San Francisco

We loved San Francisco! Our first glimpse was very brief on Wednesday afternoon. We were at Point Lobos way down in the Monterey area earlier in the day, and we met up with some HOPE friends in San Mateo late afternoon (had such a great time at a playground with them, then eating amazing Korean food together for the evening, by the way!!). 

But we sped north into San Francisco and crossed the Golden Gate Bridge in between those two events. We weren't sure we'd have a good chance to see the bridge on Thursday, and we definitely wanted to say we'd been there, done that. :)

On Thursday morning we headed back into the city. First stop was right downtown at the Kiva offices. Jesse had arranged to meet up with someone there, and they graciously let me and the boys tag along to see the office, meet folks, and generally make ourselves a nuisance. Seriously, though, everyone was really sweet and kind—even when the boys desperately wanted to roll the awesome stability balls many employees used as seating at their super eco- and ergo-conscious work spaces!

By then it was late morning, and we packed in a lot from there. Every weather report and website said it was going to rain much of the day, getting heavier as the day progressed, so we were motivated to make the most of every minute before the drops started to fall. As it turned out...to our surprised pleasure...no rain fell until we were driving to our next hotel in the evening. Hooray!

We rode a carousel (twice, actually):

Enjoyed the carousel operator, Abraham, who did tricks for the kids while we waited:

Walked all through Chinatown and enjoyed the characteristic sights, smells, and sounds (plus also ducked into a tiny fortune cookie factory to see a couple of ladies hand stuffing and twisting the cookies—and got some yuuuuuummy samples!):

Had San Francisco sourdough bread bowls filled with clam chowder and tomato soup for lunch:

Walked around a small portion of the (huge, colorful, busy-busy) waterfront:

Peered over to Alcatraz and read a little about its story:

Walked all around Pier 39 and saw the notorious sea lions (pictured in a book Josiah and I have read several times in San Diego):

Drove around some of the city's famous architecture:

Also drove down the nation's curviest section of road, on Lombard street, with its eight craaaazy hairpin turns on what must be a 25% slope! Yep, I was pressing my phantom passenger side brake pedal hard the entire way.  :)

And finally, we had a GREAT time for barely an hour before closing at the Children's Creativity Museum (free entrance for us with our consortium pass from the Science Factory at home in Lancaster). Pictured, William is doing preschool style karaoke, performing the most serious rendition of the ABCs you'd ever see—complete with backup sound track and watching himself on screen in a castle scene. Hilarious! Josiah and I made a small stop-motion video there too, and the place was all-around awesome. (Kara, I have to let you know that Jesse was mocking both of us when I idly speculated about whether we would be too old to do their summer camp...)