Updates for the Stender Clan

Wow, I hadn't realized I haven't written on here since July. It has been a pretty busy 3 months. In August we went to Warren's family reunion and afterwards we went to San Francisco for a little vacation. It was a package I purchased last year for a good deal so we stayed at the Sir Francis Drake hotel. We took public transportation everywhere which was a lot of fun. And we crossed the golden gate bridge with some friends who happened to be visiting on one of the days of our trip.

Ella enjoying the park at Solvang

Warren showed Ella how to roll down a hill. They both seemed to really enjoy it.

Warren's sister Laurel, Eleanor loves her.

Doing a hike on the way out of Solvang.

The hike ended at a waterfall, which was fun for Ella to play in.

We drove on the 101 up to San Francisco and made some stops to see the ocean.

Waiting for the bus, SF has an excellent public transportation system.

The palace of fine arts that hosted the world fair in San Francisco a couple years after the huge fire, they rebuilt everything for the fair and it launched San Francisco as a major west coast city. Pretty cool history.

The science museum had tons of cool exhibits that we got to check out.

It makes a cyclone in the center to show the turning of a tornado.

Getting ready to walk across the bridge, 1. It is pretty long. 2. It is really cold. and 3. You have to walk back there is no bus on the otherside. Things we wish we would have known before walking across.

Heck yeah! The headquarters for Ghirardelli chocolate, one of our favorite stops on our trip.

One of those original carousels that have handmade wood animals.

The lobby of our hotel, very fancy and historic.

Lumbard st, the crookedest street in the US.

The academy of science, soooo much fun to look at all the animals and eco systems.

Upside down jellyfish, they just lay upside down on the ocean floor. Weird, like how do they survive?

Butterfly and tropical rainforest observatory.

Right before all this I found out that I got a job as an art teacher. I am an art itinerant so I teach at 4 schools because they have too many students for just one art teacher. So as soon as we got back from our trip then I had to get all my paperwork stuff done, orientation(that sucked) and visit my schools.

So now I've been teaching since August. They did count day in september and I lost one of my schools and picked up a day at one of my other schools so now I have 3 schools instead of 4. (so nice, I didn't like the school so I was pretty happy to lose that school) I love teaching art again, it really makes me happy and Eleanor is doing wonderfully with her babysitter, she is the kindest woman and her son and Eleanor play like they are siblings.

We were hoping to have another kid soon. I got pregnant in August and I was at 8 weeks this week, but then on Friday I started having cramping and bleeding. Went to the doctors, they did an ultrasound and said everything looked ok. Saturday it got worse, went to the ER and ended up having a miscarriage.

I'm ok with it. It is easier having it earlier. Last time I was at 10 weeks. I don't know what the problem is, but it makes me very grateful that we have Eleanor. So we will see what happens. I think we will try again later on, but if things don't work out, I'll be ok with that. Now I'm kind of looking forward to staying skinny longer and getting to eat some sushi on my birthday this week. I hope everyone else is having a good fall season, I am really looking forward to Halloween and all the other holidays this year so I'll keep this updated with everything we are up to. Love ya!

The stenders.