What have you been up to lately?

Wow!  I thought you would never ask.

I apologize that this is so long overdue, but we just have not been as active on here as we'd like to be and then you do something, want to make sure to share it with others, push it off, push it off, more things happen, but then you don't want things out of order - maybe a little OCD I know, but still, it makes sense right?

Well the big thing that we had been wanting to share with everyone was our trip to San Francisco.  However, now between work, Facebook, talking to people, just about everyone knows about it.  Instead, here are some highlights:

• Our flight was delayed a few hours because of fog - who would have thought that fog would be an issue with an airport that was built OUT INTO the Bay with fill.  I hope they didn't contract with those planners again!  This had our spirits down a little (if they even can when you are on vacation) but we took it in stride.  Everything was all better once we got to San Fran and realized immediately how incredibly accessible everything is.  We got to our hotel (Club Quarters - GREAT place for what we were doing; definitely appreciated Patrick's recommendation) about 1:30 and by 2 we were out exploring the city.  We hit Chinatown, then did the Chinatown Walk, looped up to the Cable Car Museum, rode a cable car down to the Wharf, walked the Embarcadero and all before 6:00.  So great!
• "Local dinners" - ok we were tourists and there weren't many locals frequenting where we were I imagine.  But we hit some places that were recommended by friends, travel books, and what just looked delicious.  Naan 'n Curry, fried (and oh so healthy) fish 'n chips with chowder in a sourdough bowl at the Wharf, Ghiradeli (mmm), Chef Gia (best Chinese every), Boudins, and great Italian food in North Beach.
• Despite our bodies waking us up promptly by 6:30, we were able to just lay in bed and relax.  We went to the grocery to get foods for breakfast in bed each day to keep costs down and it was so nice to start the day at our own pace.
• Tour to Napa - and call me crazy but I only had about 5 total ounces of wine.
• Tour to Muir Woods - them are some TALL trees!!
• 75th Anniversary of the Golden Gate Bridge (we didn't even know about this until we got there but the fireworks were pretty cool)
• Alcatraz
• Met a really nice dad and 2 of the most polite boys on a ferry ride back to the city
• Sarah nearly got chased down by a little Chinese lady
• Fun Fact - there are 30,000 Chinese living in the 24 square blocks of Chinatown - most densely populated area of the USA
• Received at least 2 pictures of Gabriella each day and it was very apparent she didn't miss us at all, which made it easier to be away from her.  We were still ready to come home and see her!!!
• There is so much more, but you'll just have to ask us about it.

Other than that, life has been pretty standard.  Work, family time, lots of biking for me, summer is finally here, and there is never a dull day with Gabbie.  She is just learning so much and doing so much and as we say over and over - she has so much personality.  Sarah feels that Little Bug has a lot of personality as well for how active he/she has been recently; or even how he/she responds when we are talking about him/her or little coincidental things like that.

Gabriella's vocabulary continues to expand, but we also have some challenging days.  It is so challenging when she is trying so hard to tell us something, but we just can't quite grasp what it is that she is saying.  Just the other day in the car she was telling me something "what was that sweetheart?",  "could you repeat that for me", "is there another way that you could tell me that, Gabs?" - finally she just turned her head and looked out the window.  I felt like she just gave up, but we were both trying so hard to communicate on the same page.  That being said she is counting even more, starting on her ABCs, and finding more and more words and word combinations.  

It is also very apparent that she is a very happy girl.  She has no problem expressing all of the happiness bundled up inside of her.  Whether its skipping everywhere, giggling, being cute because she knows she is, being silly, singing, directing us on what to do, and even putting herself to bed - that's right... she will tell us "seepy! nap!" when she is ready to recharge her batteries.  However, despite all of the emotions that she is having, it is a bit overwhelming too and she is struggling to express the negative.  She doesn't like being told no, and when things aren't all happiness and roses, she doesn't quite know what to do.  We are getting better at getting calm faster than even a week ago to then use our words to ask for what we need - but it's a learning process.  She's great and I'm so proud of her, and of course of how great of a mommy Sarah is (I think I'm pretty decent too!!)

That's about all for now so you can get back to your day.  If you want to see pictures of San Fran they are up on Facebook or maybe we can get a few posted on here in the next post (not by the external hard drive right now)

Peace be da journey!