Easton's Birth Story and Hospital Stay

WARNING: Contains TMI about my labor and after delivery

At 36 weeks my doctor finally took me off bed rest. I no longer had to take Procardia, which I think caused a lot of my swelling, or lay around as much. Being on bed rest for over 5 weeks definitely took a toll on my body though. I would still swell if I stood too long and I got tired just walking up the stairs. Dr. Turner checked my cervix on May 29th and I was 3cm dilated. That was exciting news and I hoped that meant I would go into labor quickly after my appointment. As much as I wanted to go into labor, though, I also knew our little boy needed to stay in a little longer. The weekend came and went and I started to second guess every contraction or decreased movement from the baby.

At my 37 week appointment, Dr. Pack said I was 5cm dilated, almost fully effaced and my sac was bulging. He said I was probably going to have the baby that day and I could go to the hospital whenever I felt ready. I was so confused because I didn't really know what that meant. Was I supposed to go in when I felt stronger contractions or just show up when I was mentally ready? Weston had planned on going to lunch with his friend Ray after my appointment so we drove separate cars. When the doctor said I could go to the hospital anytime, I decided to go to lunch with Weston because I had been having stronger contractions. We went to sushi and the longer we sat at the restaurant, the more uncomfortable my contractions became. I debated on going home to get the rest of my things or going straight to the hospital. I decided we should go straight to the hospital. I called my mom to let her know we were heading over there. She told me Kara kind of wanted to be at the birth, but didn't want to ask so I wouldn't feel pressured to have her there. I wasn't sure yet if I wanted that many people in the room though. Then we called Weston's mom and she asked if we wanted her to head over and I said yes even though I thought it would just be me, Weston and my mom in the room when I delivered. We drove both cars over and figured someone could drive Weston back to the hospital if he wanted to take a car home.

We went up to labor and delivery and I told the nurse that I wasn't really in pain, but my doctor said to come to the hospital when I was ready. She got us set up in a room and said she would call the on call OB to come check me. I had Weston take one last picture of me pregnant then I changed into a hospital gown. A nurse came in to take my vitals and start an IV. About an hour after we arrived, Dr. Ciklin came in and checked me. She said I was 6cm dilated and she was going to break my water. I was surprised it was already time to break my water, but excited it was finally happening. She broke my water and I felt a gush of warm fluid. My contractions started getting stronger after that and more amniotic fluid would came out on the first few I had after my water broke. I text two ladies I know whose husbands work for the anesthesiologist group that would be giving me my epidural. One of the guys was at the surgery center almost done with his shift and the other was coming on in an hour. I was excited that it would be someone I kind of knew giving me my epidural. The nurse told me if I had to pee she would have to check my cervix again to make sure I wasn't too dilated, but I wanted to wait until I go my epidural. It took the nurse anesthetist a little longer to get there than I expected and my bladder was about to explode. I decided to go pee and right after my friend Erica's husband, Curt Boardman, got there to give me my epidural. Turns out he was in my in laws ward before the split. I barely felt any pain and soon the left side of my body started going numb. I could still feel some of my contractions on the right so he told the nurse to have me lay on my right side so the medication would numb me up on that side. Eventually, I couldn't feel any more of my contractions. I could still move my legs, but they were tingly and kind of numb. They put a catheter in and I didn't feel a thing which was nice considering the one I had when I went to the hospital for preterm labor was awful!

 37 weeks

Mom and Kara got to the hospital around 6. Emily wanted to be at the birth too, but she had to work til 8:30pm and I was sure I would have him before that. I progressed pretty quickly, but the baby's head was turned and not engaging in the birth canal. When I was dilated to 9cm I asked when the doctor was coming. The nurse said she wasn't going to call the doctor until I was closer. I thought that once I hit 10cm the doctor had to be there, but I didn't realize the baby's head also has to come down a certain amount in the birth canal til it is time to deliver. Emily got off work around the time I was 10cm dilated and the nurse wanted me to start pushing a little bit. She had me on my left side pushing, then turned me to my right side to push so the baby would turn his head. It is the strangest feeling having an epidural because I could feel the pressure of the baby's head the longer I pushed, but it didn't hurt. Rachel came to bring us a phone charger in the midst of all the pushing and Lora told her to stay. At that point I didn't care who was in the room, but I kept yelling at everyone to stop looking at my vagina. They said they were looking at the baby's head, but his head wasn't out yet and I didn't want them looking down there! I wanted Weston to look when the nurse said she could see the baby's head and it had a lot of hair. Weston was trying not to look, though, and stayed up by my head. I pushed for almost 2 hours by the time Dr. Pack got there to deliver me. I could feel the baby's head a lot more at that point. Finally, at 11:19pm Easton Joseph Milne was born at 5lb 6oz and 17.5 inches long. He had a lot of dark hair and his poor little head was kind of cone shaped because he was in the birth canal so long.

