Oregon Coast Trip: Some San Francisco Treats

 We just got home from a road trip to the Oregon Coast, and road trips in our family are always an adventure.  Six strapping boys in the back of a Yukon XL; and the bigger they grow the cozier the trip for everyone!  Oh the lengths we will go to to escape the desert heat in August!

We headed out late Saturday morning (always a late start, another VanBuskirk tradition.  We had to leave the house spotless in case a realtor might bring someone by, but then again, having a clean house for a whole week was very satisfying, even if I wasn't there to enjoy it.  Is that weird?)  We high tailed it out of the heat and made it just over the Bay Bridge just in time for a San Francisco treat!

 I love big cities, and the excitement I felt driving through downtown was palatable!  I wanted stay for days and explore the city.  Not this time.  Time here was short, so we worked our way to the bay front.

Go where the chocolate is, I always say.  We found our way to Ghirardelli Square.

 Our first impression of San Fran: It is COLD here!  Having left the sweltering heat of the desert we were ill prepared for the fighting wind on the bay.  We had to dig through our luggage to find enough sweaters for everyone; we couldn't do much about the shorts and flip-flops though.

Derek found his penny machine.  All is right in the world.

 We found our way to Fisherman's Wharf with only one mission in mind - finding the best, hottest, yummiest bread bowl of clam chowder San Fran has to offer.

 We found our way to the world famous Boudin Bread company.  Fresh sourdough bread - this is gonna be good!

Alligator bread - the bread that bites you back.

Bread is beautiful!

Oh yeah!

 Bring it to mama!

 Now that's what I'm talking about!

 The bread was tangy, chewy, and fresh, and the chowder was amazing.  It was hot and tasted SO good!  

   Just what we needed to warm us up on a chilly, yes chilly, August night!

We were all full, well, except for Caleb and Luke who still managed to find room for a BIG Mac.

Well, we thought we were full, until we found a sweet shop.  Suddenly we all had room for candy!

 Choices, choices, choices.  We all settled unanimously on salt water taffy...

and that just meant more choices, choices, choices.

Yummy morsels!

We spent a little more time exploring the craziness of Saturday night on the bay.  

 It was dark and we still had miles to drive, and so we finally had to get going...

  

But not before stopping for one last San Francisco treat.

Hot fudge sundaes from Ghirardelli's.  

No, ice cream does not seem ideal for a bunch of freezing desert rats, but the hot fudge made up for it, right?

Oh yeah!

And we couldn't leave the city by the bay without driving down the twisty turvy Lombard Street.

Then across the Golden Gate Bridge, where the fog was so thick we couldn't see halfway up.

So long, San Fran! Our visit was short, but very, very sweet.

Why I LOVE Sundays

Tonight, when we were all enjoying a quite Sunday evening together as a family, I was so overwhelmed with gratitude for the love that I felt in my home, that I had to grab my camera and capture a few bits and pieces of what the Sabbath is at our home.

 In the dining room, Derek is helping Grandpa figure out how to us FamilySearch, the church's wonderful genealogy program on his new computer.  The youth in our stake have been really working a lot lately on learning how to do their family history research, and today at church our 3rd hour combined meeting was all about how the youth are now ready to turn around and help the rest of us learn how to do it.  Derek has really caught on to the whole genealogy thing, having found several names that needed work done in our family - work we had all figured had already been done - and it has been such a blessing to our family to do it.  Now grandpa is eager to start, and Derek is happy to help him!

In the living room, Dylan is blessing our home with some of his beautiful music.  Oh, what a great blessing it is to have live, wonderful must in our home.  Dylan is such a busy kid, and during the week he squeezes in practices where he can between schoolwork, wrestling, water polo, swimming, scouts, young mens, etc.  But on Sunday Dylan really has more time to just play - pick up pieces he hasn't played in a while, try to sight read new music he has found, and do a little experimental and improvisational composing of his own.  The other boys took the time to practice today as well.  What a blessing it is to have music in our home on the Sabbath day!

