and for the Thanksgiving part.

So we headed out of Oakland and up to Sacramento on Thanksgiving. In orde for us to feel right back at home in the Bay Area, we hit MASSIVE traffic up until we got to Dixon, turning a 1.5 hour ride into a 3 hour odyssey including gas, bathroom and snack stops. 

We got to Lisa and Clarks house an hour or so before dinner and all the hard work was done! We got to see their new kitchen and basically sit down to dinner without doing any work. Dinner was great, it was our whole family along with theirs as well as Auntie Sue and Grandma Mary. I tried to enlist all of Lisa's kids into helping me wash the dishes (I KNEW none of mine would help me), but got nowhere. Auntie Sue, Grandma and I did the dishes while everyone else hit the park for some after dinner football. 

After football and cleanup, it was over to Grandma Mary's house for Tanner's final birthday party. It was a surprise (we delayed our arrival by a few minutes). He was truly surprised, and not doing well with being the center of attention, was happiest when the party moved on to the gift opening. He got more great stuff from my side of the family, AND had more cake and candy. After part of a movie, the kids all collapsed. 

We spent some more cousin time today and set off for home about 2:00. It was great seeing everyone, but we are getting ready to be home. We made it to Reno and stayed in the Peppermill, where we both got to have a great workout in the huge gym and a good dinner with the kids. They are watching a movie as I type. I'm hoping to get another workout in tomorrow before we get on the road and then it's a long day's drive back home to Boise. 

Tanner and I have been gone for 8 days and he's really tired. A night in our own beds is being much looked forward to. Vacation is always great, but it's always awesome to be back home. 

San Francisco Tourists

I have been wanting to take the kids on a cable car for years now. I had built it up in my mind to be "The Ultimate San Francisco Experience". Out of this entire vacation I think the cable car thing was what I was looking forward to most.  Brian was pretty sure I would be disappointed. You know when you hear so much good press about a movie before you see it that when you actually see it the movie doesn't live up to your inflated expectations? That DIDN'T happen here. The cable car ride yesterday was AWESOME.

We met Kylie and Lisa in Union Square and bought our tickets. We got on the third car and all 7 of us stood up and held onto the outside of the car (even Faith!).  It was kind of hectic getting on, as we were the last 7 people. Brian had Tanner and Faith and I was with Jake, Lisa and Kylie. The conductor spaced us out so there was an adult next to each child so Brian and I were separated by 5 people and it is a really narrow space and you are supposed to stand looking forward. About halfway through the ride Lisa asked Brian where Tanner was and he told her I had him.... ummmmm NOPE. A moment of panic ensued (probably only a half second) until Brian realized Tanner was in fact on the car with us, just a person or two back from he and Faith.  Tanner wasn't scared though and we all had a blast. It was a beautiful day and the moment when the car rises on the hill and you see the Bay below was really cool. Just like in the Rice-a-Roni commercials.


We spent the next few hours at Fisherman's Wharf and Pier 39. All of us loved watching the sea lions sumo wrestling in the sun and the kids, of course, loved shopping for their souveniers. Faith, no surprise here, picked out a stuffed kitten.  Tanner and Jake shopped at the sports store and picked out Warriors, Raiders, and Yankees gear.  We sat outside for lunch, walked to Ghiradelli Square, and finally took a cab ride back to Union Square where the kids and I watched the ice skaters while Brian did a little shopping. I had my turn to shop while Brian took the kids to the Disney Store and Adidas and Oakley. At about 6:00 we took 3 very tired kids back on BART to Oakland where they collapsed in front of the TV prior to falling quickly asleep.

City life is pretty fun.

Tanner Turns 8

The first of what will turn out to be several birthday parties was Tanner's "friend" party on November 16th. We took his three best buddies to Jump Time- an indoor trampoline place that has a dodge ball court, a basketball hoop, free jump area, and more. They bounced for two hours and then we headed to a local Italian restaurant for pizza, followed by frozen yogurt at U-Swirl (he didn't want a cake). Tanner claimed it was his best birthday ever. The boys all had fun. It was a long fiesta- the boys were dropped off at our house at 930AM and we brought them home around 2 that afternoon.

Next up was the "family birthday".  Since Tanner and Brian were leaving on his actual birthday we did the present opening on Wednesday evening. His favorite gift, by far, was the stuffed Bronco football thingy that Nana got for him. It is a zip up stuffed football that reveals the Bronco mascot if you unzip it. Whatever it is, it came along to CA with us and has been functioning as Tanner's pillow ever since. We got to sing Happy Birthday to him on Thursday morning before school, with a single candle in his birthday donut.

After he and Brian finished the Warriors portion of his 8th birthday (see next post) we spent a few days in Mountain View with Kim and Bill and Abby and Aidan. My dad came to visit for an afternoon and Kim and I tried our best to spoil him with good homemade food. Joe, Suzie, and Jasper came the next day and we all caught up on each others lives while the kids played outside and ran back and forth to the park.

