Well Thursday after school we said goodbye to Mack who was home working for a week for his spring break 😞 and headed to Reno. Fernando, an exchange student from Spain, had permission to come with us because his host family was going to ND to pick up their son from his mission. We were thrilled to have him. He was up for anything and after a week with us and over 30 hours in the van he was like family.
We had to stop and document his travel to three new states.
We all stayed in the same room that night with the girls on a pull out mattress. But with that many people in one room it was hard to all change in the bathroom so Lily, noticing the closet was rather large and well lit, climbed right in and changed her clothes. Seeing her wisdom I took advantage of the closet as well. This trick would end up being used in several hotel rooms on the trip and by multiple children.
The next morning we headed to the Jelly Belly factory.
These portraits are made from jelly beans - crazy right?!
We enjoyed the factory tour- especially the hats😜
There was a phone challenge with prizes that the kids worked on - in the end the prizes were pretty lame but Nando did get a cool California sticker for his water bottle.
But the best part was the bag of jelly bellys you got to take home. We learned that Fernando really doesn't like black licorice, or spicy food (spicy cinnamon).
After a quick meal at McDonalds we headed to San Fransisco where we met Natali at the hotel, quickly parked the van and headed to the ward for our trip to Alcatraz.
Greg unintentionally bought a ticket for Kate, lucky Alcatraz.
Andrew spotted harbor porpoise on our way - a good omen.
Once their Emmy got a Jr. Ranger packet, and we got our headphones for the tour. Nando also grabbed a pamphlet where the display asked for a $1 we figured Kate's ticket more than covered the cost of the pamphlet Fernando "stole".
The tour was well done although Lily was a little shocked by some of the language- a few "h and d words".
The boys took a tour break to play baseball in the yard where the inmates had recreation time. Apparently, Fernando hit a home run. Then then Andrew spotted harbor seals off the shore of the island so when everyone was done with the tour we had to go check them out.
The original "sheeee" face.
As we stood in line for the ferry Emily ran to the information booth. She wasn't quite done with her packet but the nice ranger gave her the badge anyway. Lucky girl finished the packet on the boat ride back.
Andrew spotted a whale on the way back to shore - man let the animals start coming.
From there we wondered to China Town - well Andrew found some step stairs and since Andrew is the stair king from Italy we had to take the stairs. We ended up all the way at Coit Tower. It was a nice leg work out for me and the boys got cardio by running up the whole thing.
We started heading back in the right direction but we might have ended up in the sketchy part of China but we eventually arrived miraculously free of poopy shoes thanks to Fernando. Andrew was talking and walking right into a pile of fresh poo, Fernando tried to warn him but he wasn't listening so Fernando just shoved him. Once Andrew saw the poop he was very grateful for the save. We also had a feel close calls with some crouch height poles on the sidewalk - luckily no one was injured.
Greg felt like Chinese noodles for dinner and no one said otherwise, a silence they would regret. Let's just say the kids didn't love the noodle soups but the one non soup noddle dish was well received so that plus pot stickers, onion pancakes, mango yogurt dessert and dumplings everyone got full. However their appetites were probably thrown off on their visit to the bathroom through the kitchen. Fernando and Andrew took a look in the freezer outside the bathrooms and were not impressed.
We wondered into an ice cream sandwich place and since Greg rarely says no to ice cream sandwiches we indulged. A fitting reward for the kids sus meal.
They enjoyed their In and Out shakes and just being goofy together. But we had an early morning to get to Monterey Bay to see whales.
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