3 Men & A Little Lady

Friday, June 22, 2012

{Alcatraz}

One of our favorite things we did while in San Francisco was to tour Alcatraz. Alcatraz Island is located 1 1/4 miles from Fisherman's Wharf. It is best known as the infamous former federal prison which housed Al Capone. It was closed in 1963 due to its expense to maintain the facility.

Each of us were given a set of headphones which directed us on tour of the facility. The voices were from men who had been housed in Alcatraz. It held our boys attention through the whole prison!

This better be the only time my children are behind bars!!!!

The outside yard where the prisoners would spend hours at a time out in the frigid cold.

We learned it was torture for the prisoners to be in prison, but to see the beauty and freedom of San Francisco in the distance, which is why these men attempted to escape!

Items the men used to dig out of their cells.

This is the small vent the men escaped through.

This is the dummy head the men made out of soap, cement, & paint.

The utility corridor the men crawled through to escape Alcatraz. It is still a mystery to whether the men died in the freezing water or if they escaped to Mexico.

Alcatraz was definitely a cool place to visit! My hopes for this visit was to scare my children from ever doing anything bad that would result in them going to prison....I think I succeeded!

{Fisherman's Wharf San Francisco}

Fisherman's Wharf celebrates San Francisco's maritime heritage and is a great place to go when you feel a little fishy! I ate some amazing, melt in your mouth crab & shrimp, pretty much right off the boat!

My boys loved the street entertainers!

San Francisco is where they first started making sourdough bread!

There was so much to see and do on Pier 39...

Great view of the bay.

Mya and Owen on the carousel on Pier 39

Drew is up on the top level and Ian down below.

Great view of the Golden Gate Bridge from the pier.

View of Alcatraz from the pier.

Home to the sea lions.

Mya loved watching the sea lions play.

Magic Show...

AND THE BEST PART.....

The Ghiraradelli Chocolate factory!!!!

My mom and I sat while the little kids slept in the stroller and devoured the mouth watering chocolates!

We walked miles during the day, so this was a great way to relax.

More of San Francisco to come.....

{San Francisco Exploratorium}

After leaving beautiful Yosemite, we traveled to San Francisco to spend the rest of the week there. Our first stop was the Exploratorium, where we explored the world of hands-on science! It didn't matter your age, the Exploratorium was an exciting experience with cool interactive exhibits for everyone. There were hundreds of exhibits that kept us busy for hours!

The kids loved watching the dissection of a cow's eye!

Mya with the best seat in the house, just relaxing as she watches!

Next we did a little art!

Each kid chose a color of marker and moved the easel in different directions.

More cool exhibits!

Playing in Sand!

Drew loved building his own marble run!

Ge can you hear me?!!!!

Coolest water fountain ever!

He likes the real drums better than drumming on rocks in Yosemite!

I'm not sure who had more fun, the kids.......or the grandparents!

More of San Francisco to come.......

They say the cutest things.....

Mya, my little girl, said in her prayers last night, "Please help us to be strong and healthy like the Hulk!"

Owen almost ran straight into a woman as we entered a dark parking garage. As I told him to watch out, he quickly yelled, "Well she's all black!" Coincidentally she was African American! She was wearing a black dress, which is what he was referring too!

Owen told me today, "You are the best mom I ever had! I love you all the way up to Jesus!" He also loves kissing and told Kenny, "I just want to stay home from school and kiss mom all day!"

Drew lost a tooth at school when he bit into his apple. He felt the tooth inside his mouth as he was chewing and when I asked him about it, he said, "I didn't realize it was mine and I wondered if it was one of the workers!"

While at church, a teacher asked the kids what happened to Jesus right after he was baptized and brought up from the water. Ian enthusiastically raised his hand and said, "He asked for a towel!"

After a long struggle with my boys, to get them inside, bathed, and into bed, I yelled, "I am done, go to sleep!" Owen looked up at me and said, "Mommy I'm sorry you're sad, but the problem is that you don't beat up Drew and Ian. Just beat them up and I will be on your team!"

We are not a family who eats beans, so when Drew went to a friends house to play and eat dinner, he was hesitant to eat the burrito that had refried beans in it. When I picked him up he said to me, "Mom she put mud inside the burrito!"

Aunt Connie pleaded with Owen to shoot his daddy with the gun instead of her and his response, "No, he's the best daddy i've ever had!"

I begged the boys to quit fighting and Drew looked at me and said, "Its not Mothers Day anymore mom!"

Owen got kicked in his "man hood" and said, "Oh, I hurt my Tenders!"

Drew asked this morning, "Mom in 2011 can we get a cat?"

Everytime I feed Mya prunes, Owen comes up to me and says, "Me like chocolate mom!" I give him a bite and his face turns to total disgust.

Owen ran up to me after wrestling the dogs and said, "Me see Cassie's boobies!"

While I was nursing Mya, Drew walked in and said, "Is she done drinking from your boob?" I replied, "No and it is called a breast, thats the proper way to say it." He looked at me puzzled and said, "No thats the Spanish word for it."

Kenny opened the fridge and said, "Something in here stinks." Ian looked at him and said, "Dad, sometimes I toot over there!"

Last night as the boys were saying good night to Mya, Drew looked up at me and said, "Mom, Mya has a boy haircut!"

Drew was reminding me about how when we saw macaws in Hawaii, that one of the macaws was chewing on a woman's hair. He said, about the macaw, "Thats not very nice, it's not choosing the right."

My favorite word Drew and Ian used to say when they were toddlers was, Laddie- for water. I thought it was such a cute word. Owen comes to the fridge and points his little finger and says, "Wa-Wa" for water. So cute!

Last night Kenny went in on a call to deliver a goat and Ian came into our bed. He climbed in and snuggled up beside me, he usually snuggles into Kenny. I asked him why he was snuggling with me and he said, "I can snuggle you because daddy isn't here mom!" He is such a daddy's boy.

Ian is such a daddy's boy. The other night Kenny had to go to the clinic and Ian was sobbing for him for a good twenty minutes because he wanted to go too. When I asked him why he was so upset he replied, "I just want my daddy, he is my favorite boy!"

Birthday parties celebrated in California are usually BIG! There is always a huge jumper, pinata, food for the whole family, and tons of presents. Well we went to a party last night and the boys spent 2 hrs. jumping in a big jumper. On our way home we saw another party going on that had an even bigger jumper with a slide attached. Ian asked, "Can we go to that party too?" I replied, "We don't even know who those people are. " His response, "Well lets just go ask them their names."

As we prepared to go to the Glenwood Springs pool in Colorado with Kenny's four sisters Drew impatiently said, "Come on girls, you're taking too long!" Kenny told him, "Get used to it, this is what men do, wait for girls to get ready."

Much to my dismay I found black ink all over our white sheets on our bed. I of course went straight to Ian and asked very sternly, "Did you write on my sheets with a pen?" With an innocent look he replied, "I was just trying to write my name."

Drew was watching me as I divided my hair into sections with clips to straighten it. He looked up at me and said, "Wow, you look beautiful!" Then when I was completely done with my hair he said, "You're a cute little mommy!"

Ian was dipping his finger in Kenny's contact solution and then touching his eye. I asked him what he was doing and he replied, "Just putting my eyes in mom!"