Thankful Thursday, on Friday

Clearly I had a lot to share yesterday so I didn't get to my Thankful Thursday post. Since I definitely *am* thankful...here's my list a day late:

1. My haircut. Very thankful that I went ahead and had as much hair chopped as I did just before our trip. It was lovely not having to keep pulling it out from behind my backpack or worrying about it in the San Francisco wind.

2. Normal sized sinks. Not complaining but I just want to say that I appreciate normal sized sinks. The sink in our hotel was a quite small pedestal sink. ;P It was tricky not splashing water everywhere when washing my face, lol. Let's just say that I put an extra bath mat down below the sink during our stay.

3. Quiet. While I enjoy visiting new places and loved the convenience of our hotel location in San Francisco, I'm not crazy about city noise. Our hotel room was right on the street and I'm a light sleeper...so all of the boisterous conversations, street sweepers, garbage collection, cars playing loud music, emergency vehicles, etc were rather annoying to me. (The hotel actually provided ear plugs right on the night stands...which Nathan used...but I'm too paranoid about not being able to hear things.) So thankful for our beautifully quiet little neighborhood here. :)

4. Phone photography & editing. I'm often thankful for technological advances. Today I'm thankful for the quality and ease of taking photos and editing them with just my phone. I remember when I used to take photos on trips with my big camera and then had to wait until I got home to upload them to my computer so that I could go through and edit them. These days, I can just use my phone for both taking the pictures and editing them...so I can have most (if not all) of my photo prep done before I even get home. Nice.

5. Public transportation. Sometimes on trips, we rent a car. San Francisco, though, suggested that renting a car wasn't the best option. (Yes, the city, itself, told me this, lol.) I'm thankful, then, that our location made it easy to just walk or take public transportation for everything. (Yes, we did take an Uber a couple times for speed, but we knew that public transportation would also have worked.) We also appreciated how easy it was to use the app to track buses/trains and the ability to use our phones to pay for everything.

6. Travel partner. I love Nathan. :) Beyond that, I'm so very thankful that Nathan and I travel so well together. We've done it enough now that we have our routine pretty well down...and that makes travel considerably nicer. 

7. Asher's ankle. Unfortunately, Asher sprained his ankle Wednesday night (landing badly while flipping during taekwondo practice). A trip to Urgent Care yesterday verified that nothing's broken, but it's a decent sprain and Asher headed back to campus yesterday in a boot and hobbling. Hopefully he'll heal up okay and quickly...it's not the most fun way to end the semester. Thankful, though, that this happened after Nationals and not before. Also, thankful that it's his left foot so he can still drive just fine.   

So that's my list for now. :) Happy Friday to you all!

San Francisco

So, Saturday was our "parent" day. We took the metro from our place in San Francisco over to UC Berkeley and spent a very loud day in a very crowded fieldhouse. (In case you're wondering what a taekwondo tournament smells like, by the way, it's feet. It smells like feet, lol.) We helped video and photograph things for the UNC team (particularly when all four of them were required for each board breaking competition...those not competing held the boards to be broken) and cheered everyone on. And then we took the metro back to San Francisco and enjoyed a lovely dinner...switching back to our "traveler" mode. :)

Let's backtrack a moment...

Thursday, after about 4.5 hours of delay, we finally made it to San Francisco. We'd helped arrange lodging for the UNC team and our flight delay meant that they weren't able to check in to both of their rooms until we got there. Fortunately, one of the rooms was in Asher's name so they were at least able to chill altogether in one room for the afternoon/evening after their long road trip. 

Friday, Nathan and I took ourselves on a walking tour of San Francisco. (The UNC team did their own sightseeing and practicing and also had to go over the UC Berkeley for sparring weigh ins.) 

We started just down the block from our hotel at the Dragon Gate...entrance to Chinatown. We wandered Chinatown and stopped at the famous Good Mong Kok Bakery for some sesame rolls, steamed pork buns and other things. We also visited the Golden Gate Fortune Cookie Factory, saw them making fortune cookies and bought some to take with us. From there, we wandered Little Italy and then walked up Lombard Street. We ventured down to the wharf, with stops at Ghirardelli's and the Frisco Legendary Waterfront National historic site museum. We had a wonderful chowder lunch at Blue Mermaid then continued to Pier 39 where we saw the sea lions and I rode the carousel on a beautiful green dragon. 

From the waterfront, we climbed the hill to Coit Tower and climbed the 234 stairs to the top (lots of climbing in San Francisco, lol) before climbing back down and heading to Little Italy for some gelato and chilling. We then had a fabulous dinner at the House of Nanking in Chinatown...a favorite spot of Keanu Reeves after the Matrix movie crews ate and filmed there. (Serious yum!)