I cried when they set him on me. They took him to get weighed and cleaned up. All the girls gathered around him and I kept asking Weston why he wasn't going over by the baby. He said he wanted to let the nurses get whatever they needed to get done first. While Easton was getting cleaned up, Dr. Pack was sewing me up. I had a grade 2 tear and a hematoma on the posterior wall of my vagina. He drained the hematoma and sewed that up as well. Everyone left pretty quickly after he was born and then it was just the 3 of us. I did skin to skin with Easton and tried nursing. It was a lot more awkward than I thought it would be and my nipples hurt. I didn't sleep much that first night/morning even though Easton slept a lot. Dr. Ciklin came in the morning and asked when I would like to go home. I didn't want to go home that night, which she offered, because of how much I hurt. We planned on me being discharged Saturday morning.

All Friday I was still having trouble holding my bladder after they took the catheter out. The nurse had me wearing disposable underwear, a huge pad, an ice pack pad and witch hazel pads. If I didn't go to the bathroom every hour then I would pee while trying to run to the bathroom. It was horrible! I kept asking the nurse when it was supposed to get better and she said that the bladder is usually the last muscle to gain full function after an epidural. I had a lot of pain and pressure when I would go to the bathroom as well, but the nurse said that was normal. Weston got me Red Robin for dinner that night because the food at the hospital was not very good. Lindsey Jappe, Rachel, Devan, Tylee and Reagan came to visit us. Friday night I kept complaining about the pressure and pain and I was having so the head nurse came to check the hematoma. She said she was going to have the laborist that was on that night come check me more thoroughly. He used a speculum to open me up which did not feel good at all! Weston was holding my hand the whole time and he doctor would ask where I was hurting. He said the hematoma was clotting, but was still large so I would either have to go to surgery or have them pack my vagina. He called my OB and they decided to pack my vagina to see if that would help. I was crying a lot and used a whole box of tissue because I was scared. The nurse put in a new IV and catheter since they had been taken out earlier that day. The look in Weston's eyes was so sad too. It was like he hated seeing me in so much pain and couldn't do anything for me. Before the doctor came back the nurse asked to take Easton to the nursery while I was having the procedure. I said that was fine and Weston said Easton should stay in there for the night so I could get some sleep. The doctor came back in and packed my vagina with betadine socked gauze and said it needed to stay in for at least 12 hours to compress the hematoma. After he put it in I actually felt better because there was pressure being put on the hematoma and so I couldn't feel the pressure and pain I had before. I had Weston call my Pop and his dad to come give me a blessing. I felt bad because it was 1 in the morning, but I wanted them there. Weston sealed the anointing and Pop gave me the blessing. The nurse gave me dilaudid for the pain and I slept for a few hours. I woke up early in the morning and asked to have Easton brought back in our room since I missed him. The nurse said I needed to give Easton formula because he had jaundice and needed to be supplemented to get him to poop. I would breast feed first, then give him a bottle.

Saturday I was so drugged up! The dilaudid made me really drowsy and kind of dizzy.  Early in the morning the nurse brought me a Motrin before breakfast. I think the combination of that and the dilaudid was not good because I ended up throwing up my burger from the night before. I kept feeling dizzy and nauseous, but I needed the pain medication. Weston went home to shower and take a nap before coming back to the hospital. Dr. Ciklin came in the morning and we decided to leave the gauze in til the afternoon. She came back and took out the gauze and said it looked a lot better and I only had a small amount of swelling. Easton still had a high level of jaundice so they decided to have him wear a bili blanket to help it go down. It just slid into his shirt and stayed on as much as possible. Aubre Smith came to visit with me. That night I told Weston to go home and get some sleep since he hadn't gotten much since I had been at the hospital.

