Two Very Different Weekends

Weekend #1: Without Children (Yes, it IS possible.)

Over Memorial Day weekend we had Steve's sister Kimi take the girls back to Sacramento with her on Friday when she came to see Steve in the clinic.

Two days without children. I could hardly contain myself. We (I) thought of all of the things we (I) wanted to do while we've been here, but would bore the kids to death. By the way, Steve was a really good sport. He let me drag him where ever I wanted to go. I like him a lot.

After a session at the temple (on the list of "things that are really hard to do once you have kids"), we stopped by a farmers' market, grabbed some garlic cheese curds (ACK! so good!), bummed around San Francisco for a while, then went to Mill Valley.

Why Mill Valley? Because I wanted to go HERE:

Tyler Florence (if you don't know) is a celebrity chef who has a show on the Food Network. He lives in Mill Valley (a swanky little town just north of SF across the Golden Gate Bridge) and has a store there. Tyler Florence is probably on my top 5 favorite chefs list, and I've always wanted to go to his store (and camp out all day there in the hopes that he'd wander in). I found out that he was going to be there on Memorial Day doing some demonstrations and that he usually does some during the week. I was so close. Maybe we'll get a chance to go back and see him. I may just keel over from excitement if I ever do.

That picture of me in front of the store was the best we got. I should have ran across the street and got a shot like this:

image courtesy of flickr photographer "rocor"

. . . but I hate feeling "touristy". I'm regretting it now. We had lunch at a little organic flatbread joint (it's a bit crunchy up there, but the "I only shop at Whole Foods and my home furnishings look like they came from an 18th century farmhouse" version of crunchy.)

And then we left San Francisco. . .

to head home and purge/organize the girls' toys. Best to do that while they're not around.

Then we went and got the girls after church on Sunday. (Um, church was nice, but sorta boring. After being released from the Primary presidency AND not having two toddlers to chase during Sacrament meeting, it was like going back to our early years of marriage. Nice, but not nearly as interesting.)

Yes, I missed the girls, but then I had to live through a 3-4 day "attention and wide-open spaces" hangover. Just in time for this weekend.

Weekend #2: Without Steve

Steve's been in Philadelphia for three days (he gets home tomorrow, yippee!) finishing up the last seminar for his wellness certification. And because it's such a long trip home (9 hours of travel -- ugh) he couldn't get a flight out until tomorrow morning. He had Sunday afternoon to kill, so he hopped on a tour bus. When I found out he was going to be wandering around (without kids) snapping pictures of the Liberty Bell and eating cheesesteaks, I got a little jealous. No, a lot jealous.

So I decided to do what I've been wanting to do for the last couple of months, Steve or no Steve. I took the girls to the beach.

We hopped in the car yesterday morning and drove an hour down to Santa Cruz and hung out for a few hours. It only took one trip down to the water for them to decide they never want to go near it again. They stayed right by me the entire time and played in the sand. They only got their feet wet once. I wonder why I even bothered to put swimsuits on all of us.

We've had a lot of other things going on this weekend with friends, so the girls have been going almost nonstop since Steve left. Despite a serious regression in potty training (AHHHHH!!) things have been going well. Considering. I haven't entirely lost my mind either, but there are still quite a few hours left to go.