September

Wow I am way behind on the blog! Here are a few pictures from various things we did in September.

Sean and I drove to Sonoma one day to check out the mission there, as well as General Vallejo's house and barracks. Sean enjoyed watching the sprinkler outside the house, and I enjoyed watching him see how close he could get without getting completely soaked!

Looking tired and hot (yes it was hot not that long ago!).

The mission in Sonoma is the northernmost mission in California and was the last one built. We have also visited the ones in San Francisco and San Jose. The last one on our list to visit while we're here is the one in San Rafael. We tried to go there one morning but they didn't open until 11 am (some people just don't understand that stay at home moms of toddlers are up and ready to go by 8 am!). Anyway, here is Sean at the Sonoma Mission.

One weekend we went on a long bike trail, which was nice because usually we are on the city streets. We stopped for a snack, and Dada and Sean went for a little walk.

Finally, we have been reaping the rewards of our work in the garden this summer. Sean has thoroughly enjoyed picking carrots (however small and pathetic-looking) and munching on them. He now likes carrots much more than before. I've heard that growing your own food is a good way to get your kids interested in eating their fruits and veggies, and I have seen that it's true with Sean. He wasn't a big fan of carrots before but now he really likes them! Also the other day he even tried a bite of the first tomato we picked (yes I planted them a bit late). He didn't like it, but I couldn't even get him to try it before!

Well that's about it for now. We have about four weeks left here and then we will be back home in Ohio!

The Presidio

We took the aforementioned bikes to the Presidio in San Francisco for some biking adventures.



Jeff had to stop by LucasArts to see Yoda. I think I heard "Maybe I'll work here someday!" about 50 times. :)

There is almost always a barge coming in whenever we are in the city.

We stopped by Fort Point and walked around for a while. It was really windy and cool. Sean thought the spiral staircase was really fun though!

Under the GGB!

Sean was very interested in the cannons too. He called them "choo-choos" and being the pacifist that I am, I wasn't about to correct him.

Patches, the beloved horse, came along for the bike ride and enjoyed the scenery as well. (I may be repeating myself here, but Patches gets his name from the YouTube Patches found here.)

We rode by Crissy Field also. I assume these are the original buildings.

I was hoping for some sort of museum but we didn't see one, just some giant pictures posted on the hangars.

Time to chime in, people!

Is anybody out there?

(echo)

If you're a devoted fan of the SCS blog, please add a comment below. Let's give Marie some support here to keep this thing going!

Love,
Jeff

Typical post-dinner conversation

Yosemite

Six years ago, Jeff and I went to Yosemite for our honeymoon. We absolutely loved it and were so excited to have the chance to return for a weekend this summer!

The first day we drove to the high country along Tioga Road. We were going to do this the second day to gradually acclimate to the altitude by spending the first day in Yosemite Valley, but the weather forecast changed our minds - we decided avoid Yosemite Valley when the forecast was above 90! The only problem with that was that we didn't make all the hikes we wanted to - we became winded way too quickly. Plus we were tired from driving 5 hours that day!

The pictures do not do it justice at all, but this is Half Dome as seen from Olmstead Point. (Sean said "Big piles rocks!" and was very excited.)

Driving further east, we came upon Tenaya Lake.

Tenaya Lake had "little waves,"

so according to Sean it was safe to stick his feet in.

A rare picture of all three of us.

We look completely bored in this picture, but we were actually just enjoying a quiet, peaceful moment. It was AWESOME in the high country (we didn't go up there at all the last time we visited Yosemite - I had no idea what I was missing out on before!).

Driving further east we saw some people climbing up the face of this rock. They dropped one of their ropes and we watched it tumble all the way down to the bottom. They had to go all the way down to the bottom to get it, and I assume start over. We didn't wait to find out.

Next we came upon Tuolumne Meadows in August. Just grass. I don't think I saw any wildflowers.

We starting climbing up Pothole Dome, which I read about in a guidebook. The book said you could get to the top of in ten minutes starting from your car in the nearby parking lot.

The book forgot to mention that that's only true if you're used to the altitude! We were so exhausted from the lack of oxygen that we didn't make it. We got about 3/4 of the way up and just took some pictures. Sean likes to help me rewind the film in the camera.

Here is a shot including Tuolumne River. It kind of looks like a creek here. It would be interesting to return in the spring - I'm sure it looks completely different.

Lembert Dome.

The next day we spent in Yosemite Valley. We brought our bikes (one borrowed from our landlord, one borrowed from a coworker of Jeff's) to ride around. Unfortunately the first trail we went on was back in the woods, chock full of bugs. We got out of there so fast we didn't even take a picture! We biked on for a while, just wandering around. Then all of a sudden my bike tire was flat. We had to walk over a mile back to our tent, but we had trouble removing the tire and patching the tube, so we gave up. It was not a nice way to end our morning. I had been really excited about biking the whole day, all around the valley. We ended up riding the valley shuttle around the loop a couple of times, not knowing what else to do. since our plans were interrupted. Sean loved it, and it gave us a break for a while!

We decided to do a little hiking to the footbridge to Vernal Falls. The falls were barely going. In 2003 we were there in at the beginning of June, and it was spectacular. This was still pretty cool.

Sean fell asleep in the carrier, which he hadn't done in a long time. He wasn't able to nap in the tent because it was too hot, so I was wondering if he would nap at all that day. I'm glad he did because he was in a much better mood afterward!

Later we drove out the south entrance of the park and took a ride on the Yosemite Mountain Sugar Pine Railroad. It was really cool. Sean was very excited. We sat with another family who also had a 2-year-old, so that made it fun.

We topped off our trip with dinner at the Narrow Gauge Inn, which I highly recommend. We had gone there on our honeymoon and the food was so good we went out of our way to go back. Still delicious, and Sean had fun too!