealion pups bathing in the sun

vacation catch up, part 1: lake tahoe

My goodness I haven't updated this blog in a while. The month of August has flown by and was SO much fun! We took a family vacation, with hubby's side of the fam, to Northern California for eight days. The first full two days of the trip I did the driving since Gene had an allergic reaction that made his eyes swell almost shut. But I actually enjoyed driving and the 'control' (heh) that comes with it.

We drove through to Reno where we stayed the first night, a bit of a dive, but we were in & out the next morning. We stopped at Lake Tahoe on our way to Cali, but since non of us had ever been--and it was absolutely gorgeous--we stayed for several hours and pick-nicked along the lake. Seriously, I could vaca in Lake Tahoe itself for a whole week! The weather, wind & temperature of the water were absolutely perfect! The little kids had fun building sand castles or forts and catching crawdads to play with, and the teenagers enjoyed posing for silly photo ops while we all just visited and I took a TON of photos! When we finally left Lake Tahoe (around 6pm) the kids were wiped out and just slept in the van as we drove through Sacramento & Auburn ("hey, hey Sister Abel"). We woke them up as we got to the Oakland bridge, but more on San Fran in my next post...

Lake Tahoe (North shore, Kings Beach)

Lake Tahoe water activities

The water was crystal clear, luke-warm and so beautiful!

There's a lot of 'fools gold' in the area so the sand had flecks of black & gold in it,

plus it was sooo soft & perfect for building sand castles!

Sarah enjoying the water

Emma enjoying the lake

Morgan playing in the water

Everybody enjoying the weather & the lake. Nobody wanted to leave.

Mark, Lori, the kids, Lorraine, Morgan & Gene

Emma, Nathan, Gianna, Sarah & Alex playing w/the crawdads

Amanda playing with a crawdad

The kids built a little lagoon for the crawdads

Brandon, Brent & Nathan at Lake Tahoe

Morgan playing in her own little water fort

Proof that I was there too. ;)

Amanda & Brent burying Brandon in the sand

Deanna jumping off rocks

twenty years

Twenty years ago I worked as a nanny living in New York. Through out the year and a half that I lived there I met many, many wonderful girls who were also nannies. These girls became my family, my home away from home. There were more threads that stitched us together than just the commonality of being a nanny--there was the common thread of geography, most of us being from the West (Utah or Idaho), there was the common thread of religion, most of us being LDS and the common thread that we were all the same age.

Carla & Cammie, New York 1990

But it wasn't uncommon to hang with these girls--sometimes a large group of twenty or more--several times a week. We would frequent diners and pizza parlors and bowling alley's and the ward cultural hall to play volleyball. We'd travel into the city or some other place at least twice a month. We would hang out at each other's house (place of employment) for play dates, lunch dates and sleepovers. We would go shopping in Connecticut or White Plains and sometimes, for the heck of it, just drive with no other agenda than to listen to and sing along with Michael McLean or Wilson Phillips. I loved these girls--all of them--and when one went back home it was a sadness but we knew we'd try to keep in touch and see each other again some day. Over the years I managed to talk with a few here and there or bump into someone, but life gets away from you and before you know it 20 years has passed!

Andrea, Becky & Glenna, Central Park 1990

Well, thanks to Vickie, who does an excellent job of staying connected with everyone (and thanks in part to Facebook) we've reconnected in a BIG WAY!

Robin, Martha, Vickie, Cammie, Lisa 1990
Ellis Island & Statue of Liberty in distance

Back in March we had our first reunion at Vickie's house. We sat around talking until 1:00 in the morning. These women are exceptionally REAL and honest and non-judgemental! It was so refreshing and safe feeling to be able to 'open up' and also to get to know them better! Then we had another get-together at Carla (Wirth's) house and stayed up until 3:00 in the morning, this time catching up with photos and laughing until our guts hurt. Then we had a 'family' get-together with husbands/roommates and kids at my house (but sadly not every body could make it). We got to know each other's families and hear more about our current lives while the husbands talked politics.

Well, our latest shindig was this month when we celebrated Wirth's 40th birthday. To quote her "What a better way to ring in your forties than with the same girls with whom you rang in your twenties?" I agree. This time we decided to get a hotel for the weekend so we could stay up as late as we wanted with no interruptions (except for the hotel manager knocking on our door to tell us to keep it down). Nothing like pretending you're twenty again!

LAST MARCHBecky, Carla B., Vickie, Glenna & Carla Wirth at Vickie's house

Vickie, Becky & Cammie

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LAST JUNE

Cammie & Vickie at my house, kids playing in the pool

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AUGUST

Giving the birthday girl the 'royal' treatment

(Wirth and I used to be in the same married-student ward at the UofU 15 years ago)

The birthday girl, Wirth, prancing through the rain on our way to...

...The Blue Bird restaurant in Logan.

l-r: Vickie, Cammie, Becky, Glenna, Carla & Carla

(or as we refer to ourselves "Wirth" & "Bybee", with the affection of football players)

Our waitress at Blue Bird was so cool we even invited her back to the hotel, but she had to work. Here she is with Vickie

Back at the hotel we had birthday cake made by Wirth herself (that's what she does).

Wirth, Glenna, Becky & Cammie enjoying our suite at the Holiday Inn, Logan.

birthday cake spectacular!

Becky seducing us in zebra print...

Cammie being sexy in her CPAP. Rawrrrrrrr, baby!

The next day we went to an American West Heritage 'Ho Down'.

Wirth ridin' a 'bull'. Giddyup!

Vickie, Cammie & Becky bustin' a gut.

Laughing hard is pretty much what we did all weekend long!

All of us with Jenny (middle), an actress who stole the show!

After the ho-down dinner/show we went out for Aggie ice cream,
but because it was hot outside it was dripping everywhere
and, of course, that cracked us up!

Back at the hotel we got cozy and talked and laughed and cried
until the wee hours of the morning. Wirth trying Nutella for the first time.

I painted Wirth's toenails while we all chatted
(she was totally abusing her powers by the end of the weekend) ;)

Back at the hotel Vickie knitted a couple scarfs for a humanitarian project

Glenna, Vickie, Wirth, Cammie, Becky 2010

Twenty years is a long time. A lot can happen in twenty years--falling in love, losing love, having babies, finding yourself, career changes, sickness, death, life. And life has played out differently for each of us. We each now have so many varied threads in each of us, rich experiences that are woven right along with the common threads of yester-year. But the most common thread that connects us now is friendship. Simple friendship. Twenty years worth of friendship. Isn't it amazing also that 20 years ago it was our similarities that connected us and now it's our differences that we're drawing on to learn from and gain from?! It's amazing what twenty years will bring! I'm so greatful these friends are still in my life--I love these ladies!!!