Welcome back to us! It feels to me like it has taken us a week to get back into continuing with our lives after a long and fun weekend in St. Louis. For those of you who were there with us, we apologize for the reiteration of everything you were there for. If you'd like, you can jump down to the marker identified as This Week and continue reading. The same thing goes for all you who don't want to read over my family's adventures in St. Louis. In fact, you could take the photo tour and experience it better than I could write about it. However, since this email doubles as our journal - I'm going to write about it and there's nuttin' you turkeys can do about it. [/Mulan]
Last Week
Monday was our last dinner with the Rocks before they started their trip to Utah for the next three weeks. They are going to do their baby blessing in Alyssa's family ward and since she is still on leave from work, they made a nice trip out of it. The rest of our week, we mostly got ready for our trip and relaxed from the semester being over. The studio and campus have been completely vacant and, while it isn't a bother to have the buildings be empty, the empty graduate studio is a bit disconcerting. But I believe I remember my studio mates saying they were taking different trips for a few weeks at the beginning of summer, so they should be back. Maybe.
Tuesday evening, I had a meeting with CADRE people about the projects we are going to be working on this summer. However, due to a painful migraine, I didn't stick around very long. I think it had something to do with lack of food, water, and appropriate "standing up and walking around" breaks. We made a quick trip to Sonoma Chicken Coop to grab some dinner (we were planning on an in-and-out trip, when who should walk up to our table but Kate and Robi. So they invited us to stick around and eat with them, which we did, and invited us over for games the next night, which we did as well. San Jose is an odd town. It is supposedly the 10th largest city in the nation, yet it doesn't feel large at all. That is mostly due to the overwhelming urban sprawl which extends the whole of the valley, making the town the most unoriginal and boring place to live. Yet, I wish we lived closer to downtown so at the very least we could feel more connected to what is happening.
Unfortunately, we couldn't stay long at Kate and Robi's Wednesday night because we still had to pack - we had already done the obligatory cleaning for those kind people who were going to stop in and check on the cat. Actually, I think the cleaning is more for me than anyone: I like to come home from a trip to a clean house. It fits with the feeling of being in a hotel and having your room cleaned for you every day [easier transition home again? :) ]. So we got home early Wednesday night and stuffed everything we needed into the largest suitcase. This was for two reasons. First, we thought we needed to bring my tripod for family pictures. Second, because we were hoping that my family would [read our minds and...] bring the hand-me-down girl's clothes we could take home with us on the plane. Funny enough, the first reason became invalid and we took the tripod out of the suitcase before we left. [but seriously, once everything fits, why repack!? -beck]
Rebecca's friend Cindy and her husband had decided to take a train ride from Seattle (where they live) to Southern California (where his family lives) and made a pit stop in San Francisco Thursday evening. Traffic was terrible and to add to those problems we kept making wrong decisions making it a 2 hour drive which should normally take 45 minutes. But we made it there late and sadly only had time to spend an hour in the SFMoMA with them. And while we wanted to spend more time, our plan was to wake up at 3:50 am the next morning, so we left after the museum closed and literally dropped them off at the corner on our way to the freeway. We got to bed at 11:30 pm, and probably didn't fall asleep until later. Who knows? The next 24 hours were such a blur.
Up by 3:50. Drove to Rebecca's work parking lot which happens to be across the freeway from the airport. Then, we walked to the airport. You heard me correctly - walked. It's something we don't often think about, but airports apparently aren't meant to be walked to. You can walk around inside them, you can walk from terminal to terminal and parking lot to terminal. But to leave that airport, you need to use something that has wheels and is road approved. But we decided to break the rules at 4 in the morning and walked. It took us about 20 minutes and we only had to hop a couple of street medians with our luggage. No fences, thankfully. Tired, not thinking coherently, we checked in for our flight and tried to sleep. Many hours and one layover later, we got into St. Louis and my brother and his family picked us up and took us to the hotel. Nieces and nephew were excited and bustling. There was running and yelling and fun fun fun. Of course: the first thing they want to do is to go swimming. And, that woke me up. After dinner, some of the adults left to go to the temple and we were supposed to keep the kids entertained. They were so rowdy that we did the only thing we knew how: we took them for more swimming [hoping to "wear them out"!]. Until past their bedtimes. What good babysitters we are.
