San Francisco - Day 3

San Francisco - Day 3

Daisy began our day by telling us about "no more monkeys jumping on the bed"...

David had read about a place called Mama's that served great breakfast. We strapped both girls in carriers and walked about a mile and a half, only to find the line out the door and around the block.



With toddlers, you learn that lines aren't a good thing. So we left and began walking back to another little cafe we had passed along the route. We quickly grabbed a picture of us with Coit Tower in the background.



We ended up eating a place called Pat's Cafe. It was tasty and the atmosphere was quiet and lovely.



Daisy enjoyed a snack while waiting for the food to come.



David and I both got omelets that were very good. Mine had avocado, tomatoes, and chicken apple sausage. David's had italian sausage and peppers (I think). Daisy ate my fresh fruit cup. She LOVES fruit. The omelets were served with fresh sourdough toast which was delicious.



Outside of Pat's Cafe




After checking out of hotel, David picked up a rental car and we made a few sightseeing stops. First was Coit Tower in person. The line to park was long so we jumped out and took a quick picture before driving away.



We then went to the top of Lombard Street, known as the "crookedest street in America."

The view from the bottom



We then headed out to lunch, and found a place called Patxi's Pizza, which served deep dish Chicago style pizza. We had to try this out since we love real Chicago pizza. This place didn't disappoint.

After lunch, we drove by the place we stayed on our honeymoon 10 years ago. The place looks the same and we have very fond memories of staying there.

I decided I wanted to run across the Golden Gate Bridge, which was something we were not able to do in 2001. Because September 11 happened the Tuesday of our honeymoon, they closed the bridge to pedestrians. I had always wanted to walk on it. Now that I'm a runner, I thought it would be so cool to run across it. So David let me check something off my bucket list (he wants to do it too, but someone had to stay with the girls). It was wet and rainy, but David dropped me off at the end and he took the girls on a drive. I ran across it, and met him on the other side. I can't thank him enough for keeping the girls (Rose was having a crying fit because she was hungry) while I was able to run the 1.7 miles across.

 Finished and back with the fam...

We then kept driving up Hwy 101 to Windsor, where our friends Dom and Hilary are visiting from France. Hilary's family lives here and they are in town for the holidays.

Dom holding Daisy... don't worry, she warmed up to him after about 5 minutes.

Eating some appetizers and enjoying the relaxing night.

More to come soon...

Happy Halloween!

Halloween at houseofchinn was fantastic!

Rose went to daycare in her ladybug outfit.
Apparently, it didn't last throughout the whole day, as she came home in back-up clothes. That was okay, though, because I had planned on another outfit for the evening.

Here are the treat buckets that Daisy took into school for her class Halloween party.
We went over to Daisy's best friend's house to go trick-or-treating with Penelope.

Our two little skeletons!Here are Daisy and Penelope, ready to go.
We went to about 10 houses total and the girls were sufficiently scared by some boys in scary costumes after house #5 that it required a several minute break. They got the courage up again to keep going.
Unfortunately it was raining which made being outside not that great. But we had fun, and we came back to the Phillips' home to look at all the candy they chose. David let Daisy pick her own candy, and unlike her friend who picked chocolate items (yay for the parents), Daisy was swayed by the color. That meant a lot of jawbreakers and other hard candy that did not interest mommy! :)

Also, my cousin Jamie came over from Radford to hang out with us, and Rose had fun snuggling up with her. All in all, it was a great first trick-or-treating experience for Daisy and we had a lot of fun as a family.

Tuesday

This is a pic from yesterday that I took:


Today, Aunt Lisa came into town with her dog Radley. We went out to Buffalo Wild Wings for dinner with our friends Wade and Dongbo. We played a little trivia game, with David and I vs. Wade, Lisa and Dongbo. All three of them are working on PhD's, so it was DAZNUS vs. Docs. Somehow, we won! Not somehow... David is really good at trivia. But we felt pretty good beating the three doc students. :)

After dinner, we came back to our house and sat on the deck and ate dessert. Here is Dongbo holding Daisy.





It was a great night with family and friends. :)

Happy 25th Birthday Coyote!

Just wanted to take a moment to give a birthday shout-out to my dearest friend Rachel Elizabeth Whitney Coyote. Well, coyote is not actually her last name but she told Jeanette once that it was, and Jeanette believed it, so it's stuck! :)

She is one of my best friends of all time and even though she is keeping it real in Richmond while training to become a doctor in med school, I miss having her here in Blacksburg!

This photo of us is from last month at Kristal's wedding:

And this is the same day -- Aunt Coyote and Daisy making some pretty awesome faces! Daisy is almost sporting the infamous "one-eye":

I love you Rach! Happy 25th Birthday and Happy Bastille Day!

Honoring a Friend

Today, we went to the funeral for Cheryl.

It was a wonderful service and was very meaningful. I laughed and cried and felt every emotion in between. Hunter, Blaire's hubby, shared a eulogy and it captured the essence of Cheryl so well. Cheryl actually planned the service herself about six weeks ago, so that when the day came, it would speak to her family and friends as much as it spoke about her.

After the service, there was a lunch downstairs in the fellowship hall. It was nice to spend some more time visiting with other friends and the Dennier family.

Daisy got tired during lunch, so she took a nap on the floor (on daddy's suit coat).

She rolled over part-way through but stayed asleep.

Cheri and Blaire talking while the kids ran around.

Blaire and Everett (Daisy's new friend).

Daisy and Everett - I was trying to get a picture of them together but Daisy wasn't cooperating.

Then she began to fuss

Look at that face! Unhappy!

After the funeral, we got packed up and hit the road in the rain back to Blacksburg. We stopped for a quick dinner in Waynesboro to let Daisy get out of the car seat some. We found a little pizza joint named Giovanni's that was quite tasty.



Daisy snacked on her little puff snacks.

We're home at last. It's been a long week and my emotions are a little out of whack. I'm not sure I'm ready for work tomorrow, but I guess it's time to get back in the groove.

Time now for sleep, in my own bed. Now if only Daisy would start sleeping through the night...