Back from San Francisco

Yup we're back. Did we have fun??? Yes. We were definitely busy and there was a TON to do, almost too much where we felt a little overwhelmed and ended up walking in circles. The weather was cold, but we expected that so it wasn't too bad. The bad part was that we NEVER could have imagined how much food cost there. We spent more in food than the hotel, parking, and Go cards combined. We didn't even eat 1 crab, that was McDonald's!!! So this is what we did, in a nutshell... and a few pictures because I took almost 500.

We took a day cruise under the Golden Gate Bridge, around Alcatraz around Treasure Island, by Angel island and by the Bay bridge.

We went to the Bay Aquarium, where we touched sharks and starfish, balanced paperclips on top of water. (neat trick, ask Jim how, NOT me cause I couldn't get it too work) We learned that if your really good you can put 62 drops of water on top of a penny. (I did that one!) We saw a HUGE sturgeon. Jim liked that, but the one he caught when he went fishing in Portland in the Columbia River, was 11 feet 375lbs, and this one was only 5 feet and we thought it was HUGE!!!

We went aboard the S.S. Jeremiah O'Brien ship. We looked at their living quarters and the cannon things.

Alex and Jimi playing Titanic.

We biked, YES BIKED, to see the AT&T Giants ballpark, during the season opener. While we were riding bikes we made stops along the way.

We biked to the Exploratorium, a museum where it's ALL hands on. The kids (and us) learn how power is generated, how the eyes, ears, nose works. We played with all kinds of magnets, there was just A LOT TO TOUCH!!!

We biked across the Golden Gate Bridge. It was neat, if your not afraid of heights which I'm not. I found the funniest sign there, I don't think others think of it as funny as I do but I laughed so hard. We later drove across the bridge into Salsalito. Salsalito is just beautiful!!! Green and hilly and warmer. They told us that San Francisco is so cold all the time because of the ocean breeze, but if you go to Oakland or Salsalito you don't get the cold breeze. That probably explained why it looked so expensive to live there, and you HAVE to pay $6.00 to get back across the Golden Gate Bridge.

Please Don't Jump!! Call NOW!!! (hahah)

We saw the seals at Pier 39. That's how I feel, we even found one that acted like each one of our family. Alex was one that wouldn't let anyone near him, Jimi was the one who kept swimming around causing torment to ALL the others, Sami was the one screaming that wouldn't shut up, and Trever was the one pushing all the others off. We won't say which ones were Jim and I.

We went to the park that had a small beach. Since it was cold we really didn't stay there too long but the kids had fun playing in the sand.

We ate at this really cool restaurant called the Rain forest Cafe'. It has apes and elephants and aquariums, and it rains inside and every half hour they have a thunderstorm and all the animals come to life and go crazy and get loud. YES LOUDER THAN MY KIDS!!!

The wax museum. I thought it would be a lot better, it was OK. There weren't a lot that looked very real, but it was fun anyways.

Ghiradelli Square. All I can say is YUMMY!! I had real rocky road ice cream made with ghiradelli chocolate.

We saw "The Bush Guy". He is a homeless man who hides behind trash cans with a tree branch and waits for people to come by and then scares them! We watched him for so long because it was so funny. You could even see him giggling and then if he got them good he would laugh so hard. We liked him a lot!!! There was a silver robot guy, Trever liked him and Jim put him on a trash can and he danced too. There was a skeleton that caught Trever and I.

Every type of bread there was sourdough. I liked that. They don't have diet Pepsi ANYWHERE! It's all diet coke, I know weird.

All poor Sami wanted to do is ride a bus, or cable car. We never had the chance, we told her she could ride public transportation when we got home, I don't think she thinks it's the same.

The best was definitely Alcatraz Island. We went on a night tour, and it was fun. None of us were really scared, but I took a TON of pictures and if I would have seen my pictures first and then went, I would have been creeped out. It's DEFINITELY haunted! I would have loved to spend more time there, we had a tour guide that took us down in the basement to the old D block cells, and even let us go up to Al Capone's cell which was actually blocked off, but he took us up anyways. I think if we would have had a few more minutes he would have taken us up to the infirmary but as we were walking out they were turning lights off and boarding the boat, I defiantly wouldn't have wanted to be stranded on the island all night. I took pictures up the infirmary stairs and just putting my arm up I felt an ice cold breeze across it. I have some pictures that are so creepy!

This is floating and transparent, when I zoom in to his face you can make out a face... vaiguly.

For the drive home we came all the way down the coast through San Jose, Santa Cruz, Carmel, Monteray. (I probably don't have them in order, but I'm not good with direction, I only got Jim turned around 2 or 3 times, he finally just told me when to turn the map upside down. That's why I HAD navigation) The northern coast is beautiful, I was in Heaven! California is pretty. It took a long time to get home but it was well worth it.



And a few of my favorite pictures!!!

I'm glad to be home!!!