Sunday morning Dr. Ciklin said I was fine to be discharged. Our nurse packed a bag with tons of diapers, wipes, and formula. I was told by friends to take all the diapers you can get and anything else that is in the room. The nurse did that for me which was really nice. Around 1pm we were on our way home!

Pregnancy scare!

For Easter Weston and I went up to St. George to spend the holiday with the Milnes this year. I did some shopping and tried to lay around some because of the swelling in my feet. Sunday morning I noticed I was having a contraction that was more painful than the ones I have been feeling so far. I just got through it and figured it was just a normal contraction instead of the many Braxton Hicks I have been feeling.

Monday morning at work I mentioned the contraction to my co-worker and she suggested we measure my cervix. I really wasn't concerned about it, but gave in and 2 of my co-workers scanned me. My cervix was only measuring 1.6cm, which is short because it should be anywhere from 2-4cm in length. The nurse practitioner I work with suggested I call my doctor and just let them know what was going on because she thought I should be put on bed rest. I called my doctor's office and they told me I needed to leave work and come in for an appointment later that day. I was just going to keep working until the appointment, but the radiologist I was working with was insistent that I go home and lay down. I figured my doctor was just going to think I was a crazy ultrasound tech that scans herself all the time and would send me home. I got to my doctor's office at 1pm for my 1:15pm appointment. After waiting 55 minutes in the waiting room and getting agitated I asked the secretary if there was a reason I was having to wait so long. She checked and they took me back right away. Weston thinks they forgot about me which made me really unhappy. I started crying when the nurse triaged me because I had been waiting so long and I thought the doctor would think I was silly for being there. After explaining everything she went and got the doctor and he came in to check me. He said, "I hear you have been falling on the ultrasound machine again" because the last time I saw him I mentioned the baby had the cord wrapped around his neck. I am pretty sure he thought the visit wasn't really necessary, but after doing a manual exam he told me my cervix was thinning and I was 1-2cm dilated. I asked him what that meant and he said he was sending me over to the hospital right away. I was a little surprised because I wasn't expecting that. I started crying in the car on our way home because I didn't think all this was going to happen when I left work early. We went home to grab a couple of things and then headed St. Rose Siena hospital since it has a level 3 NICU.

When we got to the hospital they put me in triage for monitoring. Once Dr. Ciklin and the other OB hospitalist got all the info from me they decided to put me in a room for 23 hour observation. They gave me fluids and a shot of tertbutylene to stop my contractions. When Dr. Miller came in later that night she decided to check me again and said I was 50% effaced and 2-3cm dilated which made her change me from an observation patient to an admitted patient. They gave me a steroid shot in my butt after that, just in case I delivered early, to help the baby's lungs. My contractions were getting closer together so they put me on Magnesium, which helps with the baby's brain development and sometimes helps slow contractions. I had to have a catheter put in which was horrible! Usually they don't put a catheter in patients until they have had an epidural when they are in labor, but since I couldn't go to the bathroom while on Magnesium they put one in me. I wasn't able to eat while on the Mag either because it can make you nauseous. Weston had a test Tuesday morning which he emailed his professor about postponing, but I told him to go home to sleep just in case his professor made him take it anyway. At 3 in the morning my contractions were 2-3 minutes apart so the nurse told me to call Weston to come back to the hospital since I would probably deliver that day. They gave me the second steroid shot sooner than 24 hours because they thought I was going to have the baby. My contractions began to slow down and by the time my nurse was off her shift I wasn't having frequent contractions. Weston was able to postpone his test until Wednesday morning so he stayed with me most of the day. Both of our parents, my friend Caren and more family came by to see me. That night I was able to come off the Magnesium and have the catheter removed. I was so happy to be able to use the bathroom and eat some food! They started giving me Procardia which helps slow down contractions and stopped the saline in my IV. Weston slept there that night and I was able to get 5 hours of sleep since I was only having to take the Procardia every 6 hours.

