Sunday, April 13, 2008

Visiting

We flew up to see Becca and Luke this weekend. They live outside of San Francisco in a magical forest, or Mill Valley.

Matt had fun entertaining Eleanor while we waited for Becca and Luke to find us. For some reason, we were at the international terminal. I guess LA really is another country.



They took us to this great Indian restaurant. You know it's good when you see mice. Really, the food was amazing and they assured us that it had only made them sick once.



Becca and Luke live in this great wooded area. I didn't hear a siren the whole time we were there. We saw ducks, deer and geese. It was soothing.



They have a great view of the bay from their apartment. We drove for about five minutes to this place called "the spit" where we had a picnic. In front of us was water, houseboats, the bay bridge, ducks, sea planes, and rocks. Behind us were gigantic mansions.



Eleanor has added Becca and Luke to people she adores and expects to listen to her. She had a great time with them. She learned about so many new things.



This is the hill right beside their parking lot...the magical forest I spoke of. They told us that every year Golden Gate Seminary hires 2,000 goats to mow for them. I wish we could have seen that.





Eleanor was VERY excited that Becca had shoes like hers. She kept wanting Becca to wear them with her, so Becca put them on to go get their mail. Eleanor thought it was great.


We went sightseeing one day. San Francisco has some fun things to see: a huge park (bigger than Central Park in NY), row houses on hills, dogs being treated as humans, Chinatown, eucalyptus groves, and water, to name a few.



We tried to pose for a family picture. Eleanor was more interested in playing on the stairs and not very cooperative.





Eleanor had a lot of fun running in the park. I introduced her to blowing the seeds off of dandelions. She was running here to get one.



Eleanor loves to "hide" in small spaces. She found this "hole" in Chinatown and delighted in being "found."



Chinatown merchant



One evening Luke burned his finger while cooking. The next day, Eleanor found a band aid and wanted to put it one Luke's "boo-boo." She was very concerned.



Eleanor dancing with her shadow



Last night we went to a park on top of a mountain where there was a great view of the Golden Gate Bridge. Apparently, during the second World War, this area was used as a military base. You have a great view of the whole bay from up there, so it makes sense. I'll have to ask my grandpa about it. Here Eleanor is playing "Ring Around the Rosie" on a space that once held a giant gun.



Before we left for this lookout place, we warned Eleanor in words and role playing (poor Friend Joey fell off the table) about cliffs. Despite that, she wanted to be close to the edge, to stand on the rope (which was still about six feet from the drop off). I had a tight grasp on her.



And then there were five. We have about eighty million pictures from college (well, at least two) of the four of us. It's kind of strange to have another person in them.



Or as Eleanor sees it:

She drew this in the car one day. My favorite part is that she gave Luke arms so that she could include his "boo-boo" (the line that goes over Matt's head is his arm, the boo-boo is the dot).

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Fantastic photos. Sounds like you all had a great time.

LeLe said...

I LOVE all the photos--makes me want to visit San Fran. Eleanor's drawing of all of you look like little thumb people. :)

Anonymous said...

E,

That picture you drew is awesome! I'm sitting here in SFBC drinking some coffee, eating a chocolate scone, avoiding a greek paper . . . and saw your picture! It made me smile!

Good job!

ryan

The Fanks said...

What a great week. Good job on the documentation.

MMA Lady said...

Hey, Lumpkins -
I liked this post so much. I used to live in that magical forest and I used to go running on the spit. Once, I got a Charlie Horse while riding on the spit and a rich guy drove me back up the hill to my apartment . . . in his Porsche. I also wish you could have seen the goats. Eliza said that she wanted to be a shepherd when she grew up every time the goats came to town. Glad ya'll had a good time! It's a wonderful place. I miss it.
-Amy (Brewer) Sickle