Last Minute Trip to San Francisco

I always seem to forget about holiday weekends because Stanford doesn't like to celebrate. Luckily Britton doesn't have class on Mondays so we took the day off and celebrated President's Day with a trip to San Francisco. We only live about 45 minutes away from SF, but hardly make our way over there. Maybe it's the cold fog, or the hassle of finding and paying for parking that deters us. Either way, I had never been to the famous Pier 39 before.
We had a great and somewhat cold time. I really shouldn't complain about cold here, but I really hate being cold. We ate a picnic lunch on Pier 39 by the sea lions, but only glanced at the stores there. Most of our time was spent walking to and from Ghirardelli Square.
Mmmm, Ghirardelli Square. We all split one fatty hot fudge sundae.
Elliot spent most of the time sleeping in the giant, comfy, plastic rain covered double stroller. For the short time he was awake we put him in the over-sized bear suit. He is such a cute little thing.

Will was super excited to see the "charlie cars" move down the tracks. Someday we'll have to actually ride in a trolley car with Will. Today I was looking at a Google map, and Will requested to see our house. After showing him the street view of our house, Grandpa and Grandma's house, and almost Nana and Papa's house I got the idea to relive our trip to San Francisco. Sure enough, "driving" down Jefferson street on Google maps, you can see a "charlie car".

Keeping Busy

My goal was to plan more things to do on the weekends, and it's been going well. We might be a little more cranky and tired by the end of Saturday, but it's better than cranky/tired because I sat in front of the computer all Saturday. Or in Britton's case, cranky/tired from shopping too much for non-electronic things.
Two weekends ago we decided to go to Golden Gate Park. It was a last minute plan, but I thought I'd invite some people we know in case they wanted to go. Lesson learned! Inviting people to do stuff last minute is for singles. It doesn't work for people with kids! We ended up going to...The newly remodeled Academy of Sciences! It was crowded, but not as bad as usual I think. My only disappointments with the place was that there was only one changing table in a very busy women's bathroom, and no place for me to feed the boy except on these wimpy chairs in the eatery which resembled a fish bowl.
Still, it is definitely worth a visit for anyone who finds themselves in San Francisco.
Here are my favorite sea creatures.
The weird looking sea horse.
Engineer fish! Fish can be nerdy. So is that guy.

This is a chocolate chip starfish!

My #1 favorite sea creature of all time...the SEA PEN! I've been a fan since elementary school.

Fast Forward to the next weekend.
Activity: Hiking in Wunderlich Park.
It was a decent hike. It starts out at a horse barn, and then there are traces of horse along the rest of the trails. Why is it that dog owners are required to pick up their dog's poop, but horse owners have no qualms about leaving it in the middle of the trail for others to try to avoid. It would probably be a big load to carry around, but at least they could shove it to the side of the trail or something. Besides that, we enjoyed our walk. We found one great view of the Stanford-ish area.
A GIANT tree. Possibly redwood. Not sure.
...and believe it or not, a portal into another world. Right in the middle of that circle of trees. It was amazing, but that's a story for another post.

This weekend we are continuing Britton's birthday celebration in Brentwood!

A Little Late Birthday Ballet

The Nutcracker in San Francisco was fantastic this year! The costumes sparkled all they way from the balcony. Britton didn't want me to get cold so he made sure we sat way up in the highest seats:) Maybe we'll slowly move our way down as the years pass.

To start our evening we enjoyed a dinner at Sauce, a fine restaurant located within walking distance of the ballet. (if using high heels, multiply walking distance by 100.) I had the Hawaiian butterfish wrapped in bacon on a sweet potato risotto cake. mmmmm...bacon. Here's the dashing young husband with adorable dimples. Notice the baby is absent from these pictures. Nana offered to feed him all night again!

We spent the night in The Whitcomb Hotel. Also within walking distance of the ballet. It had this creepy, haunted mansion feeling.

The lobby was a little more cheery.
We stayed in this room.
Sha, I wish! I bet the whole room is made of chocolate!