Wednesday morning Weston went to school to take his make up exam and go to the classes he missed on Monday. Everything was pretty calm until mid afternoon when my contractions started getting closer together. The doctor decided to increase my Procardia from 10mg to 20mg and then from every 6 hours to every 4 hours. I wasn't really feeling the contractions so they said that was a good sign because if they were painful it would be more worrisome. I spoke to the nurse and figured I would be at the hospital until I delivered because in order to go home my contractions would have to stop and I would have to have not dilated anymore. I finally got to shower that afternoon around 4 which felt wonderful, but when I got back to bed my contractions were really close together. I had a lot more visitors from church, work and family throughout the day. Since my Procardia was being given every 4 hours I told Weston to go home and get some sleep because he would probably wake up every time they came in to give me medication. I got about 4-5 hours of sleep, but when the nurse came in at 3 in the morning to put the monitor on the baby I couldn't go back to sleep so I just watched tv.

Thursday morning the doctor said that once the perinatologist came to see me we would decide what to do. Right before lunch the perinatologist came in a told me that if I hadn't dilated anymore they were going to send me home on bed rest and meds. I was so surprised! When we did the manual exam I was only 1-2cm dilated and 75% effaced which was ok for me to go home. The nurse took out my IV and gave me a prescription for Procardia to take on my own at home. I was so excited to go be going home, but almost surprised I hadn't gone into labor.

I am so grateful for the family and friends that came and visited with me and brought me treats. I am grateful for modern medicine and the nurses and doctors that took care of me. I am so grateful for Weston and that he was ready for whatever was going to happen. I am also grateful this baby boy has decided to stay in a little while longer so he can develop more inside of me. Hopefully bed rest and the medication with do it's job and I won't go crazy while at home :)

23-28 weeks

I have learned it is true when people say you forget about the bad symptoms of being pregnant and that is why so many women get pregnant again. The nausea in the first trimester seems like a distant memory and doesn't seem as bad when I think about it as I'm sure it was at the time. Around 24 weeks I started having sharp pains deep in my left butt cheek every time I walked. I wasn't sure what it was, but hoped I would be able to get through it and keep working. Each time I get a bad symptom of pregnancy I wonder how long I will be able to handle it. The pain when I walk has subsided though and I just feel a twinge of pain if I stretch my leg out a certain way. Now at 28 weeks I can't tell if I have ankles anymore and I hope it doesn't last the next 12 weeks.

I haven't had any crazy cravings that I have to have everyday, just a craving for something at the moment and then it is gone once I fulfill it. I did really want cheeto puffs for awhile, but they are a very bad choice because I can eat a whole bag in 2 days. Honeycrisp apples taste so good to me, but they are so expensive! I am trying to eat more fruit, make dinner instead of going out, and incorporate more vegetables into our dinners. I still feel pretty picky when it comes to my food choices though, which makes it hard to eat really healthy. We go on walks every so often and I walk a lot at work, but after work I am so tired I never want to go to the gym. I know my body needs it so my labor is not as bad, but it is really hard to get this pregnant belly off the couch after work.

I had another ultrasound at 23 weeks because my previous ultrasound didn't see the sacral spine very well. It was fun to have the ultrasound tech take more pictures and really explain what she was looking at since she knows I am an ultrasound tech too. Before I got pregnant Weston and I said we didn't want 3D pictures because they are creepy looking, but since I was further along with this second ultrasound baby boy didn't look scary at all.

 

Baby boy didn't want his picture taken

Me and Weston after we were born. Who is baby boy going to look like?

