Ben's family in town!

We are so blessed to have such great family. First of all-THANK YOU to Pa, Nan, Lisa and Jon for driving all the way out here and making such a great effort to see us. (Kraig we're sorry you couldn't come--we missed you! And we miss you too Peg--next time!)
We love you all so much and are so thankful for you and all you do for us. "Seriously, SO BLESSED" :)

They all came in on Thursday afternoon and while Ben was working, we just had a great time talking and catching up. BAD TIMING though for a MAJOR nasty cold to hit me. Seriously. All those high school kids I'm tutoring were doing too much kissing over Homecoming weekend and all came in sick and coughing...so of course--I get it :(

Friday while Ben was at work we rode the BART into San Francisco to see some sights. This is Ben's brother Jon and me playing some card games on the way in:

And this is all of us outside of Ben's building--he was just upstairs but hard at work!

We headed over to Pier 33 to embark on the Alcatraz cruise and tour. Ben and I did it before but it was even cooler to do it a second time to catch all the things I missed the first time. There's so many cool stories and facts it's just fascinating. And the weather was unbelievable. I have never seen SF like that. Every time we've been it's been cold, foggy, and windy and so we dressed prepared for that--we never wore our jackets again! It was SO hot and sunny!
(You can see Alcatraz island behind us!) Jon really loved it--he said he wants to make Alcatraz his honeymoon spot in the future:) This is the view of San Francisco from the island. Haha--and this is all of us with our cute headphones:
After Alcatraz, we took the Historic Cable Cars to Fisherman's Wharf and had lunch at Boudin's Famous Sourdough Bread place--so yummy. And then Lisa, Jon, and I walked to crooked Lombard Street while Nan and Pa enjoyed the rest of lunch and the seats.

At the bottom:

This crooked street of San Fran is crazy!! There were so many cars having fun driving down it, people at the bottom taking pictures, people going up, people going down...they were everywhere! Definitely wouldn't want to live on this street!

At the top:

On our way back to Nan and Pa, I met a family from India! It's so fun to talk to them now and to connect with them by saying, "We were in India this summer!" They all get so excited to talk about their country and they were fun people. They were lost and just followed us back.

We saw these cool Cable Cars that were like boats and wanted to ride one:

And we got to! At our stop, the next car to stop and get us was this cool Ferry-looking cable car! It was fun.
Saturday we relaxed, made some fun meals (thanks Lis and Nan!), took Jon to the airport (had to get back to school the little bum) and watched the Red Sox game. Wow was it cool! I've never really been into baseball but this was Pa's 60+ year of faithful fan-ism and it was cool. What a devout FAN! We taught everyone ROOK which they loved (you've seriously got to learn it!) and played that all night.

This was us at church yesterday:

We had a great big meal, watched The Bucket List, and then of course had to watch the Red Sox game....too bad they were beat. We said goodbye and they're on their way back. Until Christmas...

Ode to our Siblings!

Ben's: I just had to post this sweet picture of Jon and his love Rose. It's a 1969 Caddy and isn't she pretty? He sure has put a lot of time and effort into her. And isn't he a stud?

Mine: My family just got back from a cruise without me! Here were their pics from the trip and they're all just SO DANG CUTE I had to post them. Brooke, James, Anna & Raquel

Next up--The Phipps' for Thanksgiving!!