Today was a wonderful day.

O.K., the end of our day wasn't wonderful, but three quarters of the day was darn near perfect. :)

Last night Kayce texted me and asked if we wanted to meet in downtown San Francisco for lunch, since they had to go to the Chinese Consulate to get their Visas for travel.  Well of course we did!

We saw Lisa and family off on their ski trip(we are house/dog sitting while they are gone) in the morning, then headed into China Town for some Dim Sum.

After some issues with parking(this will come up again later), we met up with Kayce and family at the restaurant.  The first one we tried was way crowded, so we headed up the street a short ways to find one that wasn't.

I can't even remember the name of the place we ate at, but it was dee-lish!  An hour or so later of good food, good conversation, and good friendship,  we parted ways so that Kayce could get back on the road to their house.

Joe and I decided to do a little window shopping in China Town before heading back to our car.  I guess I should say now that we opted to park on the street, at a meter because we weren't planning on staying long and it was very close to the restaurant.  We were parked completely legally.  This will become important later on.

Anyway, we walked up and down the streets of China Town for a little while, looking in the windows and enjoying the atmosphere.

If you squint and look very closely, you can see the Bay Bridge back there.  Such a a beautiful view!

(All of these photos from my phone because I forgot to put the battery in the camera that Lisa lent me)

We saw this in one of the store windows

So pretty!

And this, which was way cool.

 On the way back to our car we saw this church.  I was instantly enamored with it and asked Joe if we could go inside.  We checked our watches and decided we had enough time for a quick visit.

It's Old St. Mary's Church and I love it.  It is so beautiful.

We took a coupe of pictures inside. It was beautifully decorated for Chirstmas

We lit a candle and sat for a few minutes in the church enjoying the peacefulness before Joe said we should get back to the car.

This is where the story goes awry. You knew it was going to, didn't you?

We left the church and started walking back to our car.  It was several blocks away.  After a couple of blocks I had to pee.  You're probably asking yourself why didn't I pee while we were at the church?  That's a good question.  The answer is that I have been having some problems with my bladder and I can't exactly  dictate when I have to go. But suddenly I had to go right that second. Yes, I do intend on asking my doctor about it when we get home.  But that doesn't help me now.

Anyway, we start looking for a bathroom, all the while keeping an eye on the time so we could get back to the car on time.

I don't know if you have experience with downtown San Francisco, or Chinatown in particular, but they won't just let you use the restroom anywhere.  Nope.  You have to be a customer.  And we didn't exactly have time to stop and eat at a restaurant. Finally Joe stopped into a tea shop and begged them to let me use their restroom because by this time I was desperate. They said yes, but they made him buy a tea! This was fine by me as by this time I had to go bad.

By the time we found the tea place and I used the restroom we had only a few minutes left to get to our car.

Except our car was still 3 blocks away.  We hurried as fast as we could up several large hills to try and get to our car on time.

When we got to the spot we had parked our car, guess what?

Yup.  You guessed it.  It wasn't there.  We were only(are you ready for this?)

Nine.  Minutes.  Late.


And our car was gone.  Here's where the story gets even better.  Joe immediately called the number on the sign to see where our car had gone.

He told them the make and the model and the license plate number and they checked the yard and then they checked with the tow truck and do you know what they told us?

That they hadn't towed our car and it was likely it had been stolen and they were sending a police car out to us so we could file a police report.  Click!

Cue hysterical crying(from me).  I mean I was hyperventilating.  Seriously freaking.  Out.

Thankfully Joe kept his calm and talked me down off the ledge.  So we stood out on the street in Chinatown in the cold with me crying and Joe trying to calm me down while we waited for the police to come.

Fun times.

After waiting 10 minutes for the police to show up, Joe's phone rang. (Did I mention that my phone had died at this point?  I didn't?  Well it had.  Things just kept getting better and better).  It was the towing company.  They had located our car.  It was still on the back of the flatbed they had towed it on.  Why they had told us it wasn't on the truck, I don't know.

I have never been so happy to find out my car had been towed in my entire life.

We hailed a taxi and told him we needed to go to the tow yard.  He knew exactly where to take us.  Shocking.

I can't even talk about how much it cost to get our car out.  It makes me sick to my stomach just thinking about it.  But it was a lot, and we had to call my sister to help us and there will be no birthday presents for me so that we can pay her back.

But hey, at least our car wasn't stolen!  AND we got to have lunch with some wonderful friends, and the day was darn near perfect until the very end.  I'm just gonna try and forget about that part and focus on all the fun we had before that tiny little snafu happened.

And Kayce, Mike, Jake, and Jake's friend(dang it if I can't remember his  name!), thank you so much for the inviting us to have lunch with you.  We had the best time, as always!

P.S.  After we got our car and were headed on our way back to Scott and Lisa's house Joe turned to me and said "You know, we probably would have made it back in time if we hadn't stopped at that church".  Thanks honey.

We got our car towed because I stopped and lit a candle at a church.  Nice.