Zach's Playdate

Monday, 9-20-10

Zach and Brady had their first play date of the school year today. Zach was VERY excited for Brady to come over and play. He gets pretty bored on Mondays and Mommy gets tired of keeping him busy. :-)

Our official Monday Play Group starts in October. We are welcoming a new boy (and Mom) to the group. Can't wait to share some of the fun times we have this year.

Here is a little taste of what these silly boys do. :-)

Fresh Grounded Faith

Friday-Saturday, 9/17-18/10

LOVED this conference!

Not only did I get to hear Lysa TerKeurst speak in person (middle), but she also walked right in front of me - like just inches away - eeeekk!! I grabbed Amalea's hand and whispered "there she is!" I follow her blog and love her books and I think she is just a really real Christian woman that has whole heartedly given her heart to Jesus and tries to live that out in her daily life.

 Lysa started the weekend off speaking about the verse 2 Timothy 1:17, "For God did not give us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of sound mind." (NKJ) Lysa said that fear should only be an indicator, never a dictator. If we let fear rule our life, then how are we women of faith?

Then Abby Rike from The Biggest Loser (left) spoke about how she has managed to continue her life even after her husband, daughter and son were all killed in a car accident. It is unimaginable how you could go on. She agreed that if she was sitting listening to her own testimony that she would think it couldn't be done, but she said that she has learned that, "if it didn't seem impossible, then you wouldn't need faith." So inspiring to anyone who tells themselves that something is impossible.

Luke 18:27

Jesus replied, "What is impossible with men is possible with God."

Jennifer Rothschild, the founder of Fresh Grounded Faith conferences, was also an inspiring speaker. She became blind at 15yrs and talks about how her faith and dependence on God has helped her move past her fear and live a fulfilling life. She gave several examples of what she would have missed out on if she hadn't had the courage and power from God to move past her fear. Her message was also challenging about letting go of the "impossible thinking" and to instead step out in faith to see what God has waiting on the other side. I think the next book I read will be her new one "Self Talk, Soul Talk". It is about speaking words of truth, from the Bible, to ourselves. Sometimes the most destructive thing in our lives is ourselves and what we say to ourselves about ourselves.

I love this prayer that Lysa says daily for her kids:

Lord please save them from the wrong friends,

save them for the right friends,

and if they make a mistake, let them get caught.

If you ever have a chance to hear from any of these women, take the opportunity!

Houses of Sausalito

Beau - ti - ful!

Don't you just love the variety of architecture?!

I can't even imagine how much these homes would cost.
(It probably helps when you see them in person, but you get the idea)

Sights of Sausalito, CA

Saturday, 9-11-10

We took a day trip over to Sausalito on the ferry.

It was the perfect start to our little getaway.

It was beautiful and relaxing!

It was a beautiful place to just sit and look at the beautiful sights and watch the interesting people go by.

Like these sights.....

 This restaurant, Scoma's, has frozen food in the stores.

And this guy....

It was pretty amazing what he was doing.

Then we took a walk down the "boardwalk".

I'm going to do a separate post of all the houses in Sausalito. They were a beautiful mixture of modern and traditional.

A fig tree. I've never seen one before.

I just thought this sign was cute. :-)

Then we stopped at this cute Italian place to get a refreshment and appetizer.

(I'm the first white face on the left on the taller tables)

This was such a yummy very fresh plate. It was fresh local mozzarella!

This guy was quite a character. He came up to the hostess and asked if she was prejudice or would she let a musician in this place. He had money for a beer. She said that he can come have a beer, but he can't play inside. He told her that people paid $150 a ticket to see him play. He wasn't going to play here.

He also told people as they walked by not to touch his guitar because it was a handmade one of a kind. The owner had to come ask him to stop harassing the customers and that he needed to pay for his beer. He then was very upset that a beer cost $8 and rummaged around for some dollars.

The other interesting guy, was this one with his dog. He was a total crack up! He hammed it up for the tourists. I don't know how much his dog liked being part of his act - he would some times growl at his owner.

