Weekend at Home

We had a fairly lazy / noneventful weekend, but I guess some of you (grandparents) will still be interested in it.  After the walking tour of San Fran, I was happy to watch Bubble Guppies and Dora in the bed with a cuddly Avery.  I think Avery could have done it all morning, but I felt like we actually needed to get up before it was time to go down again for a nap.  So I asked Avery if she wanted to go on a walk or go to the store.  She said we needed to go to the store and buy milk.  She also told me that "milk is favorite drink in the whoooole world" as if I didn't already know... a gallon barely lasts 4 days at our house.
We went to the shopping center just down the road and 45 seconds into the first store and Avery needed to get out and push the stroller herself.  So we both walked in and out of all the stores.  She's a good shopper if your idea of shopping is never stop walking, just look and keep moving up and down the aisles.  We ended up in Target where Avery proclaimed "I love this store.  It has everything!"  She is so wise.

The only thing we bought was a gallon of milk and some Hawaiian bread - again her "favorite" bread to eat.  She insists on opening the package in the store and always eating the bread right out of the bag.

                           


On Sunday we went out to lunch and stopped by the mall so I could get my ring cleaned.  Avery experienced the escalator through new eyes and it was like we were back at the fair.  She wanted to go up and down, forget going in an actual store.  The kids play area was a hit too.  Luckily she didn't care too much that we didn't have enough quarters to make the cars move.  Turning the steering wheel was pretty cool.

She's a momma's girl right now, but occasionally she wants to be just like Daddy and play some golf.

San Fran Day 3

Day 3 was an adventure into wine country.

We stopped on the other side of the Golden Gate Bridge to try and take a couple pictures.  I love this picture an dhow the bridge seems to disappear into the fog right around the middle point.

 Laura doing some sort of pose of some sorts.

We then took the long way to Sonoma up the coast on US1.  Luckily we had a Ford Focus rental instead of a Kia or Chevy.

 A beautiful view of Stinson beach.

 We (I) timed it out so that we would be near an In-N-Out burger for lunch.  "Those are some good burgers Walter"

Thanks to the Fergusons for the rest of the pictures on this trip.  Their recommendations and expert planning excel sheet saved us a lot of time wandering random vineyards for a good time.  We ended up just going to their favorite two and having a blast (and spending a lot of money).

First up Gloria Ferrer and some delicious sparkling wine.

 And nice views.

Then a trip up to Hanzel Vineyards for amazing views.

 And amazing grapes and wines.

Finally we ended up in Sonoma for a delicious dinner at The Girl and The Fig.

San Fran Day 2

Day 2 was much like the first in the fact we walked a lot of hills and ate like kings.

Recognize this view?  You should as it was in the opening credits to Full House.  

 Laura doing her best Jodie Sweeten impression.

 We also took a walk through hippieville, aka Haight - Ashbury district.

 We took pictures of great architecture and pretty houses.

 Okonomiyaki - basically a fish pancake, with kimchi, veggies, and an egg.

 Korean Fried Chicken....this was awesome.

 Someone (Laura) thought it would be a good idea to rent some bikes and bike up and down the bay.  She learned nothing from Day 1.  I am in shape.  She is not.

 We had fun anyways.  This is us taking a picture under the Golden Gate bridge.  Notice that you can barely see it from 40 yards away.  We got lucky on the day we went out on a boat.

San Francisco Day 1

So you may have been missing pictures of Avery over the last week.  Well you are going to have to miss them for another week, because we just got back from a Trip to San Francisco and you are going to have to read and look at pictures from our awesome vacation.  In 3 parts.  Not pictured in today's post is Laura and I's dinner at Perbacco.  Easily in both of ours top 5 meals ever.

We started the day with a walk through Chinatown.  Having never been to San Fran, we greatly underestimated the impact of hills when looking at streets on a map.  But more on that later...

 Quite a bit calmer than NYC's chinatown, but a lot more architecture.

 Laura demonstrating the height of a hill we climbed.  Note the smile on her face.  Later in the day and the weekend it would not be as big after climbing one of these giant hills.