Early Saturday morning, we arose to make sure we got to the St. Louis Arch memorial long before lines started. And here is where I put in an aside. I liked the Drury Inn where we stayed. It was a really nice place. Lots of free breakfast, free popcorn and drinks, nice rooms, I was impressed. The Western Expansion Monument is a bit creepy. Maybe that's because ultimately what it stands for is white power. Which is a bit strange and politically incorrect. But, I guess I can say I went there. We rode the tiny elevators (one of the kids called them "port-a-potty" elevators) to the top and as Grandpa Madsen told me about his experience: "I can say I went to the top and that's about it." So, we went there. Lucky for us, by the time we got down, the lines were around the arch and we were glad we got there so early on Memorial weekend.
Saturday was our busiest day. We saw the Mississippi river on a boat tour. After the tour, the girls and Tanner saw some people rolling down the hills and so Rebecca and I took them. Rebecca was pleased because this was the first time Alison held her hand instead of running to someone else whenever she was close. So that made her day. We decided to support our local brewer and drove from the boat tour to the Budweiser park/zoo for the rest of the afternoon. There were baby goats to feed and pet and water sprinklers to run through. As the day got on, it was hot and humid. Naturally, this meant that when we got back to the hotel, we all went swimming again. It is a good thing too, because I was so exhausted from the heat that the water woke me right up.
Sunday was much more relaxed. Church in the morning with nieces and nephew is always fun. I drew Alison and Kristen some pictures. We had a nice picnic for lunch along with family bingo. Everyone won something and Tanner got his cars, Caitlyn got her funny nose, Alia got some light-up pens, Alison got a bag of lizards, there were bouncing balloons and so on. The afternoon was spent at Forest Park which claims to be the largest city park in the nation. I don't buy it. While its total square footage might be larger than Central Park, it is full of buildings and museums and the like: Central Park is mostly just park. It rained and rained after we got out of the art museum; we both miss rain like that.
And finally, it was time to go home. Our memorial day was slow, but I'm not sure it was relaxing. The morning was spent playing games with Martin and Jessica's family, but the rest of the day was spent traveling. the nicest part: when we got to San Jose we were walking back to our car, wondering how to cross traffic in the middle of the evening, when a ward member pulled up and offered us a ride. What a great rescue! Then, at home. we crashed and slept.
This Week
And that is why we spent Tuesday and Wednesday detoxing [grocery shopping, etc.] from the previous week. It was so much fun that it has taken us most of this week to get back to normal life. I know there were doctor's appointments in there and veterinarian appointments too. Who really keeps track of those things?
Thursday evening, Rebecca skipped work early to come with me to a potentially good discussion at the Montalvo Arts Center about how arts and technology affect the R&D sectors of the high tech industry. Instead, it turned out to be a very uninspiring discussion about very uninteresting and redundant issues. At no direct fault of the very well selected panelists. In fact, I'm not sure who to blame on that one. Afterwards, we (the CADRE graduates) all went to an Irish pub and discussed what makes True English fish and chips. I still claim that Scottish food is the best of the available British options.
For our date night Friday evening, we cleaned our car! I know that doesn't sound terribly romantic or even fun, but for us, it is a simple joy to have a clean vehicle. This is probably because we don't often have a truly clean vehicle [this is maybe a twice a year occasion! -beck]. However, this time the self-clean power washers weren't doing the job well enough so maybe next time we'll go to one of the many car wash places around here who do the works on your car. I used to do that when I was single out here and it's such a luxury.
Which brings us to yesterday: the gardening day. It was high time we adjusted our trees in their pots and re-attempted to grow our own herbs. While we were out shoveling dirt on our balcony, we tossed in a couple of tomato plants as well. We started at a small gardening shop down the street from us and found their service to be unbelievably good. They approached us, they helped us, they showed us and talked to us about every detail we wanted to know. We walked away with our herbs and some really cheap good soil, but they were all sold out of tomatoes which we had to get from the bigger gardening store. So here is the real question for everyone: how does gardening work in California with plants like tomatoes and herbs like cilantro? Does the warmer weather mean the plants won't die come winter and we can continually get fruit? Or are we going to have to do this all over again next spring? We'd like to know what to expect of our future garden. Yay for fresh parsley and thyme!
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