Rock Steady

Last night was our first night in the new house! Movers came bright and early and packed up all our big stuff, and then we spent the rest of the day trying to sort through the wreckage and create some semblance of order. Throw in one more trip to the old place to pack up another load and a trip to Ikea and we were ready to kick back on our porch with some Del Taco by the end of the night.

Cable and internet are going to be installed on Thursday, which means I'm missing the Bachelorette right now. Boo hoo. We have terrible timing, I know. So now I'm sitting here with a sleepy lil guy on my lap writing a blog post on my phone.

We didn't even bother trying to put Ezzy in his crib last night. The poor kid has slept in four different beds in the last ten days. Not to mention all the times he's fallen asleep in the car only to wake up in a brand new place. He's been such a trooper.

The one constant thing in his life lately had been me. Which explains why Ezzy hardly lets me out of his sight. He's literally tethered to my shorts half the time, with me unprying his fingers and explaining for the fourteenth time that neither of us can move when he's attached to me.

It's such a weird feeling to be someone else's rock. I'm used to other people being the steady one that I can hold onto. Obviously I knew before I had Ezzy that this little person would depend on me for all his needs, but it's the kind of thing that just slowly sinks in more and more each day. Especially these past few days. I welcome the responsibility, I really do. It's just the sort of thing that makes me take a step back and realize that I'm an adult. I know, I know. I'm 31. That realization should have hit me by now. But apparently it took some big brown eyes staring up at me to really hit it home.

Ok, enough of my tired rambling now. Recapping our Modesto trip and pics of the new house still to come!

San Francisco: Part 3 - Joe's Birthday

Happy belated birthday to the best dad and fiance anyone could ask for. Ezzy and I are so lucky to have you and we love you so much. Cheers to another year of adventure and firsts (first house!), and I can't wait to see what this year holds for us. 

Since mine and Joe's birthdays are so close together and in the summer, we like to celebrate with a mini getaway. Our very first getaway was to Vegas, last year's was Santa Barbara, and this year we chose San Francisco. Since that entails a 7-8 hour drive, we actually spent a good amount of time on both of our birthdays driving. On our way home from San Francisco, Joe dropped Ez and I off at my parent's house in Modesto, and continued back to So Cal on his own, which means we didn't get to do dinner on his actual birthday. We made up for that by celebrating on Saturday night. 

On Joe's bday wishlist? Shrimp sandwiches & Ghirardelli sundaes. Check. And check. We got his sandwich and my fish and chips from a little stand at Fisherman's Wharf and then ate standing on a pier with an amazing view of the sun setting over the bridge with a bunch of sail boats docked right in front of us and a couple of seagulls edging in on our food. It doesn't get much more San Francisco than that.

But I'm a little ahead of myself. Rewind to earlier in the day - after our Golden Gate Bridge hike we bought ourselves a little picnic and took a cab to the Golden Gate Park to meet up with my dear friend who was so sweet to brave the city traffic along with her two kids and meet us for an afternoon in the park.

In all my times visiting SF, I don't recall ever visiting the park. It is beautiful - like a little oasis in the middle of the city. Except that it's actually huge. We only covered a small portion of it, including: a lake (there are several), an island, a waterfall, two playgrounds, and several little paths that were pretty but not going the direction we intended too.

Ezzy loved playing with his new buddies and collecting every stick or leaf he came across. He did not love the swings (as usual). There were two kids a little older than him having a blast on the swings, and we thought maybe if we put him on the swings he'd pick up on the fact that they're supposed to be fun from his cheerful neighbors. Nope. He was the one stony-faced killjoy on that swing set. Not sure what the swings ever did to him, but he's not letting go of that grudge easily.

After the park we endured the cab ride from hell to get back to the wharf for the bday dinner mentioned above. Joe and I were both white-knuckled and holding our breath when we finally made it out of that cab alive. The driver was making his own lanes on already narrow, extremely steep streets so that we were playing chicken with oncoming traffic, and trolleys, and pedestrians...you get the point. It was scary. 

After dinner and sundaes it was already dark, so we called it a night. The next morning we packed up and went back to Pier 39 for some mini doughnuts and coffee, followed by a little shopping. Then we were back on the road headed for mine and Ezzy's next adventure: a whirlwind Modesto trip visiting with dozens of family and friends. More on that to come. 

