A San Francisco Treat!

We had such a wonderful time visiting the Bay area! The main reason we went was to visit Paul's Grandma who lives in El Cerrito. She has a beautiful home and was such a terrific host! It was so fun to see her with our kids. She was so involved and the kids (especially Madeleine) took to her immediately.

She has a lemon tree and Asher was so excited to see the lemons. Gram let them pick some and they played with them for quite some time.

Then they both wanted a bite. Surprisingly, they both seemed to enjoy lemon peel. Madeleine was obsessed with Gram's necklace, she kept putting it into her own mouth and then offering it to Gram to try. Gram politely declined.

Below is a zoomed in shot from Gram's backyard of the Golden Gate bridge. Isn't it beautiful?
On Friday, We went to see my brother Zach, his wife Katie, and their twin boys Ben and Sam. Zach is getting a graduate degree from Stanford. He gave us a tour of the campus, it was beautiful. We had some trouble ordering Pizza in Palo Alto. No one wanted to deliver and a large one topping pizza seemed to be about 20 bucks everywhere. It was so great to see them! The kids had such a great time. They also have an Ikea close to their apartment so Paul was excited to eat Swedish meatballs, Lingon berry juice, and Swedish chocolate (he served his mission in Sweden). We were all excited to be in air conditioning.

Katie actually had her camera with her and posted about our visit on her blog.

Next, we went to Paul's sister Rebecca's house in Pleasanton. Asher loved playing with William and Ian. Here are the three of them in the back of Rebecca's Yukon: Asher, Ian in the middle, and William. Aren't they cute? We went with Rebecca, Paul's other sister Emily, Ian and William to downtown San Francisco.


Below is Madeleine insisting on holding onto the handle on the F train. It was funny because the train was sooooo packed. I don't think I have ever been that close to strangers in my life, and Maddie would not just let Paul hold her, she wanted her very own handle. At one point she held on with both hands and Paul let go of her and she swung back and forth. It was a feat to get the camera out so I didn't get a picture of that adventure.


Below is a picture of us near the Exploratorium.

Madeleine loves playing pianos, Rebecca let her play a duet.
On May 18th Madeleine turned 1! To celebrate, everyone except Madeleine, contracted a horrible stomach bug. I didn't even eat cupcakes and ice cream. Those of you who know me know that I must have been near death not to eat available cupcakes and ice cream, that gives you a pretty good indication of how bad this stomach bug was.

Asher keeps telling everyone that Madeleine got a 1 for her birthday.



Her big present was a baby doll. She loves that doll. She carries it around and kisses it. She is so sweet. When she got home, we gave her a stroller to push the doll around in which she loves. However, Asher often commandeers the stroller to push Dumbo in, we may have to get another toy stroller.

Thank you to Rebecca and Emily for taking such good care of us when we were sick, hopefully we didn't give you this plague.

On the way home we had a layover in Salt Lake and Paul's brother Scott, his wife Kathleen, and kids came to see us. They even brought us doughnuts! It was so nice especially because we didn't have tons of time. We got to meet their new baby and she is so beautiful.