San Francisco

So our flight out of NYC was delayed 4 hours (!!!). The kids were eating snacks off the airport floors and causing ruckus by the time it was time to board. You could tell that all the other passengers were saying silent prayers: "please let me not sit next to them." The flight was fine after Lulu screamed for about 1 hour and Jared calmed her down while I talked to the guy across the aisle about the election. (what?)

We got there at about 4 in the morning:



And after two or so hours of sleep, we were off to see the city:



Jared's parents came out to see us there:







Cyra walked by these statues and said: "Hey, that looks like Papa!"













We also saw our good friends Chris and Alia (who just had a baby).

And the reason for the trip: my cousin, Alaleh's wedding.

This is the sofreh. See here for the symbols.



We had one of these at our wedding too. Too bad I didn't have a blog back then or I could have posted pictures. Come to think of it, I don't think there was digital photography back when I was married.





We so rarely get dressed up that I will indulge you and post one too many pictures of us dressed up:



The bride and groom:


Cousin Arash and Yismary:



It was a beautiful wedding. Great food, great band and then a great DJ. As is custom at Iranian weddings, we danced until very late and left the kids at the hotel with a baby sitter. It was a lot of fun.

Random wanderings around the beach:



When Jared saw this boy scout troop band just appear out of nowhere in perfect pitch walking toward the beach, he was mesmerized and just stood staring at them. Then, he just shook his head and just kept mumbling: "how do they get a whole band out of their troop?" "We can barely get a troop." "And look at all of them with their neat shirts on!" I guess not all boy scout troops are like ours in Harlem, but there are very few who have as much character and charm (who needs a well-coordinated band?)



Excuse the pictures. It only looks dark and gloomy because it was a very dark and gloomy day. But look on the bright side:



This guy sleeping in his Carpe Diem bus is basically living Jared's dream.





These guys too.

And then there was this random group walking the beach:



Wait, look closely:



It's the "small dog society." Really? People who just get together to walk their small dogs? Why do they think that they have more in common with other people with small dogs than say, people with big dogs or is it just for their dogs so they don't develop a small dog complex? But in seriousness, I bet some of those dogs have some great ideas.