The Magical Mystery Tour

I used to love winter, then I hated it, now I'm starting to like it again. Mostly because LT and BP like it, and there are fun things to do in winter that you can't do otherwise, and I actually dress properly for the temps and we take vacations to break up the monotony. A couple weeks ago we took an unexpected trip to San Francisco for "work related reasons" which I might expound upon in another post. But anyway it was fun and we spent two nights in Sunnyvale and two in San Fran. There are no sea lions in San Fran anymore, btw. They jumped ship and no one really knows why. We did get to go to one of our favorite restaurants, The Stinking Rose which is also in LA but not nearly as good there so only go to the one in San Fran. But be warned they do NOT have the awesome sparkling lemonade of yore. Sigh. Liam slept through that delicious dinner, which is a rarity for him these days, but just being a two hour time change really threw off both the kids.

That little change ended up being the worst part of the trip, because they were both sort of off the whole time and so there were more moments of fussiness and tantrums for all of us. Still, you just can't say too many bad things about being somewhere in February that feels like spring and requires only a light jacket. We went outside a LOT, which was fantastic, and while Eric was working on Friday I took the boys about an hour south to the Monterey Bay Aquarium It was fun and on the ocean and insanely expensive, and nice to see but it also made me appreciate the Shedd a little more, because the Shedd really compares to this renown place. We also went to the Muir Woods which required a drive across the Golden Gate bridge and that's always a little trippy.

When we lived in LA we didn't get up to San Fran too often, and now I wish we had gone more. I also can kind of vaguely see what people like about nature, though I still would not venture into it if it weren't for Eric and the kids. Oh, and really most profound of all was the realization that, yet again, we do not have enough frozen yogurt establishments in this great Chicagoland area and why not??? Why not? It's not because it's too cold, because we have plenty of ice cream and yucky frozen custard places, so what is the problem? Ok, enough about that. Oh and also Eric and I went to what had been our favorite coffee chain in LA and we still order drink kits from there but it made me realize that it wasn't all that I remembered it to be and many of the things I think I would like to go back and do again I just wouldn't because they're not the same at all when you have kids. For instance we couldn't sit at our favorite Westwood restaurant for 4 hours and eat shwarma and smoke hookahs and drink turkish coffee and relax. We just couldn't do it anymore. It wouldn't be the same and if we didn't have a babysitter with us it wouldn't even be remotely possible. And the thing is I don't even care and so I guess in some strange way I've gotten older. Again.

Something I learned by accident on this trip, and I don't know why I didn't know it before, but for the Tips for Traveling with Kids - when you go somewhere and the view isn't important, get a room on the first floor. The hotel where Eric's work had put us up assigned us a gigantic room on the first floor, which meant Liam and Brendan could run around and not bother people in the room below us, and it was awesome. In San Fran we had a higher level floor, which was great because they could watch all the goings on out the windows - definitely a must for big cities. But in Sunnyvale there's nothing to see so having the first floor was primo. For some reason the Marriott in San Fran upgraded us to a suite so for the 2nd two nights we also had a giant place and it was great so that the kids could have space. We're going to Champaign this week for my semester on campus visit, and I booked a suite there for the first time thinking I was a super genius, but now I know I have to also ask for a, you guessed it, first floor suite. Speaking of my oncampus visit I need to go and do some schoolwork now. Oh, and on a seemingly unrelated point if you ever have a child who doesn't sleep, definitely take a visit to a pediatric sleep doctor. It is one of the best things we have ever done in our lives. Great timing with a newborn on the way haha but I will take my 3 months of sleep anyway.