September

September was a bit of a whirlwind for us!  The biggest thing that happened was mid month, Matt and I went on a trip to San Francisco without the kids!  It was really our first time away except for a short business meeting when Hannah was about a year old.  The trip had two purposes, one to celebrate our 5th anniversary (a year late!) since Ethan was born just a few weeks before our real 5th anniversary.  And two, to visit Matt's sister Julie who moved out there last October.  We had a wonderful time!  We spent the first two days by ourselves in San Fran.  We walked a lot, rode trolley cars, and explored the city.  It was a very neat city that had "pockets" that reminded us of other cities we have spent time in.  Triple decker victorian homes reminded us of Boston, tall sky scrapers reminded us of NYC, but those hills and coast line were certainly unique to San Francisco.  We spent one morning at Alcatraz which was really cool.  It's pretty unbelievable that people actually lived there, and more amazing that there were staff houses and children that lived there while the prison was still functioning!  There were pieces of the island that were beautiful, but it really was the most primitive prison you could imagine.  The views of San Fran from the island were incredible.  We rode a tour bus around the city and saw the main sites, and then took little side trips to see the Painted Ladies (which are in the intro to Full House), Coit Tower, Fisherman's Wharf, ate tacos in the Mission, and just enjoyed the city!  Then the third day, Julie picked us up for breakfast and then drove us over the Golden Gate Bridge to some beautiful overlooks and then up to Muir Woods to see the Redwood trees.  We had a fun day hiking and looking at the majesty of these beautiful trees!  From there we headed to Sonoma for 2 full days of wineries!  We had so much fun and enjoyed seeing the process of wine making, wine storing, grape growing, and learning the different flavors you get from valley grapes vs hillside grapes.  It really is fascinating and TOO complicated for me to remember!!!  We ate delicious food and sipped on delicious wine.  While we had a blast, when Sunday came around we were SOOOO ready to see our babies!!!  We took the red eye that night and arrived at home Monday morning just as Hannah was waking up.  We are so incredibly thankful for my parents and the care they took of Hannah and Ethan while we were gone.  They discovered new parks, new restaurants, took a trip to Asheville, visiting the children's museum, and just had fun!  Hannah and Grandaddy even went on a hike in Latta Plantation.

The rest of September was spent recovering from our trip and just enjoying our time together!