Weston's spring break was the third week in March this year so I took off a couple of days from work so we could go on a small vacation. We stayed at the Mt. Charleston Lodge Tuesday night. We ate steak and salmon for dinner and a really yummy breakfast the next day. It was beautiful up there and very quiet since we went in the middle of the week. That afternoon we left Mt. Charleston and drove to Irvine, CA. When we got to Irvine we checked in at our hotel and then went to Pick up Stix for dinner. Whenever we go out of town I always think about where we are going to eat because Vegas doesn't have all the places to eat that California does. I love Pick up Stix and it tasted so good! Thursday we were going to go to Catalina Island and just explore, but it was really expensive to take the ferry over there so Weston wanted to find something else to do. We found a french bistro that was supposed to have really good french toast for breakfast, but we got there too late and they had stopped serving breakfast. I told Weston we should find a Dominican restaurant to eat lunch at since they probably had one in So. California. We found one in Bellflower and decided to head there to eat lunch. Weston had a hard time deciding what to eat because there were so many things he wanted to eat. We were stuffed after lunch and decided to go to the Aquarium of the Pacific in Long Beach. Weston said it was the best aquarium he has ever been to. We got to touch jelly fish and sharks and watch a show with sea lions and seals. After the Aquarium we took the ferry over to Balboa island. We played in the arcade and ate shaved ice. We went back to the hotel before dinner then headed to The Counter. It is a gourmet burger place we went to last summer with Weston's family and Weston wanted to eat there again. It was delicious! We wanted to see a movie after, but there was nothing playing at the cheap theater that we both wanted to see so we went back to the hotel pool again. Friday morning we ate a Ihop for breakfast, then headed to Newport Beach. We rented beach cruisers and rode up to the pier and back. We headed home afterwards and stopped in Hespia at a philly steak place for lunch. I was so tired when we got home, but it was so nice to get away and spend time just the two of us. Weston is definitely my favorite person to spend time with :)

April 4th my friend and coworker Katie had her wedding out at the Pauite golf course. It was a beautiful wedding and I actually felt pretty and pregnant. I couldn't wear the new wedges I bought though because my feet began to swell up that morning.

50/50 chance

Before we started trying to have kids Weston would say he wanted a girl first because he had a girl first in his family and I wanted a boy first because we had a boy first in mine. I felt like I was going to have a girl though, but that could have just been because I wanted to dress up a little girl. Once we found out Rachel was having another girl, Weston really wanted to have a boy since it would be the first on his side of the family. I heard about people being told what they were having at 12 weeks, but it was usually an 80 percent chance. I read about it and there was a way of maybe telling, but you had to get the perfect image so I figured 14 weeks would be the soonest I wouldn't be able to tell myself. Weston wasn't really expecting to be there when I found out because I was checking myself once a week anyway. I kept telling him I was pretty sure it was going to be a girl and he would tell me I needed to "will it to be a boy." Haha it's his little guys that determine what we have not my willingness to produce a boy or a girl. He makes me laugh. Anyway, at 12 weeks 6 days I set the transducer down and couldn't believe I was seeing what we were having. I text Weston and asked if I could have my co worker look without him there and he said that was fine. When she scanned me, and 2 other techs verified, I was pretty sure about what we were having. Weston wanted to wait until we were really sure to tell our families, but I couldn't hold in the excitement. We are having a.... BOY!!!!

The little triangle in the middle is a boy part!

When people would ask me what I was having I would tell them I was pretty sure it was a boy, but I wanted to wait until I had my official ultrasound to say for sure. At 21 weeks, on Valentine's day, we officially found out we were having a baby boy. He was out and ready to show us all that he was boy too :) I already started buying things here and there for the baby and a friend of mine gave me a ton of baby boy clothes. We are so excited to meet this little guy. I started really feeling him kick between 21 and 22 weeks. Weston placed his hand on my belly a couple days ago and right as he did baby boy kicked. It was so amazing to have Weston feel what I was felling.

 15 weeks

Big lips like Daddy

 20 weeks

 Ready to show us he's a boy!

 21 weeks

22 weeks

Baby Time

     When Weston and I got married he still had 3 years of school left. We talked about when we wanted to have kids and decided right before started dental school would be a good time to have our first. The longer we were married, the more baby hungry I got. I would see other girls getting pregnant with their first and then second babies. It felt like everyone was getting pregnant! I would tell Weston my uterus was getting dusty and try to convince him we should start trying sooner, but he wasn't having it. It wasn't that he didn't want to have kids, he just knew that sticking to the plan was the right thing for us. Plus, since Weston is 3 years younger than me, I think he didn't feel completely ready. The closer it got to us trying, the more I wanted to push the time up a little. I would say "trying one month sooner than we planned wouldn't hurt." Weston would tell me all the reasons why we needed to wait until we planned and I would reluctantly agree with him.

