Big Trip--Day 2 (SF Zoo)

So Mike started blogging about our recent CA trip in the last post. I think in order to keep my sanity I'm going to blog about the trip in several posts. This will allow me to post a little at a time and won't give you all picture overload.

As Mike alluded to in the previous post, while Steven adjusted to his PDT bedtime within a day, it took him about 5 or 6 days to adjust to a PDT wake-up time. On Wednesday, the day after our arrival, he woke up at 4:15 and babbled on and off, waking and sleeping, until we finally let him get up at 5:00. Thank goodness I had been exhausted and gone to bed myself at 8:00 pm the night before, so I got a decent night's sleep despite of the early wake up call.

On Wednesday, our first full day in SF, we went to the San Francisco Zoo. Amazingly I did not take any pictures. I guess we were having too much fun! It is a great zoo and one of the best parts is that it's close to the ocean and therefore rather cool and, at least in the morning, cloudy. This means that the animals are actually out and active and not hiding under a rock or tree somewhere escaping the heat. Steven got to see his favorites, the giraffes. He also liked the gorillas, the rhinos, and the penguins.

That evening we met up with my good friend Kristin for dinner at the Presidio Social Club. Steven pulled out all the stops for Kristin and was quite the charmer all through dinner. He even gave her some good high-five goodbyes afterwards...

He was also very interested in her bracelet...

Big trip (Part I)

In days of yore (about two weeks ago), it came to pass that the Michigan branch of the Unruh family crossed the continent of North America to join Grandma and Grandpa Unruh, as well as Gram and Grandpa B in the Golden State where the sun sets. Thus, Karen and Mike packed light, and loaded up the jalopy with all of Steven's earthly possessions. They crossed the mighty stream of Traffic, and ended up at the airport. And then the fun began...

Actually, it was a pretty smooth trip, all things considered. But we did look like the Beverly Hillbillies until the bags were checked. Sorry, but nobody took a picture. So you'll have to imagine the car seat strapped to the large suitcase. Quite a sight, I assure you.

We had a layover in MSP that lasted roughly 4 hours (our flight to MSP was bumped 30 minutes earlier, and we arrived earlier than that). Thankfully, MSP is about the most kid-friendly airport in existence.

Steven got to meet Snoopy (this becomes important for reasons you will see in a couple of posts):

Happiness is a warm puppy [that is three times as tall as you]

Then, Steven got to play in the play area at Concourse C:

Roger, Roger. What's your vector, Victor?

That's a 10-4, little buddy. What's your 20?

This was followed by a long flight to the Paris of the West. Steven slept while we taxied, which gave him about an hour's sleep, but was awake the entire flight. Needless to say, his father did not get any sleep or the chance to read his book during the flight. We tried to put him to bed that night on PDT, but he still woke up at EDT. D'oh!

More to come...

Anyone for stickball?

Found items at the park: a golf ball and a large stick