It's the Little Things: BFFs

Last night I took some adult-only time and had a girls' dinner with two of my best friends. I have no pictures to prove it because we spent the night completely absorbed in conversation instead of in selfie/social media mode - and truthfully it was pretty nice. As a blogger it's kinda ingrained to capture everything and document it on the blog, but sometimes the best way to capture a moment is to put the phone down and just actually be present in the moment. Novel idea - I know!

I've known these girls for 25 & 23 years respectively - crazy, right?? They were my sleep over buddies, we went to our first concerts together, we'd spend summers practically living at each other's houses, or wandering around the mall in our pre-car days (cause there wasn't much else to do in this town). I remember rolling on the ground laughing so hard over the stupidest things with them (and that wasn't even that long ago). Certain 90s albums immediately make me think of them (Alanis Morissette & Lit). Somewhere I have a shoe box filled with the notes we wrote each other every day in high school. Since those days there's been moves, kids, loss, a wedding, college, jobs, and life in general. Now I live a six hour drive away, but every time we get together we just pick back up where we left off. I love those girls like sisters.

And in case you were wondering what Ezzy was up to, he had a great time with the uncles and Gangy and Grampa. They watched a softball game at the park, watched cars driving by, played with blocks (aka - Ezzy threw them at the uncles), and Ezzy chased the uncles all over the house. Ezzy misses his daddy, but he's also having a great time soaking up all this extra attention.

I'm linking up with Ashley and Jess for their Little Things series!

San Francisco: Day 2 - Palace of Fine Arts & Golden Gate Bridge

Saturday morning started bright and early - actually, that's not true. It wasn't even bright yet, since it was 4 am, so we'll just say Saturday started early. Way way way too early. But after a night of Ezzy flailing around, climbing all over us in his sleep, head butting me square in the jaw, and then finally sitting straight up and chattering away, we decided to give up on sleep and start getting ready for the day. As soon as the sky turned from black to gray, we were outside bundled up in hoodies searching for breakfast. Even the bums were still sleeping. 

I love my sleep, but seeing the city all quiet and still in the early morning hours was one of my favorite parts of the trip. It felt more like we lived there than like we were tourists. I love San Francisco so much - from all the random street art you come across, to the crazy characters (After breakfast we walked down to the city hall where an old lady was dancing around with a sword.), to the amazing architecture, and of course - the weather. We also came across a sea gull eating a pigeon while on our morning walk, and I'll never be able to look at Scuttle from the Little Mermaid the same way again.

By the time we got back to our hotel around 9 am we had already walked 5 miles. Ezzy and I took a short cat nap and we were on our way. Originally we wanted to go to Alcatraz, but tickets we sold out for the next month. So our new agenda was to walk around the Palace of Fine Arts, walk across the Golden Gate bridge, and then explore the Golden Gate park. 

We took a cab to the Palace of Fine Arts. I think all the cab rides we took that day were Joe and Ezzy's favorite part of the trip, because Ezzy had to sit on Joe's lap and he was so content to just relax and watch all the cars passing by. At the Palace of Fine Arts a gorgeous bride and her bridesmaids were taking pictures in front of the lake. It was a really cool sight and I can't imagine a more perfect place to get married. Except for the signs posted around the park about extremely aggressive raccoons...wouldn't really want to run into an angry gang of raccoons on my wedding day.

After we explored for a bit we decided to walk to the Golden Gate bridge. According to Google maps it was only about an inch away - not far at all! And we could see it in the distance and it seemed within walking distance. In reality it took awhile to get there, but it was a scenic route, and as I've mentioned before, we like wandering around on foot. Once we got there we decided to keep on walking, and cross the bridge, which neither of us had ever done before. That's about a 4 mile round trip, but we only made it two thirds of the way across then turned back. There was actually a ton of foot traffic on the bridge. And when people decided to stop dead center in the path to take a selfie, things got pretty log-jammed. (Yes, I realize we have a lot of bridge selfies, but we pulled over to the side like the reasonable tourists that we are!) Ezzy loved watching all the cars whizzing by. Between the bridge and cab ride, Saturday was by far his favorite day. I would also like to point out what a champ that boy was. For as little sleep as he got, he had very few meltdowns and absolutely loved exploring with us. He's a trooper. 

I realize there are a ton of pics in this post. San Francisco is just too photogenic, I couldn't resist. Sorry! (But not really that sorry.) That is also why I'm splitting Day 2 into two posts. Still to come: Golden Gate Park (which my bff and her children joined us for a few hours) and Joe's early bday celebration at Fisherman's Wharf. 

Have you ever been to SF, and what are your favorite spots to explore? We're already planning a return trip so I'd love to hear other experiences!