On the way to dinner, we spent some time at City Lights Bookstore (finding a book for the plane ride back since I finished the one I brought for the plane ride out) and stopped after dinner to photograph some of the murals just outside the bookstore. And then, on our way back through Chinatown, we chanced upon a huge street festival that apparently happens every second Friday of the month. There were soooo many people and booths. We particularly enjoyed the musical performances and watching the little grandmas reading tea leaves.

So, that was Friday. And then we did the parent thing on Saturday. 

On Sunday, we headed for Golden Gate Park. We took the Muni train and found ourselves at a fun flea market that we wandered a bit before heading into the park. We enjoyed the Japanese Tea Gardens and ordered matcha and dango at the Tea House. Then we walked a good ways west toward the ocean (about 2.5 miles) and found ourselves at the Queen Wilhelmina windmill and tulip garden. (The tulips were a bit past their prime but it was still fun.) We then stopped at the Beach Chalet for a yummy lunch.

From there, we did a quick Uber to the Palace of Fine Arts, where we were entertained by all the figures with their backsides to us. We walked to Chrissy Field for a view of the Golden Gate Bridge then decided to go ahead and walk to the actual bridge (about 1.6 miles). We made it inside Fort Point (directly under the bridge) but were late in the day so couldn't go past the ground floor. 

From there, we walked the waterfront from the bridge back to the wharf area for dinner (about 3.6 miles). We then caught a bus back to our hotel because we were already at more than 30,000 steps for the day and I somehow injured my foot the day before so it was swollen and sore and had been bothering me all day. Bleh.

Monday, we all checked out of our hotel (us and the UNC team). Given that the team wouldn't get back to Greeley until Tuesday and that Asher had a morning class he needed to be at, he flew home with us. So, the three of us left our bags at the hotel for storage for the morning and made our way to Pier 33 to catch the ferry to Alcatraz. We had a great time wandering Alcatraz...particularly enjoying the very well done cellblock audio tour and the gardens outside. 

After that, we caught our ferry back to the pier (along with a bird hitchhiker) then did lunch at Pier 39 before walking back to Little Italy for gelato again. :)

From there, we Uber'd back to get our bags and continue to the airport...flew home...drove Asher to UNC...and finally got home to Fort Collins just before 11pm. Whew. I have more to say but it'll have to wait for another post...this one's gotten long enough, lol.

NCTA Nationals

So, last weekend was NCTA (National Collegiate Taekwondo Association) Nationals at UC Berkeley. Both Micah and Asher's college taekwondo clubs sent teams. Nathan and I flew out and cheered them on. :) 

The tournament, itself, ran Friday thru Sunday, but Asher and Micah only competed on Saturday so we only attended on Saturday. The day started with the demo team competition. CU Boulder went first...

Yes, more than once, they throw Micah in the air so he can break boards. The team did a great job and ended up placing fourth.

Next up was board breaking competition. Competitors had three minutes to break up to 8 boards and were scored based on technical difficulty and presentation. All four members of UNC's team competed in their respective divisions (based on belt and gender) and did a fabulous job. Here's Asher...

He took home the silver!

And then both Micah and Asher competed in sparring. For various reasons (having to do with official/school recognition or something), neither competed as a black belt. Micah (in red in the top two pictures) won his first match but lost his second...

...and Asher (in the blue in the bottom two pictures) didn't make it past his first match. Both boys lost to the person who ultimately won their bracket. It's not the style of sparring either of them grew up with (scoring is different) and we were so proud of their efforts. (Also, quick shoutout to the CU Boulder team for helping out the UNC team! UNC doesn't practice this sparring style nearly as often and didn't have everything they needed. CU helped them borrow enough gear and provided a coach for each of their matches while at the tournament.)

So, that was Saturday. Perhaps more importantly, though, both teams had a great experience together! UNC's team made the 20 hour road trip from Greeley to San Francisco (the three pictures on the left)...brought home three medals in board breaking (each of the four competed in both board breaking and sparring)...and had a blast hanging out in San Francisco--practicing on the beach, riding the cable cars, visiting Chinatown, etc. 

(The rest of the pictures in this post were taken from the clubs' Instagram accounts.)

CU's team flew about 50 team members to San Francisco and then spent pretty much all of their time shuttling between their hotel in Oakland and UC Berkeley...cheering on each other and all the other Colorado teams all three days of the tournament...

