Meeker Family Vacation 2012--Part 1: San Francisco

July is our most favorite month--I take the month off from piano and Chris amazingly has NO trips:)  So we try to take advantage  of this every year.  Chris is the ULTIMATE trip planner--of course that's what he does for a living:)  So he planned this whole week-long road trip for us up and back down the California coast.  The kids were super troopers riding in the car all that time and THEN having us run them ragged:)  Chris and I LOVE LOVE LOVE to travel.  We are always up for a trip!  And we do our best to cram in as much as we can--our hotel rooms are just places to put our stuff and sleep is optional:)

On Sunday, July 8th, we headed out to Pasadena, CA which is about a 6 1/2 hour drive from Phoenix. We slept over night there and woke up on Monday to head up to San Francisco--which is another 6 1/2 hours away.  As soon as we arrived in San Francisco, we headed right for Pier 39 and hit the ground running!

Kids on Pier 39

Chris and I went to San Francisco 12 years ago (when Carlie was 3 months old--she was with us too) and we were really excited to hit Alcatraz!  Well, 12 years ago we walked right up and bought tickets.  Apparently, it doesn't work like that anymore!  They were sold out of tickets through August!!!    We were SUPER bummed!!!  BUT we did find a cruise that went around the island so we jumped at that!  I actually really enjoyed this cruise.  It was very informational and even though we didn't get off on the island, we did cruise around it and hear lots of stories about the prison.  Not surprising that Alcatraz was Max's MOST favorite part of the cruise.  Just ask him to tell you some of the prison stories--he's still telling them all a week later:)

Cute litte binoculars the kids got:)

Alcatraz Island

 

We also got to cruise around the Golden Gate Bridge:

Golden Gate Bridge

After our cruise we walked ALL OVER Pier 39 and saw and the sights of San Francisco.  We headed to our hotel around 8:30 pm that night.  After getting a good night's sleep, we were up and running again the next day!!!  On this day we bought tickets on one of the red double-decker buses.  You buy a ticket and then hop on and hop off all day long--great option because there is NO free parking anywhere!!!

Our ride for the day:)

Here we are on America's 2nd most crooked street--Lombard Street (apparently there is a street more crooked than this?!)  And oh yeah, we hiked it:)  The kids thought they would die:)

At the bottom of the hill

 

Apparently parrots are "wild" around here--no cages for these two:)

View from the top of the hill

Fountain in Ghirardelli Square

Boys at the beach on Pier 30--there were SWIMMERS in this FREEZING water (w/out body suits)!!!

The boys made a new friend:)

We then let the kids pick something to do.  And what did they pick???  The Wax Museum:)  It was a fun place to visit.  Carlie and Ethan really liked it.  We thought Max would LOVE this place but he was super creeped out by how REAL everything looked!  There was an optional path in the museum that would allow you to bypass the "Horror" section which Max wanted to take.  But HECK NO!!!  We paid for these darn tickets and we were going to see EVERYTHING:)

Carlie with Beethoven:)

This is Ethan getting electrocuted:)

Ethan was REALLY into this place:)

Carlie and Ethan are joking--Max is actually SCARED:)

Our next destination on our handy dandy double-decker bus was Chinatown!!!

We tried to convince Max that he needed this--didn't work:)

We finished the day off by driving up to Twin Peaks which is the highest point of the city.  Absolutely breath-taking views!  Even with the fog:)

So we wore the kids out once again.  Headed back to our hotel around 9 pm this night:)  The next morning was our last half-day here so we of course had a few more things to squeeze in like Golden Gate Park!!!  Most BEAUTIFUL park I've ever been to!

The kids with Beethoven's statue--Beethoven is my personal favorite composer:)

Monkey see....Monkey do:)

Max in his Alcatraz shirt and his cool "Oliver" hat.  I thought he looked like a real prisoner back in the day:)

We of course had to go see "The Painted Ladies:" (The gorgeous houses in the background)

And finally we took our kids to see Les Miserables.  I know...not a whole lot of good family values going on in this show but theater is kinda a big thing to us.  As predicted, Max and Carlie LOVED this show--Max's new goal in life if to be "Gavroche."  Ethan tolerated it and Tatum slept through it (a REALLY expensive nap in my opinion:)

After the show, we loaded up into the van and headed off to my brother's house in Monterey, CA!!!

July 4th--CLOSE call

This year, just like every year, we headed to NM for the 4th.  My dad has been doing the town fireworks show for 26 years now.  Spending time with family was great.  My older brother, K.C., and his family came all the way from Monterey, CA to celebrate with the family.  They stopped at our house in AZ for a couple days before heading over to Deming.

My girlies waiting for the show:)

Max, Chris, Ethan, & Seth before the show

My dad is the head "Pyro-Man" and pretty much has the same help from year to year--Chris, my brothers, and a lot of mine and my brother's old high school friends.  When messing with fireworks there is ALWAYS risk.  But my dad is a very thoughtful and prayerful man.  They never start the show without a group prayer.  In years past there have been small little incidents--abrasions, small burns, etc...  This year the scariest and most serious event happened.  One of the fireworks was faulty--the only way to know was to light it off.  Well, my older brother, KC, and my good high school friend, Jesse, were the ones lighting off this particular shell.  The "fault" in the shell was the lifting device itself.  So the firework did not "lift"as it was suppose to and exploded right on the ground.  KC's friend, Adrian, took this pic--Adrian is usually one of the "lighters" but had hip surgery recently so he was on safety patrol several yards away.  This was on the ground but was SUPPOSED to be in the air--and yes, those are people running away from it.  Adrian was taking pictures of the show and didn't even realize that he had taken this shot until the next day.  As soon as this happened, he set his camera down and ran to help.

This explosion happened early into the show and there was about a 5 minute pause--NOT a good sign and we knew it.  So we were all calling on our cell phones from my mom's house wondering what had just happened.  Everyone there was hit with debris of some kind--dirt, pieces of the explosive, flying splinters from the firework rack.  But everyone was okay so the show went on.  It wasn't until after the show that we found out the extent of the injuries.  Chris was about 20 yards away and just received a blast of dirt and the exploding mortar landed near him--my boys were inside my dad's truck further away so they were not hurt at all.  Here are pics of the damage:

This was the abrasion left on KC's neck

This was where a small stick stuck in Jesse's leg

What was left of the mortars

This trash can took the brunt of the explosion

Soo, phew....that was a CLOSE call this year.  My mom was of course the on-call nurse practioner and so everyone stopped by her house afterwards for treatment.  Just one more wild and crazy story to add the the fireworks collection.  It was a little too close for my dad though.  He is already shopping for the computer boards that detonate the fireworks--like they use in the bigger city fireworks shows--for next year.  So little ol' Deming may be moving on to COMPUTERS?!?!  Well, I'm imagining that my husband is going to have to run it next year then cause my parents (both highly-educated) do NOT do the computer thing:)  I am definitely pushing for the computer thing too:)