San Francisco

I did it.  I went on vacation without my children!!!

Trav and I left Friday morning for San Francisco, and left Emily and Audrey with his mom for the weekend.  They went up to my sister's house in Ames on Saturday for Julie's birthday party, had a great time, then spent the rest of the weekend in Barnum.  All parties, though exhausted, agreed it was a lot of fun and are willing to go for repeat circumstances on a future weekend.

Emily and I are outside as I write this, while Audrey naps.  Emily is on her newly constructed swingset, learning how to pump her legs to make herself go. It's a beautiful day, and I just killed a wasp out on my porch, so I'm feeling pretty pumped up myself.  It's been hard getting back in the routine of things, though.  I remember wondering why my sister, after 4 days of Ragbrai, was so sluggish to get back into Mom-mode, and now I am living it.  It's hard!  I feel bad that the girls are having a bit of a tough time too, remembering what the rules of the house used to be and are again.  Emily sat in the corner 3 times yesterday and once today.  But, I've forgotten just how frequently they need to eat, so now that we've gotten a good lunch in her tummy, things are better.  And I'll be more consistent with things, once I remember how.  It obviously was a good vacation!!

We stayed with my college roommate Rachel for Friday night and Saturday night, eating fabulous food at local restaurants and drinking good wine, laughing about ridiculous stuff and feeling young again.  I like knowing that the interesting people that I knew when I was young are still interesting, and therefore I must have been interesting at one point, too.  On Sunday, we met up with Travis's cousin Kari and her daughter Allison, and they took us to Muir Park and over the Golden Gate Bridge.  It was really, really fun.  Allison is 2, and by that point, I was missing my girls so much that it was hard to not just "mother" her in spite of myself.  I kept it together, except for one very snuggley hug that got a little out of hand. :)  I took Tuesday off from work, even though we were back on Monday night, and I'm glad I did because the girls and I needed to ease back into our routine a bit. 

I'm so glad it's finally spring.  The porch is easily warm enough every day that it's sunny, and the girls are loving to be outside.  The basement is done now, too, so we've got loads of room for these two little girls. If we just keep things picked up a bit, it'll continue to feel spacious.  But again, I'm still not quite back up to full steam after vacation, so I just try not to step on things and break them. :)