the best laid schemes o' mice an' men often go awry

The title of this post is a quote from a Robert Burns poem.  It was the first thing that came to mind when I thought of how our weekend road trip went.  I had every leg of our trip timed and planned perfectly.  I even had maps printed out in a report cover with estimated departure and arrival times at every destination.  I was prepared for a weekend packed with a lot of activities!  It all started beautifully.  We were on the road on time and made it to our first stop in valencia to have brunch with these lovely ladies:

It was so awesome seeing our old friend/roommate/co-worker (Jenn) and her beautiful daughter, Kadance.  It was our first time meeting little Kadance and she is even cuter in person! 

 Things started going wrong when we were driving into San Francisco.  Just before the Bay Bridge, the traffic suddenly got backed up and put us waaaay behind schedule.  We picked up my sister in the city and headed out toward Sacramento.  We were too late to make it to our dinner plans in my old hometown of Sacramento.  I was so looking forward to having deep dish pizza at Zelda's!  Instead, we went straight to our hotel room and that's when things got bad.  I got hit with a terrible stomach bug and spent most of the night in the bathroom.  So, our plans for the next day in Davis went out the window.  There was no way I was going to make it through a busy day in the sun at my old college Picnic Day event.  I was bummed that we had to miss out on the event that was the purpose for our trip.

Instead, I popped some pepto bismol pills and we got back in the car for the drive back to SF.  We did have some fun in the city.  Just about half a block from my sister's apartment is a huge park with a brand new playground for kids that just blew our minds!  The Hellen Diller playground is by far the coolest playground I have ever seen.  And, because it was such a beautiful and sunny day in SF (apparently a rare occurence), there were TONS of people there.  Here are some pictures of the park:

 The coolest slide ever:

 There were literally thousands of people at the park that day.

 Trisha's cute place.  Her apartment is on the third floor and her bedroom window is on the left.  We stayed with her Saturday night.

 Here we are in our brightly colored pants heading out for dinner.  We were sitting on Trisha's stoop for the picture.  That's Trisha's roommate, Melanie, in the mustard pants.  Instead of deciding to change when we all realized we were wearing bright pants, we just went with it and had fun!

 Here we are at the restaurant, "Luna Park" in the Mission District (Trisha's 'hood).  It was my first meal since the stomach flu experience, so I was a bit hesitant to eat.  The baked macaroni and cheese dish may not have been the best choice, but it was delicious!

 The next morning we went out for brunch with our old friend, Jonathan a.k.a. Compton.  We ate at a place called "Boogaloos" which was also in Trisha's neighborhood.  It was fantastic!  I'll say one thing for SF, they certainly have some good eats!  The company was unbeatable.  This brunch was one of the highlights of the weekend.

 Can you tell how much Lyla liked Compton?

After brunch, we high-tailed it to the Golden Gate Bridge so we could show Lyla one of the most well-known landmarks of San Francisco.  Wouldn't you know it, a heavy fog rolled in and we couldn't see it at all.  We called it a day and hit the road back home.  The ride back was horrible.  Lyla had a complete meltdown and cried/screamed/whined for hours no matter what we did.  It was surprising behavior from her. 

We made it back home in time to see sweet Cody before bedtime.  How I missed my little man!  I will never take a trip without all my kids...and I don't think we will ever take a road trip again.  It was kind of a disaster.