On the Sixth Day of Daddy...

I mentioned that Nick recently had a few days off.  Well, including the weekend, it was actually eight days off!  Many of his coworkers needed the time to fly around the country for interviews, but since our job is already lined up, we made a local vacation out of the time.

I am working on a checklist of things that we want to do and see before we leave.  These eight days were the perfect time to get to the rest of those items.  I've already blogged about many that we did (Ghirardelli, sourdough, Chinatown, taking the kids to the temple, the lighthouse...), but here's the mish-mash that we did on our sixth day with Nick.

We live "next door" to a lot of great places.  One that we hadn't been to yet is an IMAX theater, one of Nick's favorite weaknesses.  We started our day by seeing "Born to be Wild," a 3D IMAX film about women who rescue wild, orphaned orangoutangs and elephants, raise them, teach them to survive in the wild, and release them when they are able.  I was touched to see that they try to imitate the animals' mothers by staying with them all day, everyday.  They even sleep with the animals.  The woman who raise the orangoutangs said that more than any particular skill, they need to feel loved and secure.  That is what I have always thought about my own children.  That more than anything, they need to feel loved and secure.  That is why I choose to stay home with them.  And that is why this woman stays "home" with her monkeys.  Hmm.

We then crossed a few streets to the Westin, a fancy hotel with a fancy elevator.  It is glass-walled and ascends 32 stories, right in the heart of the San Francisco skyline.  We rode it a few times like it was a roller coaster.  It was nap time for the younger two kids, so Nick took them home and I took Bethelle ice skating!  The local rink is another "next door" attraction.  When we go to our nearest park, we always walk past the windows and see the ice dancers or hockey players at work.  Bethelle has been patiently wanting to have a crack at some skates since we arrived.  I couldn't imagine taking all of the kids, with or without Nick, so this was our chance to try it out and to have some girl time.

Bethelle thought that she would be really good at ice skating.  She can be very optimistic. I was nervous that when reality set in, it would upset her.  But she was awesome!  Even when just propelling forward was hard to do, she was trying to do twists and turns like the pros in the center of the rink.  We had a great time.

Nick took the kids out to the pool that night to close out the day.