It was such a nice relaxing day. I loved it there. I was so meant to live somewhere warm and by the water. :-)

Zach's Very First Day of Preschool

Tuesday, 9-13-10

All dressed and ready to go!
After asking me all morning long if it was time to go to school yet.
He would have hoped on Elissa's school bus if I would have let him.

(Yes he is wearing his cowboy boots - of course - and they are on the wrong feet)  :-)

And we are off!!

Welcome to Preschool!!

Find your name tag and pick out a cubby.

He just had a little bit of shyness when Teacher Collette said Hi to him.

And now let's have some fun!

I did shed a few tears as I left my baby boy to have fun on his first day. Luckily I had a coffee date with good friends to go to.
Thanks girls!

Thank you Teacher Collette for a great first day! 

Teacher Collette was also Elissa's teacher. Love that!

Brady & Zach in the same class - watch out! LOL! 

  When I asked how his first day was he said, "It was a hard day." And I asked why it was a hard day and he said, "It was a hard day learning my letters." :-)

Sights of San Francisco

Saturday - Monday, 9/11-13/10

I got another chance to go with Darin on a business trip to San Francisco. I was only able to come for a couple of days (since Zach starts preschool on Tues), but we packed a lot in. We did not do one single thing that we did last year. It was a refreshing and fun couple of days.

It is always so weird and beautiful being above the clouds.

I thought this was so interesting....some kind of farming.....

Doesn't Samantha look so enthused?!

Some yummy refreshments at a really good Mexican restaurant at the Ferry  Building.

We took a ferry ride to Sausalito for the day.

It was an AMAZING weather day and we were able to see the Golden Gate Bridge in all it's glory! Last year it was always fogged in.

Here is Alcatraz with the bridge behind.

On the way back there was a little fog rolling in.

Then we came upon a bunch of kids watching a dance off/break off.....something like that.

Look at the boy in the middle with his hands up....doesn't it totally remind you of the 80's?

There were a lot of moments when we saw homeless people. It always makes me wonder what decisions they made or what circumstances happened to them where they ended up here.

We mostly bought from street vendors this year. I'm going to make a more concerted effort to go to the Farmer's Markets next year. We bought Elissa & Zach the cutest hats from her.

My maiden name. :-)

On Sunday we headed to Ike's Place from Man vs Food. We can see the top of the Ferry building from the middle of the street. It was a very long walk. We finally hopped on a street car.

We called in our order to share a Kryptonight sandwich hoping to by-pass the long wait. People wait an hour+ in line to get these sandwiches. Today was no exception. We waited a long time because they lost our order. Bummer!

You can see that the line is very long. This sandwich shop has made such a disturbance in the neighborhood that the neighbors have gotten them closed down. Sunday and Monday were their last days and they are in the process of finding another location in SF.

The street car driver told us to take our sandwich to a park just down the road - Dolores Park. It was a really big park where people just come to hang out. A nice oasis in the city.

We can't even get our mouth over it.

Before                            and                          After we stopped eating

Lots of gay pride symbols.

We made our way back down to the Ferry Building for some refreshments.

And to look through the shops in the building at all these delicious treats!

 

I had the vanilla cupcake - YUM!

I should have tried these too. Next time....

 Don't these look yummy?! At the top of the photo is a "grow your own mushroom" contraption.

 I just love the colors in the junk pile on the pier.

We came across a club of some sort of unicyclists.

This was a new area on the wharf that we didn't see last year.

Doesn't this look like such a fun place? I'm not sure how we missed it last time. The weather is getting super cold, so we are going to have to explore all the shops next time.

The first street car that we waited for took everyone in front of us and then told us we had to wait for the next car. Noooooo! It is so very cold! Here is the next one that thankfully took us.

The street car didn't take us all the way we wanted to go, so we had to walk a bit more.

This is a cool sculpture by the Ferry Building. Do you see the photo shoot going on?

It is a beautiful evening.

We finished the night with one of the best meals ever!

It truly was one that you just had to say "mmmmm" while you were eating it.

We ate at Gordon Biersch. There is one in Seattle, but I have never thought much of it. I'm going to have to try it again after this meal.

And this dessert!

It was an AWESOME trip!!!