Rachel's Visit (And MORE family pics!)

We were lucky enough to have my sister Rachel visit us for 3 days in December. We were all headed to Idaho Falls for Abby's wedding, so she was able to make our house a stop on her way there. It's been a long time since we've had visitors (the last time was when Ellie was born!), so it was SO fun to have her here. We love visitors!

We picked her up from the airport in the morning and headed straight into the city for a full day of fun. There was a lot of rain in the forecast and we worried that it would ruin all of our plans. But thankfully the skies dumped all the rain first thing in the morning, and then the clouds parted and left us with a sunny (but chilly) day. What a blessing!

Our first stop was Coit Tower for some family pictures. We had also hoped to explore a little, since none of us have ever been there, but we were running really behind and didn't have much time. I definitely want to go back sometime....there are some gorgeous views!

Most of the pictures in this post are courtesy of Rachel :)
 

 

 

Ellie was cold and tired and wanted nothing to do with pictures! I do love this one though.

 

 

 

 

 

From the tower, we rushed to get lunch at Tony's Pizza, which my friend Erica had highly recommended. It was tasty!

 

When planning out our day we thought we would have tons of time to explore, but life happened and we barely had time to eat our lunch as we walked/ran to the Pier to go to Alcatraz. This was a highlight for us...somewhere we've always wanted to go so I'm glad we finally made it happen. 

On the boat (hello sea sickness!)

 

For a deserted prison island, it really is a beautiful place!  :)

 

Ellie didn't have any patience for the tour. She kept grabbing my headphones and wanted to get down and run. Matthew was interested for awhile and then lost interest and wanted to go play outside. Emma was really into it. She just got really impatient with us when we wanted to stop and take pictures. She didn't realize you could pause the audio tour and was really worried about getting behind.  :)  Lesson learned:  Don't take kids to Alcatraz. I really want to go back now so I can actually hear the recording and take time to see everything.

We rushed through the tour and went outside to explore and Ellie finally gave in and went to sleep!

There was a beautiful rainbow that ended right over the city.

We think Matthew looks like Alfalfa from The Little Rascals here.  Anyone else see it?

See the feather that Matthew's holding? We didn't realize he even had it until we went to get back on the boat and an employee told us it was illegal to take bird feathers and we could get in a lot of trouble. Haha....little trouble maker already!

I love this city!

It was dinnertime when we got back from our tour so we headed over to Pier 39 to try out Boudin's Bakery. Despite the fact that we've lived here 5 years we have never been. It was yummy!

 

 

The next morning, I sent the oldest two kids off to school and preschool, and took Ellie to a friend's house so Rachel and I could go to the temple. Sadly, I think this was the ONLY picture we got of the two of us!

 Thanks to great friends who offered to keep the kids as long as we needed, we were also able to squeeze in lunch at The Cheesecake Factory and a quick shopping trip at Trader Joes. It was so fun to spend time, just the two of us. It's been way too long!

On Friday we finished our packing, visited Dreamworks and had lunch with Jon, and then it was off to the airport. A whirlwind visit, but I'm so glad she came!

Christmas Lights

We love going to see the lights on Eucalyptus Ave in San Carlos. Two blocks of houses completely decked out! There are always so many fun displays and it seems like it's different every year (or maybe I have just have a really bad memory!) Either way, it's a fun tradition for our family.

 

 

Family Pictures and Fentons

At the beginning of December, my talented friend Angelica agreed to take pictures for the whole Farrell family. She did an awesome job!

After pictures were taken, the whole family went to Fenton's for dinner. And of course, a trip to Fenton's wouldn't be complete without a huge ice cream treat!

 

November in a Nutshell

Wow...the last month has been one big, exhausted blur! Trying to think back to what we did all of November and all I can remember is that everybody's been sick at one point or another. First Matthew got a nasty stomach  bug combined with a bout of asthma/allergies. Then me, Ellie, and Jon have taken turns passing around a cold/sinus infection and some terrible headaches. Blah! We're ready to be done with it all.

The kids have become master fort builders this month. Forts in the living room, their bedrooms, the play room....pretty much everywhere. It's been kind of fun to see what kind of stuff they come up with.

 

Jon and I got to go out on a little date to a BYU football game...my first time going to a BYU game! Even though they lost, it was still fun to get out and cheer them on.

 

We did a big bedroom switcharoo last week. Jon's parents generously offered us an extra bed that they aren't using, so we put the two girls in a room together and Matthew has his own room. We were worried about Ellie getting used to having Emma in there, but it's been a smooth transition. And bedtime is SO much easier now that Emma and Matthew can't stay up talking for hours! (Pictures coming after we finish getting the rooms all switched around how we want them)

We had a great Thanksgiving this year. We got up bright and early and headed to the city to run a 5k as a family. This is something I hope becomes tradition. Emma did pretty good. She ran/walked the 1st and 3rd mile. She took a break for the second mile and sat in the stroller with the other 2 kids (that was quite a sight I'm sure!). The kids loved doing the race, and kept saying that they hoped we would win.  :)

After our big race (that we definitely didn't win), we packed up and went to spend the next 2 days with Jon's family. We love that we have family close enough to share holidays with. It was a fun day with lots of yummy food, good company, and not much else. We watched The Amazing Spiderman and hung out, and it was so nice to have nothing to do!

On Saturday we went to Pinnacles with most of Jon's family. It is a national park, with hikes and caves and rock formations...really a cool place. We set out on what was supposed to be an easy hike. We started out, excited for this fun adventure. We explored a couple really cool caves and hiked along some really neat trails and then the excitement started to wear off really quickly. Five hours and a few scrapes and bruises later, we wearily finished our hike. We were completely exhausted! Mental note for next time....go explore the caves, but skip the hike, especially if we have kids with us!

 

We finished the month by pulling out our meager Christmas decorations and getting all ready for Christmas. We really don't have much in the way of Christmas decor, but it's enough to make it feel cozy and Christmasy. 

I just really love this picture of Matthew...a lot. When Matthew saw the completed tree, he gasped and exclaimed, "it's our wonderful, cute, teeny Christmas tree!"

 

Ellie and Audrey- the cutest little BFF's ever

 These next few are from a little family date to Fentons after a temple trip