Going to the Snow

We took a "day-cation" to the snow last week.  I bet the term "day-cation" is not totally original, but Jonathan came up with it on his own, and it has become part of our family vernacular.  I think it's pretty cute.  Anyway, where we live, people talk about "going to the snow," because that's what you do.  You go to it, and then you come home.  It never comes home to you!

The day we chose, there was plenty of snow on the ground, and it snowed all day long.  We had planned to snowshoe, and that's what Jeff and Jonathan did.  Unfortunately, the straps on my snowshoes fell apart as soon as I attempted to strap them to my shoes.  Fortunately, the snow was not deep enough to make walking in it unbearable, and I also didn't have a kiddo on my back, so I did OK.  Here we are starting off on our hike.

It was so beautiful.  And cold.  And wet.

I have to be honest and admit that there was some complaining and crying from the three younger members of our crew.  We walked for a mile, and we may have pushed the kids a little too hard.  Here we are stopping for lunch.  Jeff brought some deli sandwiches from the grocery store, and the bread was so hard that the kids had a really hard time eating them.  I surprised the kids with some Rice Krispie treats, and those were hard, but manageable.

Our crew.  Thanks to our friends who shared some cold-weather gear with us!

Jonathan had been eating snow and trying to get a picture with a snow mustache.  He finally succeeded!

And, the reward for the hike that the kids thought was too long...

the warming hut!

hot chocolate!

The much-appreciated fire

I thought this picture was hilarious.  It didn't tickle Jeff's funny bone quite as much as mine.  He wanted me to take a picture of him with Benjamin.  But, Jeff was holding hot chocolate...

and if Jeff wouldn't cooperate and give him a sip, then Benjamin would go for that chocolate himself!

Our crew!  And the pictures don't show this, but after we were done exploring in the snow, we decided to take a drive in it.  We were driving our smaller car that has all-wheel drive, and had somehow crammed the kids and car seats into it for the drive.  Because of that, we didn't need chains and could really enjoy the snow coming down and the beautiful scenery.  After driving around for awhile, we stopped and had a late lunch/early dinner.  The kids were pretty hungry after their pseudo-lunch of frozen bread and Rice Krispie Treats.  It was a fantastic day-cation to the snow!

Day-cation to the City

Jeff has had some time off of work this week, and we have loved having him home!  We decided to enjoy our last day of having him home by visiting the City.  We went to some places that were new to us, thanks to tips from my friend Jen, and some places we had been before, too.

The kids especially enjoyed this park.

Yep, that's my son.  And that's proof that Jeff introduced some new genes into the family gene pool, which is a good thing!  There's no way you'd get me on the top of that climbing thingy.  But I'm proud of Jonathan for making it up there multiple times.

We all had a delightful ride on the carousel.  Just look at the kids' faces!

We had a delicious lunch of sourdough bread bowls and clam chowder soup.  At least, that's what Jonathan and I had.  Jeff said what he says almost every time we eat out together, which is, "Maybe I should have ordered that."

Our crabs!

Grace got cozy with the decorations under the tree at the restaurant.  We also got to see some of their bread creations being made, and an already-made bread alligator that weighed about 50 lbs.

We took the kids to look at the sea lions.

And here is an honest picture.  The kids are not all happy all the time.  But really, they did well for most of the day.

We took our lefties into Lefty's.

Left-handed heaven!  I really don't know why it's so hard to find left-handed scissors.  I have one source here (not Lefty's) that I revisit again and again when Jonathan needs scissors for his classroom.  You'd think more places would sell them!

An attempt at a picture under the tree.

Another attempt.

And then we treated ourselves to some views of the bridge.  Even though Jeff and I lived in this city for a summer, we had never been here, or the park in the pictures above.  We had a lot of fun!

I love this pic.

I love my family!

Jeff had bought a couple of cookies at the bakery where we had our lunch, and we saved them for this stage of the trip.  We pulled them out and let the kids share one.  Jonathan and Grace had already finished theirs, but Benjamin was savoring his.  Everybody kept teasing Benjamin and asking for a bite, but he wouldn't share.  It was pretty funny.

He was thrilled to have a cookie-or part of one- to keep for himself.

My girl!

More of the bridge.

Looking back at the skyline.

Here is a picture from Jeff's phone.  Two out of three kids cooperating.

Again, two out of three cooperating on a phone picture.

We stopped by the cable car museum on the way home.  It's free, and small, and fascinating.

And then, on the way back to our car, we found this new park.  (We only spent $7 on parking the whole day, by the way, which was amazing.)  We had never seen some of the equipment before, but Jeff looked up the manufacturer and found some of it here.  The park was closing up for the evening, but the guy who was locking up was very sweet to the kids and let them come in and play for a few minutes before he did the final lock-up.  The kids squeezed in a few last moments of play for the day as the sun was going down.

Benjamin is planning to climb up there someday, too.

This cone-shaped climbing thing spins.  I didn't know there were spinning things in parks anymore, but the kids thought it was pretty amazing.

All in all, it was a great day full of great memories.  We're thankful for a wonderful Christmas week and thankful that we got so much time together as a family.