Thanksgiving in San Francisco...

Day One ~ Wednesday, November 22

It was a great day for a drive. I decided that Anthony should just stay out of school and he could help Cisco clean up the house and get his little bag packed for the trip that we were about to embarq on. I went to work for a couple of hours and went to go get some lunch for us before we left. We packed up the car, played musical vehicles and then finally started driving around 1:30pm. The original plan was to leave around 11:30am, I knew that wasn't going to happen though. My secret thought was that Anthony and Cisco were playing XBox for a better part of the morning instead of getting ready like I told them to. It's ok though, because we atleast got out of the house before the sun started going down. We drove into a little town named Hanford, CA. We found the hotel, got into jammies and Anthony and Cisco decided to mess up one of the beds by playing in it for most of the evening. It was fun though. We watched the end of Harry Potter and The Goblet of Fire and watched some of the Garfield movie. I think I turned off the T.V. around 12:30am and Anthony was still up watching T.V. 2:30am brought on the wakeup call of the century. The hotel is located within a mile of a railroad track and this train had it's horns blowing. My eyes opened rather wide and I was AWAKE at the sound of this stuff. It was a true, My Cousin Vinny moment. There were several thoughts that went through my mind that night. I think the train blairing it's horn went on until about 5:30am, that was the last I remember hearing of it. I was more that a little bit tired the next day.

Day Two ~ Thursday, November 23 ~ Thanksgiving Day

It was really nice on this day. I thought that it would be really cold but it wasn't. We started driving toward San Francisco around 9:30am and got there at about 12:30pm. It was a nice drive. There was a lot of traffic, I had never been somewhere else for Thanksgiving or atleast never had to drive somewhere for Thanksgiving before so it was a totally new experience. It was nice when we got to our destination. It wasn't as cold as I thought it would be up there. I was so ready for a nap when we got to Olivia's aunt's house. But then it was time to visit and help out with whatever I was asked to help with, which wasn't much. Things were pretty much done. It was time to get ready for dinner not too long after we arrived. Got the clothes ironed, the kids ready and myself and Cisco as well. There were a lot of people that came to dinner. Things were so nicely decorated. The tables had name places at the seats, glasses, flowers, everything. It was a nice spread. There was the traditional things served as well as pomagranate cosmos, yummy. We ate, visited, ate dessert, and then played some cards. I was toast by the time we went to sleep.

Day Three ~ Friday, November 24

A day in the city. Cisco wanted to go and visit the 'witchcraft in San Francisco so we drove out there in the morning. I have never seen such a complicated parking lot to get into than the one that is located across the street from the Westfair Mall. You have to get in line with your car on the other side of the block and then wrap around to get into it. That was about a process of around 1/2 an hour. Once we finally got into the parking lot it was smooth sailing. We had lunch at the 'witchcraft and then went into the mall. This thing was huge. It was atleast 7 stories. It wasn't a long building though, just high. There were a lot of stores, but I hate going to a mall that I'm not familiar with because I don't know where my favorite stores are located and I always feel awkward going to a mall with Cisco, because I am in the mood to look and window shop but I always feel like he is just tapping his foot. He doesn't say anything, that's just me. We took Anthony to see Santa while we were there and then went out to the street and started walking looking for more stores to go to and look around. Let's keep in mind that this was on Black Friday, so it was some sort of a nightmare. We walked up to the Disney Store and Anthony got himself a little toy, since he was so cold I had to buy him a hat there too. Cisco wanted to look in Williams Sonoma for some stuff for work and right next door was Tiffany's so I went there. I bought myself a sterling silver bracelet for my Birthday, it's so pretty. We walked over to the Westin, I don't remember the name of it, but it's really old. We went in and grabbed something to eat and drink and then headed back to the car because we were going to see a movie with the whole gang. The city was definatly busy and part of the problem that I found was there there was a couple of demostrations going on and picketors in front of Macy's. Other than that I had so much fun walking around. I think it would have been easier without Anthony, but it was still fun. We went and saw Happy Feet, which I didn't wanna see anyways, but when we walked out of there I knew why. Now how is it that the creators of this movie think that there are going to be Mexican Pengins? We went back to the house and had Thanksgiving leftovers and watched Over the Hedge. Now that movie is funny.

Day Four ~ Saturday, November 25

Oh crap, I don't have a phone to call Jackie on her birthday and I can't find a stamp to mail her card out. This is also the day that we start to head back home. We drove out to Yosemite. I have never been there before and let me just say the road to get there sucks. Anthony and I felt car sick the whole way up the mountain because it was so curvy. I don't do curvy. It is really pretty up there though. Let me also say that I wish I would have known that it was going to be as cold as it was. WE WERE FREEZING!!!! I think that was all that Anthony did up there was complain about how cold it was. We found somewhere to stay up there that night and then went and had dinner at a restaurant up there. It was nice. We went back to the hotel and took a shower. Hello!!!! The shower would go to perfect warm water to scalding hot water. Cisco and I were stuck in the shower screaming for help from Anthony to turn it colder! That's pretty bad. I felt like I had second degree burns on my legs from that water. That was horrible. I was so scared of the shower I skipped it all together the next morning. We saw some bears, and deer ran past our room the next morning.

Day Five ~ Sunday, November 26

It was Cold, Cold, Cold that morning. We went and had the worst breakfast of our lives and then drove out of the park. We took lots of pictures, which we had to talk Anthony into. We drove up to about 9 thousand feet on this mountain. There was snow up there and all of the rivers were frozen over with ice. It was really neat. Cisco and I kept on running out of the car to take pictures while Anthony stayed snuggly warm in the back seat. We took some really neat pictures up there. It was so beautiful. Cisco says that was my birthday hotel room and that is good for me. I had a lot of fun. I'm glad that we went up there. We drove back down and headed towards Death Valley. We ventured down the wrong road because this paved road that we were on turned into a dirt road and there were only three cars that ended up passing us on this road. I swear I didn't think that the car was going to make it. Cisco and I started talking to pass the time. He had asked me what the worst thing that I could think of happening to us. I told him, " Not being able to find the main road. Having to spend the night here in the car and someone coming along and murdering us in the middle of the desert." He said, "Where would someone come from?" Because there was nothing and no one out there. I told him, "You know in those movies people just come out of nowhere." Right when I said that we went over a little hill and there was this lady jogging in the middle of the desert on the same road that we were on. Cisco was officially freaked out. We hadn't seen anyone or anything for the longest time and then out of nowhere there is lady jogging. We finally found the road and headed home. We took a two hour detur on accident. But it was certainly interesting. I was just happy that we weren't driving at night in that patch of desert that we were in. I would not have been a happy camper. We headed home and drove to my mom's house for dinner.

It was a nice trip. I consitered that my Birthday trip. I did so much while we were gone. I may have froze for some of it but it was totally worth it to do it all. I wouldn't trade that in for the world.

Thanks hunny for the idea of going up there for Thanksgiving. I love you...

~M