Saturday, March 22, 2014

San Fran




Our trip to San Francisco was so lovely. Devin had a continuing education seminar there, so he was in class during the day and joined us at night.

A little trip synopsis:

Wednesday night :
  • Left home at 6:15pm. 
  • Arrived in Reno around midnight. 
  • Transferred 3 little sleeping Ortons into one double bed!
Thursday:
  • Ate a Continental breakfast at our cheap  economy motel. It offered toast. That's its. OH and milk from the jug that you shared with all the other truckers staying there.  Uuuh. No matter we are too excited to get on the road!
  • Pretty drive through the mountains.
  • Arrive in Sanfrancisco at lunch-ish time. Headed straight to Pier 39.  
    • Lunch at Fog Harbor Fish House. We meant to go find a little chowder house. This was much fancier, and even saw a couple get engaged... but we were too hungry to leave. It had an amazing view of Alcatraz as we ate.  Super good Clam chowder and sourdough bowls!  
    • Shopped all the little shops and repeated a million times. "Ner touch pas!" (don't touch that!)
    • Road the 2 story carousel 
    • Bought salt water taffy. Gotta do it! 
    • Walked the pier and watched the boats and the wild sea lions and seals that are just there hanging out!
    • Checked in to our hotel and swam. Happy to find out we could lay in our bed and watch the bay out our window as well as airplanes landing and taking off across the bay! A little boys dream.
Above: "Best clam chowder in San Francisco." Devin kept commenting. (It said that on the menu.) 
Below: Please please be good  this meal.  Pleease. You wouldn't believe the things they come up with in restaurant these 3. 
View of Alcatraz:

Cache trying to look pimp on a carousel...
Devin on his trusty sea lion!!

Those brown blobs are sea lions.
Look at that man's dreads behind Gage! Totally sweet.
 Warning to Cache's future wife: Feed Cache on time. You'll regret it.
We fed Cache 20 minutes too late. We lost him.
Right after lunch. Cache came back to us. :) 
Alcatraz

I obviously took a ton of pictures that day, being overwhelmed with the prettiness... 


Friday:
  • Devin attends conference. The kids and I take it reaaal easy getting ready and watching cartoons.
  • Lunch at my cousin Cherisse's home in Menlo Park. My kids first time meeting Lucy and they have a BAJILLION questions, about how Lucy does this and does that . And "How come she is so lucky and gets to sleep in the kitchen on pink princess bed?" 
  • Watch Frozen and play princesses with Lucy. Gage made quick friends with my other cousin Alisa's little girl Kaelyn. I got caught up on Melanie's(my other cousin who was also there) new boyfriend. :)
  • Picked up Devin and headed to the Golden Gate bridge! So amazing at night to see the city.
  • Ghiradelli Square for dinner and dessert. Chocolate factory...  oh man. 
Kaelyn and G. racing cars down Lucy's wheel chair ramp.

Lucy would give directions and Naomi would dress the princesses. 
I wish they could hang out more. 
View of the city from the bridge!
Dallin and Cache are related.

Alisa said that this was a picture we had to take. Gage was feelin the love too!
Everytime we tried to take a couples pic... Gage thought he needed to be part of it. 

My hair at the beginning compared to the end of each day. Frizz city.
Saturday
  • Morning walk on the path that surrounds the bay in front of our hotel. 
  • Load the kids up by myself and head to Half Moon bay to check out the tide pools! I was IN HEAVEN on that drive and planned my next trip to San Fran. Gorgeous.
    • The kids found hermit crabs and saw more sea lions just there hanging out on rocks. I LOVE my children on a beach. They are completely enchanted and I am totally happy.
  • Toured Standford campus. Standford= amazing. 
  • Picked up Devin and went on another beautiful drive to the Ritz Carlton beach
    • Ate pizza on the Golfcourse overlooking the sea cliffs and the beach at sunset... amazing San Fran pizza. (Thanks to Chad and Cherisse) and butterscotch rootbeer.
    • played at the beach till the last drop of daylight.
    • Walked over to the Ritz and ate their gourmet s'mores on their fire pits overlooking the ocean.
    • The most picturesque night!
What these pictures don't tell: Naomi cried very hard when she realized  that she was wearing pants that were. "Not even pink or purple and look like boys."
 She kinda totally lost it and pushed Gage down who hit his head on a tree. I held him till he stopped crying, then put him down. He promptly walked over to the now calm Naomi and punched her right in the nose. Picked both criers up and headed to the beach with Gage yelling: "I HATE da BEEEEACH!"
Over and over, Naomi wailing, and Cache just groaning  "Can't we just go back to the hotel?"
We had to cross a small river in flip flops with all our bags and babies. Stubbed my toe on a rock and almost dropped my camera in the river.  Set Gage and Naomi down and as soon as they saw the ocean they flipped a switch and were completely happy! It was almost like magic. AAh we made it.
 Oh wait for it Amie...
They all stripped their shoes and socks off, and declared they needed to go to the bathroom.
All 3 of them.
NOW.
Which is up by the car. Ya know, just across the river and up the rocky hill.  And the two babies are crying again because they are gonna have an accident, and Cache bolts off because he doesn't think he needs a mama anymore. Never mind the busy parking lot and weirdos hanging around the men's bathroom. So I join in the yelling  "Get back here mister! NOW!"
It was pretty much an awesome time.  But really the time we had after that was peaceful and fun, and worth all that chaos.


True to form, he fell down on the rocks a LOT.
SEA LIONS in the distance. Camera didn't catch it well.
 
Putting snails on each others feet and laughing. :)

Standford University.

Dallin told me every historical fact of Standford. At first I thought he must have learned this in school. Then I noticed him non-chalantly reading the plaques when he thought no one was watching and then regurgitating it to me! Still impressive that he memorized the stories that fast. Hilarious boy.


He fell down and scraped his knee of course.  I-phones and snacks make it better.

A really cute moment that happened as we were touring the grounds and these two girls discovered that they had the same middle name.  Naomi found this beautiful white flower and skipped over and gave  it to Jocey. 
Jocey: Thank you Naomi! My middle name actually means white flower!
Naomi: (Looking a little disappointed) "OH, my middle name is just Titaua." 
Jocey finally got Naomi to understand that they had the same name, they hugged. 

Our two little beautiful Titaua's with Titauas on their heads! ha. Grandma would be so proud.

Then... some passer by-ers that didn't speak a word of English except "Chee for Pichuu"  needed a "pichu" with our girls? haha! 
Standford's driveway.

The Ritz Carlton Half Moon Bay.
Lucy's cute hand.

Lucy wanted to touch the sand. :)




These next 3 pictures I didn't take. But they are not an exaggeration at all of the beauty of that place.
Truly breath taking. Devin and I made a mental note to spend one of our future anniversaries here. :) 



    Sunday: Breakfast at our hotel and one last walk on the bay.
    Drove 10 hours home. Got food poisoning at Subway......so glad to be home. Been doing laundry ever since.



    My highlight was definitely our last night on the beach. It was just so beautiful and the warm sea breeze blowing.  Watching Chad dance with Lucy in his arms on the beach. Visiting with Cherisse while our kids perfectly paired off, and played with Devin in the waves. Cherisse is an amazing girl, and even more amazing mother. One of my hero's and I just love every minute I get to be around her.

    I wrote down a few funny quotes from my kids who were possibly even more excited than me to be there:

    "What language do they speak here in California?" -Naomi
    "I can't believe we are in California. This is like the MOST famous place in the world." -Cache.

    Several times I would hear them say: "I can' believe we are in California." 


    Yay for family vacations and memories made.