     Before I met Weston my OB told me I had mild PCOS (polycystic ovarian syndrome). I knew this could lessen the chances of us getting pregnant or at least getting pregnant quickly. I kept telling myself that the longest it took my sisters or my mom was 4 months so I would be fine, but you never know. I stopped taking my birth control in July and we started really trying in August. Trying to have a baby is so unromantic. It really is a miracle that people get pregnant at all with such a limited window for everything to happen in your body. While on birth control I was very regular, but before I was on it I was not. So, once I stopped taking it I expected to go back to being somewhat irregular. It was really stressful, though, when I was 'late' because it could just be my body getting back to normal. I took a pregnancy test in August, even though we weren't really trying in July, because I was 7 days late. It was negative which wasn't a huge surprise, but still a little disappointing. In September, I was 2 days late, so I decided to take another pregnancy test. Negative. This one was a lot more disappointing because we really had been trying. Weston kept telling me that it would happen and I knew I couldn't be too upset since it only had been a month. In October, I was a week late so I took a pregnancy test and it was negative. Another few days went by with no period and another pregnancy test that was negative. I was so confused why my body was messing with me, but knew it could be that I was stressing out too much. A couple days later I took a test when I woke up for work and saw a very faint positive! I whispered to Weston that he was going to be a Daddy and he just smiled.

   Having the job that I do I was checking myself multiple times a week. I would look to see if my endometrium was getting thicker or if there was a gestational sac, but I wasn't seeing anything when I should have been 6 weeks. Finally, my friend scanned me and saw a little 5 week gestational sac! A week later we saw a little heartbeat. It was really exciting, but everything that could be wrong started running through my head. I always said I wouldn't be one of those crazy people that stressed about every little thing that could happen, but seeing so many of those things with my job just heightened the stress. I went to the OB  for my first trimester check when I should have been about 9 weeks. When the tech did my ultrasound I was only 7 weeks 1 day. It finally made sense why the pregnancy test took so long to show a positive and for us to see anything in my uterus. I must have ovulated really late because they pushed my due date back 10 days from what it should have been.

First trimester was rough, but not as bad as I'm sure it could have been. I threw up about 6 times total and I was nauseous quite a bit. I felt bad for Weston because I didn't want to cook at all! Everything sounded disgusting to me and eating just made me feel more sick. Seeing the Thanksgiving commercials on TV even made me sick. I finally got some anti nausea pills from my OB, which helped a lot. I also had a weird after taste in my mouth all the time.The nauseousness eventually subsided and I was able to start eating normally after the first trimester.

 7 weeks

 11 weeks

14 weeks

Dental School

I just realized I never posted about one of the biggest things going on in our lives. Weston's going to Dental school!

Last May he took the DAT and got a 22, which is really good from what we here. He was expecting an 18 maybe 19, so a 22 was a very nice surprise for him. In June, he applied to 12 different dental schools and waited to hear if they wanted him to fill out supplemental applications. Most of the schools requested a supplemental and then we waited to hear about interviews. He got an interview at UNLV first, then MidWestern in Arizona and then VCU in Virginia. He flew out to Arizona and Virginia, without me because I had to work, and he really liked both schools. He said he liked them a lot more than he was expecting. He knew the beginning of December was the soonest he would find out about UNLV's decision. He got another interview to Loma Linda, in California, for the middle of December, but decided if he got into UNLV he would cancel that interview. He received a call from UNLV December 3 that he had been accepted and also received a scholarship! I almost started crying when he came to my work to tell me. We prayed about it and thought about the practicality of leaving Las Vegas a lot. It didn't make sense to go anywhere else, especially with the scholarship. Weston is going to UNLV Dental School!

 
I am so proud of Weston. He worked so hard to get good grades and do well on the DAT. We are thankful daily for the blessings Heavenly Father is bestowing upon us. We know we wouldn't be able to do any of this without Him and love Him so much. A lot of exciting things are happening this next year and we are ready for them :)

San Francisco!!!

