Trip to AZ

While Sam was living it up in San Fransisco, eating out every meal, I was driving through the desert with two tots in the back seat to go visit cousins in Arizona. Despite the seven hour drive and 110 degree heat, we had a great time there. Harrison and Noah loved getting to know their cousins, Adam, Abby, Mark and Jack, better and loved swimming in their pool. The trampoline was also a major attraction, as were the copious amounts of otter pops they consumed trying to keep cool.
To be honest, the drive really wasn't too bad. A good friend of mine lent us a DVD player, so the boys were really good for almost the whole drive. And an amazing play-place at Carl's Jr. in Yuma Arizona made the perfect mid-way pit stop on the way there and the way home. Sam joined us on Thursday night, and made the weekend easier for me - and the drive home a lot better.
The heat was also amazingly bearable. The only times it really got to me were when I had to go somewhere in the car in the middle of the day. I noticed that no one in Arizona seemed to own a black car - except me! But we had our AC serviced right before we left, so once we got going, it cooled down pretty quickly. And AC in the house makes a big difference.
Adam, Abby, Mark and Jack were truly enjoyable to be around. They were so sweet to Harrison and Noah, and I only wished we lived closer than 7 hours away so they could play together more often! Sara and Adam were great hosts! It was fun to get to know them better while we were there. We hope to return the favor someday.

MS in SF

So I am in San Francisco on a business trip, learning about proteomics and mass spectrometry. I have a poster to present about my work, and hope that people give me some good feedback. Since this is a business trip, I will speak only in acronyms and bullet points.

Trip Detail-
I'm trying to get to the Fairmont Hotel in San Francisco. It took nearly as long to get to the hotel from the Oakland airport, as it did for me to fly from San Diego to Oakland. But that's because I took a bus, the metro train, and a cable car. I was trying to avoid paying $50 for a taxi. Riding the cable car is fun, but it is touristy. It goes pretty slow, stops every street, and costs $5 a ride. After my initial ride, I bought a week pass. The cable car routes go from my hotel to everywhere I need to be (food, tourist traps, etc.) so this was my main transportation for the week.

I'm in SF trying to find something to eat, and I realize that I should go out of my way to eat some places nice and try some interesting things. My brother John always tries to order something he has never had before, and I have tried to follow that philosophy. Downtown San Francisco has the most restaurants per capita. The best restaurants I've ever seen, and en mass. So here is my food log from the trip, and my judgment on whether it was a safe or adventuresome choice.

Sunday breakfast: on a plane. I had peanuts.
Sunday lunch: Subway - playing it safe. I had just gotten off the plane, and didn't have the energy to be creative.
Sunday dinner: hors d'oeuvres at the hotel. I mostly ate egg rolls and stayed away from the shrimp and halibut. But I did try a couple of dishes that I didn't know. After eating them, I still don't really know what they were.

Monday breakfast: McD - safe easy breakfast
Monday lunch: some Mediterranean place - adventuresome with a lavash.
Monday dinner: Aliotos in Fisherman's warf, I got veal alioto. adventuresome

Tuesday breakfast: Noah's NY bagel shop, I got a ruben. It is one of my favorite sandwiches, so it can't qualify as "adventuresome". But really , how adventuresome can breakfast be.
Tuesday lunch: corner Italian place. I had gnocchi bolognese. Never had that before. Adventuresome
Tuesday dinner: Franciscan Crab Restaurant, I got arugula pesto. It was great. This was the first time I had ever seen arugula on a menu, so I consider that adventuresome.

Wednesday breakfast: Fairmont hotel restaurant, hash with eggs. Definitely the low point. I was late and there was no time to go out. Unfortunately this was not only a safe choice, but it was also the most expensive meal.
Wednesday lunch: Cafe Tiramisu, Wild Boar Ragout. Adventuresome by name, but it just turned out to be stroganoff.
Wednesday dinner: conference gala. This definitely qualifies as adventurous. The hors d'oeuvres started with scallops and caviar.

Thursday breakfast: some random diner near the hotel.
Thursday lunch: Ghiradelli square. ice cream. Safe, but hey, I had ice cream for lunch.
Thursday dinner: some thing at the airport. safe.

Swimming Lessons

Harrison just completed his 2nd, and last, round of swimming lessons for the summer. The first time he took them it was the beginning of June, in Pre-pike (2-3 year olds) class. It was once a week for 5 weeks. He did really well, which shocked me because he has a pretty good fear of water, and this summer was the first time he's enjoyed the beach or a pool. So I thought it would be a good idea to put him in again at the end of the summer. This time it was in a Pike class (3-5 year olds) which met everyday for 1 week.
Unfortunatley, I totally spaced on his first lesson and we missed it. So, when he came for his second lesson, it was his first time, and the other 5 kids were already used to the teacher and knew what was going on. The kids were also older this time, since there were no 2 year olds in his class. So he was extremely cautious, and I noticed his teacher would always have him go last (I think because he was pretty intimidated by the new situation, and unwilling to go out in the water with her.) He was also confused why he had a new teacher - I guess he was expecting his pre-pike teacher again!
So I really talked up swimming lessons the whole rest of the day, and we made a special trip to the sports store to buy him some goggles so he would feel comfortable going under water. Well, it seemed to have done the trick, because on his 2nd day, he couldn't keep his head out of the water. He did really well, swimming all by himself (with a noodle) and his teacher was shocked.
The unfortunate part is that he spent every spare moment with his face in the water, so he missed a lot of the teachers instructions. He also made me pretty nervous a couple times. He would put his face in the water and stay there for what felt like a LONG time. He always came up though, with a smile on his face. We're headed off to Arizona tomorrow, and so I think he'll have a lot of fun playing with his cousins in their pool!

Quiet Sunday

We had a quiet Sunday for the first time in a long time. Most of the bishopric was out of town, so Sam had no meetings all day (except for the 3 that we all go to...) and miraculously the boys entertained themselves for a good long while when we got home from Church. Check out the video below. Harrison loves to play on the computer, and his latest favorite is a text editor. He just likes to type out letters and ask me what it spells. I have memories of doing this same thing on our family typewriter way back when. Yesterday he managed 2 words: Mom and zoo. I was pretty impressed. And Noah has taken quite a liking to reading books to himself. He'll sit there and flip through pages of almost any book. Yesterday he flipped through all my Relief society manuals from the past few years and "Personal Finance for Dummies". Maybe he can catch me up on what I've been missing :)