We went to Charleston, SC, in March. We visited the beach and climbed on the rocks there, and admired from afar the Revolutionary War fort that was there. From afar, because we could not drag ourselves away from the beach! We visited the aquarium and touched stingrays, and drove around downtown while Lily napped in the car. We went to the conference after-party and ate tasty snacks and chatted with people, and Jack and Lily got to hit a pinata and gather and eat candy! This was the first time that we took an umbrella stroller for Lily to ride in so that we wouldn't HAVE to change our plans for her nap. The unexpected twist to that was that Jack expected to get to ride in it, too. Poor kid. He felt so unloved and rejected b/c we let Lily ride in it and not him. Of course we explained it to him, that Lily is smaller and younger and can't run/walk as far as he can, but he still did a lot of whining.
We went to France in April. We visited Paris for a couple of days just for fun before we went on to Lyon where Tim's conference was. In Paris we saw the Eiffel Tower, we went up the Monparnasse Tower to see Paris from above, we saw the Louvre, and we played at the Tuilleries park. That park was our favorite part, and my absolute favorite part was the very end, when we visited it a second time on our way back out of the country. There was a merry-go-round that Jack spent a lot of time on, and a couple of very loud and rambunctious boys came and played on it too. I ran over to it and spun it as fast as I could, and those boys loved it! They knew the English word "fast" and would call out to me from across the playground "Madame Fast! Madame Fast! S'il vous plait?" Jack's favorite part of the park was a tall climbing structure, of course. All my children are monkeys :D In Lyon we visited an ancient cathedral, the Cathedrale Saint Jean (St. John's Cathedral). As we left, I let the kids get ice-cream cones from a street vendor who simply could not have been nicer to me and my kids. He could tell we were clueless tourists, and he did everything slowly and with a smile so we could understand what he was doing.
My other favorite part of France was the language instruction. I didn't have nearly enough time to become fluent, but I did try to become fluent in the few phrases I did know. I practiced pronunciation with church song CDs, and read scriptures in French every day. In Paris, I was complimented on my pronunciation multiple times by locals, and was able to have a few conversations (slow and halting, but conversations nonetheless).
We just got back from our first trip of the year to San Francisco. Tim got to go to Google I/O, a developers' conference that's been running for 5 years or so that he's always wanted to go to and never gotten to. After getting stressed and frazzled in France over not being able to see all the tourist attractions that I wanted to in the short time we were there, I relaxed and just spent the whole time at the parks. The kids had a BLAST. The other thing that had stressed me in France was not understanding how to get from point A to point B using public transportation, so this time I was more forgiving of myself and knew that it was just going to take forever to get across the city b/c it took me forever to decipher the maps and schedules. And, it didn't take forever, b/c I'm getting better at it! Jack also didn't whine about not being able to ride in the stroller, except for one evening when he was tired, hungry, and mad that we had to leave the park. He just had to get used to the idea. We did also take the train down the peninsula to visit our friend in Palo Alto. She's having a rough time, but it was so good to spend time with her and her adorable son again. He's old enough now to really play with Jack and Lily, and they had a great time together. The next day a friend from Sunnyvale rode the train up to come visit us, and we spent the whole day at Yerba Buena playground. Her son is right between Jack's and Lily's ages and they had a great time playing together again.
Forgive me. I'm too tired to post pics right now!