Weston and I talked about going to San Francisco since we got married. Last August we were going to go, but it ended up not working out so we did a staycation. This year I told Weston that we were going whether we had the money or not because it would be our last big vacation before we try to have a baby. We decided to drive my Mazda3 since it is older and we didn't want to put the miles on our newer car.

We left Friday around 4pm to head up to Bishop, CA. Two hours into the trip, around Beatty, our air conditioning went out. It happens every so often, but turns back on usually. Well, it wouldn't turn back on this time. It was so hot! We had to drive through 3 windy roads to get to Bishop and it was pretty scary driving that at night. We got to our hotel safely, and sweaty, and went to bed a couple hours later.

The next morning we got up early to get some Freon to see if maybe that was the problem. After putting in Freon our AC was still just as hot. We went to a mechanic after that and they found a leak in our high pressure AC hose, but couldn't fix it since they didn't have the part. We decided to just drive on since the weather wasn't too hot and we would be in the mountains most of the day. We ate lunch at a cute pizza place in Mammoth Lakes while I called around to find out if any of the Mazda dealers in San Francisco had the part we needed. We drove up to Yosemite and then down to the valley floor. It was beautiful in Yosemite, but such a long drive and I think we were just ready to get to our next stop. We watched a video about Yosemite and stopped to take some pictures then headed out to San Mateo. We got to San Mateo, which is South of San Francisco, and were ready to sleep after another day of no AC in our car.

Sunday morning we ate breakfast at the hotel and headed to the Golden Gate Bridge. We parked our car and walked about half way down the bridge. It was was really foggy so we didn't get that postcard picture of the bridge we would have liked, but it was still amazing being there. We were told Muir Woods was worth going to because we would see huge trees. I think we were both hoping for Sequoia size trees and were disappointed. We just drove the windy roads and headed back to a park by the Japanese Tea Gardens. We took a nap on the grass and walked around. It was expensive to go into the Tea Garden, or any museum for that matter, so we just walked around some more. I didn't buy Weston anything for his birthday so we decided to go look for shoes since Weston needed new volleyball shoes. He ended up getting two pairs of shoes because anyone that knows Weston knows he loves shoes. We ate dinner at BJ's and headed to bed early because we had an early morning the next day.

Monday we got up at 5am to go down to Fisherman's Wharf and wait in line for tickets to Alcatraz. It was Weston's birthday and he wanted to go to Alcatraz that day. We waited too long to buy tickets online so we waited for an hour and a half in line for the limited tickets they sell for same day trips. We got our tickets though and almost froze to death waiting! Weston wanted French toast for breakfast so we ordered IHOP to go and went back to the hotel to shower. We drove back into the city and took a ferry out to Alcatraz. They provide an audio tour and I'm not usually a big history person, but this was probably my favorite part of our trip. It was amazing to hear the stories of the prisoners and the history of the prison. When we got back to Fisherman's Wharf we went to get Weston some clam chowder for lunch and I had fish and chips. After lunch we walked around Fisherman's Wharf, went to the Maritime museum, the Ghirardelli Factory, and looked at the Trolleys. We took a street car to Union Square and walked around then headed back to the car near Fisherman's Wharf. Since this day was all about Weston he decided he wanted sushi for dinner. Mmm my favorite (sense the sarcasm). We walked around downtown San Mateo till we found a good sushi place with not too long of a wait. We ended up sitting by the nicest couple who eventually asked if we were LDS. I was so confused and asked if my garments were showing, but the husband just thought we were and they were too! Such a small world.  It was a busy day, but so much fun!

Tuesday we drove an hour outside San Mateo to a Mazda dealer that had the part we thought we needed. They told us our entire AC system was out and it would cost us $1700 to fix. Well that didn't sound so good, so we decided to finish up our trip and get it fixed when we got home. We went to the Exploritorium for a couple hours and then decided it was time to head out. There was a lot more we would have liked to see and do, but we were so tired and ready to go home.  We drove to Bakersfield and slept there that night so we could drive home early the next day before it got too hot.

Our trip was stressful at times, but definitely worth the memories. We would love to go back someday when we have more time to explore the city, but for now it is one city checked off our life to do list!