We've never had a problem This particular set comes in a tin, but even without tins we've been fine.

I don't know. Don't you live in a hot and dry climate?

It's not that long a walk from Cow Hollow Motor Inn to the wharf or the launch for the Alcatraz ferry. It's probably an hour walk to the SF side of the GG Bridge. If you want to walk on the bridge, it's a mile long. It's probably a 30-45 minute walk to the closest place to catch a cable car. Unless you stick close to the water for that walk, you might end up climbing quite a hill on the way. Another thing you could consider is Uber, since your youngest doesn't require a car seat or booster and you would only be riding a mile or two at 25mph. Taxis are difficult to get in SF unless you're at a major hotel.

My current standard for sadness is Where the Red Fern Grows. :crying: Sadder than that?

It depends on the sites. Anything along the water, downtown, Chinatown, North Beach, or Union Square will be easy. You'll have to take MUNI if you want to go farther afield without walking, such as Golden Gate Park, Ocean Beach, Cliff House, etc. Actually for GG Park you might want to bus anyway as it's difficult to get parking around there even in Feb.

You can do the entire thing without renting a car if you want to. Caltrain runs from SF to Palo Alto, where you can catch the shuttle to Stanford. BART (which meets up with Caltrain at the Millbrae station) runs within 4 blocks of the UCB campus. I live around here so I don't stay in the hotels but some friends of our always stay at the Cow Hollow Inn on Lombard, which is reasonably priced and clean. It has parking as well. Right now it's about $225 according to Google, but Feb is much cheaper than Aug. It's not close to a lot of transit, though, so I would only suggest it if you decide on having a car.

Yes to traffic. My friend had to sell her stick shift and buy an automatic after too much starting and stopping in traffic left her with RSI in her left knee.

Any updates?

It's her decision to not come visit even though it would be cheaper for her to come than for your family to go. If she's allowed to make that decision, why aren't you?

I would feel comfortable leaving her alone for that time, even after the car break-ins. :grouphug: It's difficult, isn't it?

I know I had no right to be annoyed, but... Thanks for this. I picked it up at a library book sale with a vague memory that it's good. I hadn't given it to DS yet because I wanted to pre-skim it. Maybe I'll hang on to it longer.

I would imagine that hill has its fair share of tourists? Here in SF we get a lot of tourists who rent automatics and then creep up really close behind people driving stick. I have seen people roll back into cars behind them at least a fifty times over the years. The locals give anyone with an out-of-state plate a lot of room behind them on steep hills. Even automatics roll back at least a foot or two if you don't double foot it.

So The Martian was not one of the books DH had on hold. :glare:

I should move the college funds into sporks futures. Wow.

Geez those lost passports are a pain to replace at the last minute. :sneaky2: See if you guys can make something like that happen again, but in her own room. OK, I'm done being snarky. I agree with the "can't afford to go" phrasing. It covers all the reasons you can't afford to go, not just the money.

I'm okay at it but I generally avoid it. DH is really good and can drive in hilly SF, which takes a special breed of stick shift driver. The tops of the hills are fairly level and if you're the first person at a stop sign or light you can generally roll forward into the intersection a bit and be okay. But if you're the 4th or 5th person back, it's a pretty steep start, usually too steep for a foot shuffle start. It usually involves the hand brake plus some heel-toe maneuvering. We have one automatic car and one stick. DH says he's going to start the kids on stick. I'm staying out of it because I'm a terrible passenger as it is.

Totally fine. They're like little pets. :001_wub:

Welcome!!! :grouphug: :grouphug: :grouphug: I haven't been in your situation but after my DD was born I was very ill and discouraged. Coming here and "hanging out" with others who were doing the same thing I was really helped. I'm glad you posted.

Thanks! We have an old "Scholars" set in which half of the pencils are now shorter than 2 inches. I've been meaning to replace it with a non-Scholars set now that the DD is better about taking care of their supplies. I can set aside the old set for when my toddler nice comes to visit. I agree, one of the best purchases I ever made.

My DD does the same thing and after reading this thread, this morning when she came and said her tummy hurt I insisted she lie down in the dark and not do anything because she was "sick" and needed to rest. Lo and behold, she started projectile vomiting shortly after that. :huh: Beware of the power of this technique, folks. :laugh:

Watch party! I've never watched it. I'll bring popcorn. That's so funny about Patrick MacGoohan. Frankly, I was becoming suspicious of Angela Lansbury in Murder She Wrote. Everywhere she went somebody died. I was a kid when that series came out and I remember telling my parents that if I saw her coming I would run the other way. A fun modern twist would have been if she actually was the murderer and the last few shows of the series we got to see how she did it. I had forgotten about these. One of our libraries has almost all of them. I should stock up before the holidays, maybe.

Judge a Book By Its Cover! :D How'd you do?

Was she the woman who looks like Katie Holmes? Yeah, that was a lot of clothes. And it was so organized it seemed she could just to through her stuff without the piles.

It's completely fine! As I did in the other thread, I'll recommend using a set amount of time per session and not a set amount of problems or pages. We've sometimes spent an entire hour discussing one problem or playing one of their games, other times I've awoken in the morning to find DS flew through a bunch of problems before breakfast.