In the family room, the boys have pulled out a board game for us all to play together after dinner.  The younger boys are huddled over an iPad playing games and watching some church videos on LDS.org.  We love the many New Testament videos about the life and ministry of Jesus Christ, and also the "I am a  Mormon" clips.  We can just watch one after another after another!  It is so fun to get to know our brothers and sisters in Christ all over the world!

 And, no.  In case you were wondering, it is not all peaceful and quiet here on Sundays. Yes, there is a certain amount of fighting and quarreling, and wrestling each other to the ground, and me yelling at everyone to just settle down and quiet down so their father can get his much deserved nap in! (How DOES he sleep with all the ruckus, anyway?) Mostly there is a whole lot of silliness going on.  This kid makes sure of that!

 In the kitchen things are really hopping!  Alex is bustling about making brownies for desert.  His reward for his labors: dibs on licking the beater, of course.  Whether it is brownies or cookies or pies, I simply request dessert, and Alex happily does the rest - just as long as he gets to lick the bowl.

For Nate, Sundays are the time to perfect his bread making skills.  Tonight, he experimented a bit by using the same basic dough to make both a swirled cheesy rosemary cheddar bread, and some ooey gooey chocolate cinnamon rolls.  We love it when Nathan experiments and we are always willing guinea pigs!  They both disappeared quick, and almost didn't make it to suppertime!

(Are you beginning to see why I LOVE Sundays around here?)

And then it is time for Dinner!  Dennis wakes up from his luxurious nap just in time to feast on Dad's wonderfully delicious homemade ham and beans, and a humongous jello, as is tradition every Sunday.   All I had to do was throw together a salad (as is also tradition, much to my children's chagrin), and along with Nate's bread, of course, we had a wonderful meal.

On Sundays with my parents here, dinnertime conversation usually centers around what we learned at church that day, and what is going on in our very busy lives, with a few, "Oh my goodness, this is SO delicious!" thrown in for good measure.

What was NOT on tonight were football games, movies, video games, and no, I didn't even sneak a peak at Downton Abbey (but come Monday morning, baby...).  We decided a long time ago that those things didn't belong in our home on the Sabbath.  I'm so glad we did, because I just don't think night like this would be the same of they were.

So there it is.  With just a few snaps of my camera, I have captured just a bit of why I just LOVE Sundays.  There is just no other day of the week where we all get to do our own things - together - like this. I'm so glad one comes along every week!

My Lettermen

1/10/13

 Alex and Nate got their Christmas presents a little late - January late!  But they will both tell you that it was worth the wait.  Alex and Nate got their letterman's jackets!  My handsome lettermen!

Both Alex and Nate earned their varsity letters in academics, swimming, and water polo!  What choice did we have?  All those letters had to go somewhere, plus those two boys were always so awfully cold.

I'm glad they are happy.  They should be.  Those jackets were WAY expensive!  And we didn't even add on all the bells and whistles.  I have been more and more amazed at how expensive teenagers are!!!  Holy cow!  And I used complain about how expensive diapers are.  I could have boughten a whole lot of diapers for the price of 2 letterman's jackets.  And I have 2 more kids entering high school in a few months.  Remind me to encourage them not to be the overachievers that their big brothers are - save us some big money.

Get used to seeing these boys in these purple jackets because in order to get our money's worth, they are going to wear them every single day until the weather hits, oh, I don't know... 100 degrees, maybe.  Hot stuff!

Catch Up Time!

Well, it has been a while since I have worked on my blog- obviously.  I guess life just got the best of me.  But even if I haven't been posting, I have certainly been taking pictures, and now my computer is totally stuffed! It can't eat another photo!  The time has come for me to do some catching up on my blog.

The problem when you fall behind is deciding how exactly to catch up, and knowing where exactly to begin - again.  I think the best thing to do is start with the beginning of 2013 and work my way current, and then when I get caught up, I will go back and fill in what I have missed in 2012 and 2011.

I would say that I hope nobody minds, but I'm pretty sure nobody will possibly mind because I'm pretty sure nobody reads Boys-R-Us anymore, so I can do whatever I want, right?  Besides, I do this for me, for my family, and for its historical value.  A blog is a great way to get our photos and stories organized and documented, and if anybody happens to drop on by and take a peek, all the better.

So here we go.

Ready....Set....Blog!