Now we are in Oakland, preparing for several days in SF.  We are spending 3 nights at Sheila and Wayne's condo and pretending we are "city folk" instead of the country bumpkins we seem to have turned into since leaving the Bay Area 8 years ago. Did you know that the population of the Bay Area is over 6 times greater than the population of the ENTIRE state of Idaho???  Coming back here is culture shock in a lot of ways. I like to refer to this trip as "Diversity Training 101". I have been reminded in the last 24 hours that my children are so, so white. There is zero diversity in Boise so this is like a crash course in "people come in all colors,  religions, sizes, and states of sanity".  Tomorrow we are taking BART to Union Square so we can take a cable car down to the Fisherman's Wharf area. Wednesday we plan to take the ferry over to SF and maybe go to the new Exploratorium.

Thanksgiving Day will find us driving to Sacramento and celebrating Turkey Day amongst all of Brian's family- Grandma Mary, Auntie Sue, Lisa, Clark, and their five kids. Our kids can't wait to see the cousins and are all dying to use their swimming pool (what a treat to get to swim in November!!).

Tanner's 8th Birthday Road Trip

Tanner and I took off on his birthday road trip halfway through the day on Thursday. He has been looking forward to this trip for the last couple of weeks. He was very insistent that I pick him up at 11:40 EXACTLY because that was right before he went to lunch. I recently looked up his birth time on his birth certificate for him because he wanted to wear his new stopwatch to school and announce to his class the MINUTE he turned 8. We joked that he would turn 8 at 11:32 and then he “was outta there” right after.

Anyway, I picked him up as directed. We got a quick lunch and hit the road for CA. We drove to Winnemucca, NV the first night and got a hotel room. He got his traditional birthday dinner with Dad (Roundtable this time, pepperoni and bacon deep dish). Followed by a box of candy and The Hobbit on HBO in the hotel room. I was freezing and windy in Winnemucca, so we got on the road pretty quickly the next day. The drive was easy the whole way, no weather to speak of.

We made our traditional pit stop at Scheels in Sparks, NV for lunch. We did a little shopping. Tanner got a new pair of shoes, I was able to contain myself which was pretty impressive in the presence of the largest collection of Under Armor gear in the Western Hemisphere. After lunch we finished up the drive to Grandma Mary’s in time for dinner. We went to Leatherby's where Tanner got a burger and I got an awesome crab sandwich. After dinner he wanted a banana split, which was the size of another meal. He order ½ chocolate and ½ vanilla and he and I didn’t finish it, but we did some serious damage.

We watched the first half of the Warriors game on TV  and then I put him to bed. He was exhausted. He slept from 8 to 7 the next morning. We got up and hung out with Grandma for a bit and then hit the road to Oakland. Uncle Eric hooked us up (as always) at the team hotel and practice facility. We are on the 20^th floor looking out on the Tribune building. We got to go down and tour the practice facility and got to shoot around on the practice floor. While we were there, Coach Jackson came in and introduced himself. He talked to Tanner about his basketball team and was just an awesome guy all the way around. Eric gave us the rest of the tour and then Tanner and I hit the town.

It has been a long time since I have been back in Oakland in a car and it was great to drive around and revisit all of my favorite hometown spots. Tanner said he wanted hotdogs for lunch, so I promised him the best hotdogs in the world. We went to lunch at Kaspers Dogs on MacArthur and Fruitvale. It hasn’t changed AT ALL since my grandpa used to take me there for lunch when I was Tanners age before we picked Grandma up from work. I got my childhood favorite; a cheese dog and a root beer. Tanner of course opted for ketchup only, but agreed that it was the best dog he’d ever had.

After lunch we drove around Oakland for awhile. Tanner was very concerned about all the graffiti. He kept saying, “Dad, I see vandalism!”. I explained that it was a kind of art, which he seemed to appreciate. He has been really in to drawing lately and so I think he looked at it through those eyes. We came back to the room and he spent some time at the window, drawing the Tribune building outside our hotel room window. We’re going to take BART to the Warriors game tonight.

We had a really good time at the game. The Warriors lost unfortunately, but Tanner had a really good time.  We stayed out WAY past bedtime and didn’t get back to the hotel until after 11:00. Uncle Eric hooked Tanner up with some great Warriors gear, including a basketball autographed by the entire team. Grandma Mary and Auntie Sue came to the game as well so we got to spend some time with them also. Tanner woke up this morning at 5:30 with an upset stomach (probably from the dinner of pizza crusts and ice cream). He proceeded to be able to go back to sleep, but I was up at that point. I got an early work out in, we had some breakfast at the hotel and met with Uncle Eric to say goodbye. We got a tour of the rest of the facility and Tanner got to say thank you to his Uncle for a great 8^th Birthday!