 The hill Laura was standing on let to Coit tower as seen in the below photo.  Quite a bit of the hill beneath it is cropped out.

Here is a view of Coit Tower from the top of Lombard Street (aka the curvy street).  You can see the scale of the hill we climbed up and down.

 We made our way down from Coit Tower to the edge of the water after going down 1,242 steps from the top of the hill and ended up at the Bay.  Apparently the beginning portions of the America's Cup sailing event were going on, so we watched from the edge of the water as boats raced around the Bay.  It was a pretty sweet view of the entire operation and those boats were flying.

We also got to see Sea Lions with about 1,500 of our closest tourist friends. 

We also rode a boat out into the harbor.  Here might be proof of that.

 And luckily the day we went on the boat tour there was not fog covering the golden gate bridge.  The 3 other days we were there it was covered in fog.  I won't bore you with a ton of pictures of the bridge because you can just google it, but here is one.

 A panoramic view of the city from the boat.

I huge (most important) part of any of our travels is eating.  For lunch we eat Dim Sum at Yank Sing.  I thought it was pretty good, but I haven't been to China like Laura has.

Next up was a trip through the Ferry building and the local farmers market.  We saw many things we wished we had eaten instead of Dim Sum.  Like the porchetta roasting on the pit in the picture.

I did have to get a salumi meat cone from Boccalone.  A sno-cone cup filled with sliced, cured, salty pig parts.  Yum.

 Also down by the pier, I got to play some old timey video games.  I was not so good.

 We ended up walking DOWN Lombard street and taking this picture.

Fever day

Avery was a little grumpy on Sunday and then Monday afternoon I got a call from school that Avery had a fever.  When we got home, she was so pitiful.  She just wanted to be on the couch and watch Bubble Guppies.  Oh, and of course have Tips beside her.  Yes, her creepy baby that says "mama" when you walk by now has a real name.  A few weeks ago she went from "Baby" to "Tips".  We have no idea where it came from, but it stuck.  This morning she seemed to be feeling better.  She had "lunch" on the couch with Tips.

Lake Trip

So last weekend after the beach, my parents drove Avery up to the Lake where we met her.  We also got hang out with Uncle David, Uncle Mark, Aunt Sara, Baby Anna, and a whole bunch of dogs.  Sara has a bunch of good pics over on her blog  http://www.spoiledrotman.blogspot.com/2013/08/lake-living.html

We took Avery out on the paddle boards and very quickly it was "Let me do it all by myself!"

 A happy toddler swimming away.

 Hanging out in the float with mommy.

 Sara and Mark decided to have a paddle race.  This is the finish line photo...  If only Laura had held the shutter down a few more frames, you would have seen Sara busting hard.

 Avery hamming it up in the swing.

 "I like pretzels"

 We took Avery on a boat ride to check out a fish that was hooked on a bottle out in the cove.  Avery was far more apprehensive of the boats compared to last year for whatever reason.

Everyone smiling but Avery...

Another Beach Trip

This past week, Avery has gotten to go on extended vacation thanks to my parents.  We dropped Avery off in Greensboro last saturday and they drove her to the beach with my sister and baby Anna.

She got to take a boat ride with the Rotmans and seemed to have a good time.  And yes...this is a boat...despite the fluffy couches and windows....it is a boat.  A pretty comfortable ride.

 Enjoying the view out of the boat.

 Helping Gigi make pancakes.

 Avery started warming up to Baby Anna after first being very jealous, but this picture is too funny looking to not include.  For a good story on their fun together, read this post on Sara's blog.  http://www.spoiledrotman.blogspot.com/2013/07/besties-part-one.html

 My parents got her a matching shirt with Anna, but I think Avery shows why it was the right choice in this picture.

 This is Avery playing the freeze game.  She would shout out "FREEZE!" and everyone would have to freeze until she said go.  Apparently it was a very long beach walk that they didn't make very far.

 Hanging out with the family on the swing.

 Enjoying a juice box at the beach with Aunt Hat.  I mean Aunt Sara.