San Fran

Ugh! Am I seriously this behind? And I was doing so well there for a while. When I get this far behind I really debate just picking up now and skipping the last 5 months, but seeing that I kind of use this for a little online journal (which I'm seriously considering making private for friends and family VERY soon - as a heads up :) ) I want to make sure I try to document everything. SO, they might be short and sweet, but I'm starting my attempt to catch up with - Our vacation to San Fransisco :)
So, Kevin and I, all 3 kids (remember aged 5,3, and 1) at the time, Poppy and Mammy all decided that we wanted to take a train ride somewhere. After a LOT of debating and going back and forth about times and prices we decided on San Fransisco, CA. Surprisingly, taking a train from Denver to San Fran wasn't that much more expensive than taking it a couple hours to Grand Junction. The thing is - the train ride was 33 1/2 hours - ONE WAY! We all had reservations about it, because that is a REALLY long time, and thought about only taking train one way and getting a plane back - but in an effort to save money, we stuck with the train. Also, we knew we'd be spending the night on the train, but to add a sleeper car it was an additional $1,000ish for that one night and it wouldn't even sleep all of us, we'd have to take turns, so I just couldn't justify getting one. In the end - the train was a lot of fun, but 33 1/2 hours seemed like 33 1/2 hours, we could have gotten the fun experience in 2 hours and been done :) The kids did AMAZING, they were very good about playing with all the things we brought and really were pretty good about sleeping in the seats, Sammie was tougher because we had to hold her the whole time for sleeping, so I think other than Bradley and Gracie the rest of us did NOT get a good night sleep. BUT now we can say we went on a train (and as soon as we got to the hotel we cancelled the train ride back and booked one way plane tickets :) ) Also in an effort to save money, we stayed across the bay in Emeryville and took the BART into San Fran which didn't seem like it would be a big deal - but it was a pain in the butt. And on top of it all, we only had 2 days to spend there before we had to come back. In conclusion, we had fun but the biggest thing I took away from this vacation is that my kids are AMAZING! I know most parents would say this, but seriously - 5 whole days of telling them "Hurry, we have to catch the train, bus, tram, trolley, boat, plane!" and I think we - the adults - definitely complained more than they did. This was definitely not a 'kid friendly' trip. We wanted to see the sights and didn't have a whole lot of time to do it, so we were running everywhere trying to cram everything in. We didn't even have time to go to the hotel pool :( I loved spending time with my family and was super super impressed with my kids. And now they can say they went there and have been on a train, bus, tram, trolley, boat, and plane :) And I can't tell you how many times they have mentioned our vacation and wanted to go on vacation again, so they obviously had fun and we made good memories :) I will say this - next vacation is going to be a relaxing one!!! :)