......and Basketball

Jake started his AAU season last weekend.....and it's going to be a long one. They had enough boys to form two Boise High AAU teams. Jake is on the White team with a couple of his buddies. This is real basketball, with High School rims and rules and a coach who played Women's BBall at Oregon State, so it's no more messing around. They spent the first few practices learning offense and defensive plays, positions etc. and then proceeded to get blown out in the first weekend of play, losing both games by at least 20 points. They were painful to watch. So coach stripped the offense and they have started all over. We'll see how successful that is. 

Jakes coach is great. She was coached AAU for the last 8 seasons or so and has gone to the finals a couple of times in this age group, so we were looking forward to the season. As with all his coaches, she immediately fell in love with Jake and he played all but a couple of minutes of the games this last weekend. He did really well and she likes him as a player, shooter and ball handler. He was really disappointed how much they struggled, but I reminded him that this was just like his little league season last year. The team may not be very good, but it's a great year for him to get a lot of playing time and improve as a basketball player. Last practice, his coach had her Dad come in (a lifetime basketball coach) and guest coach. He was a VERY old school coach, sprints, fingertip pushups for not listening etc. I figured Jake would be all upset at being yelled at for an hour and a half, but to my surprise he dealt with it just fine and didn't even mention it afterwards (other than how sore his fingers were). He has never had an actual COACH-Coach like that, it's just always been some kids (most of the time his own) Dad doing it. But as he continues to play, he's going to have to get used to some stronger authority. It was good to see he could handle it. 

They play two games every Saturday at two middle schools over in Meridian. The schedule is just brutal. Most weekends we have an early game (8:30) and a late game (4:00 or so), which gives us just enough time to drive back and forth across the valley to get to Tanner's game (which is right down the hill) and back. 

Tanner's second grade team is pretty much the same team that I had last year and is more of less just the same group of kids I coach in baseball as well. There are a lot of natural athletes on that team and they're pretty easy to coach. Our first game was this last Saturday and due to some gym screwups we were only able to have one practice beforehand. No score is kept still in this league, but the dad's on the sidelines like to keep score and we beat the other Hidden Springs 2nd grade team 30-8. So it's going to be a pretty easy season I think. Tanner loves to play basketball and he and his buddies have a really good time. It was good to sprinkle that level of fun competitive basketball in-between Jake's two frustrating games. 

We all went out to dinner after Jake's late game and it was a lot of fun. It looks like that's going to be our schedule for the next couple of months or so. If you need us on a Saturday, just know that we're at some basketball gym somewhere in Idaho......

Halloween......

As the massive bin of Halloween candy is starting to dwindle down at an alarming rate, I thought it was time to write the Halloween post. Halloween was a lot of fun this year. It rained during the day which didn't forecast a fun night of trick or treating, but it held off the entire time we were out. In kind of a tone setter for the next couple of years, we just had the little kids for trick or treating. Jake went to a pizza party, trick or treat, sleep over with a bunch of his friends. We figured we would see them out trick or treating, but ended up missing them all together. He left after dinner and we didn't see him again until we picked him up the next morning with his pillowcase of candy. 

Marisa had planned dinner at the Merc for Tanner and his two best buddies and their families and we set off trick or treating from there, hitting our old section of the hood. It was nice to be able to walk behind and talk to the other parents as the kids sprinted from door to door. There was only one house that was scary enough to require parental accompaniment so mostly we just stood on the sidewalk and talked. One of the great things about Halloween in this neighborhood is that everyone is out with their kids. You run into groups of parents and kids that you know and hit that block together before you go your separate ways until you meet up with another group of parents. We have been here long enough that houses have Halloween reputations now. There is the Turners house where they give out cans of Shasta instead of candy (a must hit). The kids know the houses that give out full sized candy bars, the houses that have scary people answer the door. The grown ups know the houses that have fires going in the drive way and parents that are quick to share a glass of wine while your kids hit the next few places. 

The only downside was our house (in the midst of a construction zone), didn't get very many trick or treaters. So not only do we have a massive bin of the candy the kids brought home, we had to add in all the Halloween candy we didn't give away. We put the bin high up on a shelf (otherwise we have found that Tanner sneaks it - ALL THE TIME) and I swear my weightlifting workout extends to the number reps I get taking the candy bin down, rummaging thru it, and putting it back up on it's high shelf. At this rate it won't last much longer any way so it doesn't really matter. 

The kids had a great Halloween; Jake went as an NFL coach, Faith went as a fairy, and Tanner, with a last minute costume change, went as Harry Potter. Next year we might just have Faith and the houses around us will be built out, so next Halloween might be a whole different beast. But for this year, Halloween is over, just the candy remains (for now).