I'm unclear on the reasoning but apparently the tournament awarded fourth place finishers (in events other than sparring??) bronze medals alongside the third place finishers...hence the bottom left photo. And that last photo is part of a video highlighting how so many of the CU members lost their voices from all of their yelling at the tournament, lol. 

Many thanks to all who helped either or both of our boys get to Nationals! So thankful they were able to have this experience!

I'll be back later with the rest of our trip...

Thankful Thursday

Happy Thursday, y'all! Pretty straight-forward post today...

1. The eclipse! We were at just under 70% of the eclipse here in Fort Collins. We'd had a lovely experience with the total eclipse back in August of 2017, so I was feeling okay with just enjoying the partial eclipse. Nathan and Noah, though, decided to pursue the path of totality...to see the eclipse and take Noah's new car on a road trip. They left early Sunday morning...drove south through CO, NM and TX and spent the night in Texas. The next morning, they were up and on the road early heading east to the SE corner of Oklahoma...seeking out clearer skies and trying to avoid the forecast hail storms. 

And they succeeded! They pulled off the road and set up Noah's camera and got some great shots...

Yeah, that's just a screenshot of some of the many shots Noah got. :) Here are some other road trip shots...random places and food along the way...

...and their actual eclipse spot...

And then they got back in the car and drove home, getting in around 5am Tuesday. Noah had a dentist appointment that morning before heading to work, and Nathan technically worked all day (between naps, lol). So thankful that they had such a great experience...that they found clear skies...and that they got to do it together.

2. Fun little surprises. A couple weeks ago, Asher and I went out to lunch together. The host who showed us to our seats randomly asked us if we knew a guy named Micah. It was pretty funny, but of course we know Micah (and of course it was our Micah he was talking about out of the more than 165,000 people here in Fort Collins). Turns out that Elijah went to school with Micah and felt that both Asher and I looked much like him, lol. Made me smile. :)

A week or so ago, I was climbing at Ascent. I'd already climbed a fair bit, and I was getting ready to call it quits but decided to just work on the beginning of a route that I'd been looking at but hadn't gotten past the start on. I didn't figure I'd make it further than one or two moves. Amazingly, I just kept making moves until I finished the whole route on my first go! I was so excited and had to apologize to a fellow climber on a nearby route since I got in his way (like I said, I hadn't expected to get past the start so didn't figure I'd be in his way and then just forgot he was even there in my surprise at continuing on). He was cool and congratulated me on my climb. Love climbers!

Last Friday, Noah found one of the rogue ducks from our Easter hunt. It was in his shoe and apparently he hadn't worn those shoes in over a week. :) Still haven't found the other ducks, though...they'll show up sometime, right?

3. Haircut. Got my hair cut yesterday by the fabulous Heather. I definitely prefer my hair long but it was getting a bit unruly (and getting caught on and under things, lol). To prep for summer, then, I went ahead and had her chop about 6" and love it! (Plus, it was lovely chatting with Heather, who's been taking care of my hair for almost as long as we've been in Fort Collins (22 years this fall).)

And those are some of the things I'm thankful for today. :)

Yesterday

Just a quick post to say that I hope you all had a lovely Easter and were able to enjoy time with family. We had a nice, low-key day here...managed to have all three boys home for the day. 

My "Easter baskets" were very much on the practical side...toiletries, some candy and one or two things specific to each boy (like shirts, ramen and car things...very exciting, lol). I didn't even bother putting them into some sort of nice container. In the past, I've used things like dump trucks, sand buckets, bath caddies or lunch bags but this year just couldn't think of anything they'd actually use that could hold the items I'd gathered. So...I used paper grocery bags and a used Amazon box. Viola. :) 

We also had a modified egg hunt. Rather than the stepped up egg hunt that I did last year (where I actually hid things pretty well, lol), I hid a bunch of tiny plastic ducks and offered up "a buck a duck." This went better than last year when I tried to keep things even and each boy could only find his own eggs, and Asher came out victorious with three more ducks than Micah. (Noah, not really needing the money, opted to only find a few ducks and was entertained, instead, by watching his brothers.) In case you're wondering, yes, there are still seven unfound ducks, lol. (I know where three of them are but actually have no idea where the others are.)

Beyond that, Nathan fed his squirrels and us (we have too much food left!)...we watched three episodes of a show we've been watching together...I managed to get a group photo...and we played some Jackbox games. Then, Nathan drove Micah back to Boulder to end his spring break and we all did some prep for the coming week. 

Blessed to have been able to celebrate another Easter with all three boys here, as I know logistics will make that more difficult as they get older. Now off to tackle April! :)