I went up to San Francisco the last weekend in April to visit with my brother John, my sister-in-law Michelle, and my (very) little niece growing in Michelle's tummy! The picture on the left is my niece at about 19 weeks and the 2 on the right are pictures I took of John & Michelle that weekend (only 9 weeks to go at that point!).



It was great timing because I was able to coordinate my trip up there with my mom's visit from Maine. It was the first time the 4 of us had been together in a year! We all had a really great time but fun and frivolities were not the only reason for our visit, we had real work to do getting the baby's room together. My mom and I spent many long hours scraping paint and repairing cracks in the plaster walls but years of paint and wallpaper (paint on wallpaper on paint on wallpaper on paint) turned out to be hiding some pretty big damage.



You can see the room's original paint (the building is a turn of the 20th century Edwardian)- it's the red toned paint in the video but there is also another early paint visible, a tan color that is probably milk based. The red was gorgeous! That hole ended up being this big:



We were hoping to get the room to the point where it was ready to receive a fresh coat of paint but unfortunately there was too much to fix so we will be returning for at least one more working vacation.

There was time for some frivolity- John just got his pilot's license a few weeks ago and he took my up for an early morning bay tour.




THE ROCK!


And here is our landing...so smooth!



John waited, of course, until after we were back on the ground to tell me that I was the first passenger he had taken up without an instructor in the plane. Thanks John...


-liz