San Francisco!

We took a family trip to San Fran for the holiday weekend, and had such a great time! Beware of picture overload below!

Jacob is in San Fran for work so the boys and I flew alone...something I was a little scared to do, but as usual...they pleasantly suprised me. I'd give them a 9 on both flights :)

Due to Jacob's reoccuring work project, we've been to San Fran and Napa area a few times in the last few years, so I wasn't sure we'd find new and different things to do...but we did!

We enjoyed the Acquarium.  Most kiddos were little squeemish about dipping their hands in the water and actually touching the animals, but as you can see from the below video....not our boys. Mitchell thinks everyone he meets is immediately his friend, so he's trying to give the play by play of the contents of the fish tank to some "new friends".

Aren't the jelly fish beautiful? :)

Jacob did a wine tasing at a local winery. They offered non-alcoholic kid's tastsings too, which Mitchell LOVED. He requested to go back a few more times, but this was our only stop.

He did get to taste a few other things though....like some Ghiradelli host chocolate, complete with whipped cream.

I think Mitchell's favorite activity of all was the Exploratorium. A kid's paradise of all kids of hand on science exhibits. Their water fountains were in (unused) toilets!

San Fran is known for it's killer hills and we definitely walked our fair share. There was actually a group of girls that cheered at me as I pushed our stroller up one of the hills. They had left their kiddos at home and were doing a girls trip, so they had an appreciation for our struggles pushing 80 pounds up the killer hills!

One of the most popular sites in San Fran is Lombard Street...the curviest street in the world.  Cars were lined up for blocks to drive down Lombard street and there is a huge crowd of people gathered around it (I can't imagine how annoying that is to the people who live on Lombard!)

Against my better judgement, Jacob talked me into letting him walk with the cars down Lombard pushing the stroller (or really holding tightly onto the stroller while walking down the steep slope).  The cars have to go super slow due to the curves, so it didn't slow them down at all and quite a few spectators got a kick out of it.  The boys were napping, so they were none the wiser!

Lombard from the top

Mitchell and the boys coming down Lombard.

We stayed at the same hotel (Sheraton Fisherman's Wharf) this trip as we did 2 years ago. The picture that I took of Mitchell in our bed with our pillow is still one of my favorites, so I needed one of Maverick to match!

Mitchell - 15 months

Maverick - 15 months

Mitchell's favorite part of the hotel room was the fold-out couch, which was his bed for the week. 

Jacob "Mitchell, do you want to watch this couch turn into a bed?"

Mitchell "You mean it's a Transformer?"

He was all to happy to sleep in his transformer bed each night :)

You can't go to San Fran without riding a historic Cable Car!

The boys aboard the historic Cable Car (can you believe they are BOTH looking AND smiling?)

We burned off some steam at a beautiful inner city park/green space with a pretty waterfall.

Jacob and I toured the Museum of Modern Art one afternoon during nap time. The boys must've liked the peacefulness because they slept the entire time. One lady stopped me to tell us that she thought our stroller full of sleeping boys was the best exhibit in the entire museum. :)

Mitchell checking out the Bay Bridge.

Mav and Mommy at Pier 39

There was an area for the kids to drive a pretend street car at the Railroad Museum....both boys enjoyed it....Mitchell a little too much. We had to do a lot of coaxing to get him out of there!

He became best friends with the worker at the museum. They had many conversations about everything from cable cars to batman.

Conductor Mitchell

 

Jacob and Mitchell took a "Rocket Boat" ride in the Bay (you might be able to make them out in the middle, waving). Mitchell really enjoyed it and continued to talk about how no one (even the Flash) is fast enough to catch the Rocket Boat.

We enjoyed watching the (wild) Sea Lions that lay out along the docks on Pier 39. We even ate lunch at the Sea Lion Cafe, overlooking the Sea Lions. It was one of more challenging meals with the boys though, so we didn't enjoy the scenery as much as we'd like!

We ended the trip with a Bay Cruise! Here are the 4 of us in front of the Golden Gate Bridge.

Me: "Mitchell, do you see the Golden Gate Bridge?"

Mitchell: "I see a bridge, but I don't see any golden gates."

So true....

Mitchell brought along his fishing pole just in case...but we did catch a thing :( 

I think Jacob threatened to take Maverick to Alcatraz (in the background) to illicit this response.

Here is Mitchell and Jacob at the Academy of Sciences Museum (the Zebras are stuffed).



Although some of us got more rest than others on the trip, we're all a little glad to be settled back in at home!