5 cents of San Fran

After leaving Saratoga, we heading into Oakland and checked into our hotel (with a fabulous view). Then we set out for dinner.

Oakland

It had been a long day with not good napping so dinner out had the potential to be very dicey. We walked to a Vietnamese place just a block away from the hotel which ended up working out very well for us. There were cool horse and Buddha statues the boys enjoyed looking at and the food came out ridiculously quick so we were in and out of there in no time. This was Friday and the wedding day was Saturday. So it was early to bed for all of us to prepare for the fun ahead.

I had committed to helping decorate the wedding venue for Amy's wedding (the reason for doing this whole Bay Area trip) but that wouldn't be until early afternoon. So Saturday morning, we got up and ready and decided to do some (very) quick highlights of San Francisco! Mike and I have both been to the area as tourists so focused on some things that would be interesting to the boys.

We drove the minivan down the crookedest street in the world, Lombard Street:

One of the Many Hairpin Turns

Yay! Fun Street!

Then we headed towards the water to check out some of the action along the water\piers.

Saw one of the infamous trolleys along the way.

The boys and I went and walked on the sand so that we could touch the Pacific ocean. Mike opted to not get his shoes sandy and hung back to take pictures. (Note - The above has been corrected per a loyal reader pointing out that we were not at the Atlantic as originally stated. I had originally put in something about the special experience of being able to see both oceans given where we live and then visited and then deleted the wrong one in my final draft. Oops!)

And we chased seagulls.

So those little 2 pier nubs in the background of the below picture? Well, I thought it would be fun to have each boy stand on one. Which is was. Until the water all of a sudden came up much higher than it had been and came up around the nubs. I ran back so that my suede boots wouldn't get wet. Dylan stayed put on his stump. Cade must have gotten disoriented by the water and fell off and got all sandy and wet! Our stash of clothes in the backpack came in handy once again that week! He was the only one that "officially" got to touch the water. Lucky guy.

Then we headed towards pier 39 and did some shopping along the way. Dylan is, of course, obsessed with skeletons. We said they could each have a little souvenir. Dylan decided he wanted a skeleton. But not just any skeleton. Not the pirate skull and crossbones we saw everywhere but a skeleton with feet. I tried to prep him for the fact (after several stores of seeing the exact same thing over and over) that we might not find it and he would need to be happy with something else. Low and behold his persistence paid off and we found (the last!) Alcatraz dressed skeleton magnet with legs and feet! Lucky boy. He was pretty happy about it as you'll see from it's regular appearance in the pictures of the rest of the day.

Seal Statue

Now the absolute highlight of our short time in San Francisco and on Pier 39 was the California Sea Lions. They hang out there and are quite the entertainment for the crowds. The boys and I loved hearing them talk. Seeing\hearing Dylan and Cade belly laugh at the sea lions crawling all over each other and pushing each other back into the water was just wonderful.

ALL of those brown bumps are sea lions!

Me, Dylan and Skeleton With the Sea Lions

Self Family Portrait

After enjoying the sea lions for a while, we needed to head back to the car, grab some lunch and get the boys back to the hotel for a good nap to be refreshed for the wedding. But not before taking Dylan's picture with the pirate skeleton:

And Holding the Skeleton Magnet

As it is with all good plans, they're made to fail. While Dylan had a good nap, Cade absolutely refused and wasn't happy with anyone but dear old Mom. Guess who "helped" me with wedding decorations? I had to climb up on chairs to hang things and do table centerpieces all with that cute little guy on my back. A big maturity that Cade gained on the trip was being able to make choices. If he wriggled in the pack, I tried to make it clear that the alternative was going to take a nap and he would decide to be happy in the pack. That new skill has (somewhat) helped in the challenges we've faced with him in the last month. I'll do a post dedicated to him soon, but let's just say we are experiencing the terrible 2's with him in a way that we never had the pleasure of with his brother!

Anyway....having dedicated as much time as possible to wedding decor, Cade and I rushed back to the hotel to get the gang showered and gussied up. It was time for the main event!

Apple, Cake and Jumpin' Beans

The reason our dear friends, the Prellers, relocated to the Bay Area was because Theo was offered an amazing job with Apple. He's overseeing all the finances for the new campus Apple is building. Pretty cool, huh? What's even cooler is that he invited Mike and I to have lunch with him at the existing campus - address 1 Infinite Loop. While Mike and I enjoyed lunch with him there, brave Ana Maria watched all the kids as they played at the girls' school playground.

Handsome Fellas

But that wasn't even the big news of that day. The big event was Elise's birthday! When Ana Maria told us we would be there for Elise's birthday, I was really excited. How fun to be a part of her celebration. That evening we had a little party for her, including a birthday cake made by moi. Not exactly the fancy ones my mom is capable of but Elise liked it and it sure was tasty.

Her BIG present for her birthday was a new bike! After unveiling the gift, we all watched as she got to give it a test spin. Cade LOVED trying to follow her around the long driveway.

Ana Maria, Cate, Cade, Elise, Theo, Me and Dylan

The next morning we continued the birthday celebration at Pump It Up. It's an indoor blow up\bouncy house place. The kids (and adults) LOVED it!

Elise

Dylan Built a "Castle"
Cade Knocked It Down

My Boys

Dylan and Elise had fun racing through the obstacle course we pretty much camped out on. Cade needed a lot of help at first. By the end of the house, he was scaling everything pretty much solo....just a spot from the parents now and then. He seriously impressed me.

After finishing our bouncy fun, it was time to say goodbye to our friends, thank them for their incredible hospitality and fun times together and head into Oakland. The Saratoga portion of our trip had come to an end.

Winchester House and Hanging Out

Hey Folks! Still blogging about our California adventure that happened about a month ago. Let's get to it.

The Redwoods were on the top of my short sighting seeing list. With that checked off, the next day we hit the 2nd one on my wish list - The Winchester Mystery House. I had told Mike before we went to CA that I wanted to go here and sent him the link to see if he was interested in going. If so, great! If not, even better because he could watch the kiddos and let me go and actually focus on the tour. I asked a few more times and he said he wasn't sure he wanted to go. They day before we were to go on the tour, he all of a sudden was like (to paraphrase the conversation):
Him-You said it was a mansion...you didn't mention it was the Winchester House?!?! (all incredulous like)
Me -Um, ok. I sent you the link.
Him - But that house is totally famous. I saw an awesome show on it on the History channel.
Me - Ok. Never heard of it before Ana Maria sent me the link and I decided I wanted to go but ok.

Turns out this wacky house is pretty infamous. Mostly because the woman who built it was a whack job and did totally bizarre things. The house was under construction for 40 years, 24 hours a day and includes strange things like stairways to no where, stairways that zig zag with tiny little risers to the next level, secret passageways as well as doors and windows to walls. Definitely weird, definitely a sight to see.

The kids did pretty well on the tour. We played up the "mysterious" part of the house and, of course, that made my spooky lovin' Dylan totally into it. Mike and I took turns entertaining Cade. In one of the rooms, Cade and I counted the hooks in a nook several times. For some reason he thought that was great. How many hooks were there? Glad you asked. 13. There were a lot of things that happened in the number 13 in the house. Kind of a thing wacky Mrs. Winchester did.

In usual house tour form, we couldn't take interior pictures. The only time we were free to use the old camera was when we got up on this deck. I tried to get some shots of how wacky the roof line is to show just how non architecturally sound this house is, or rather is not.

The spider web design was also recurrent in the house.

Here are some kids that are kind of over the tour now:
Elise, Cade and Dylan (not me...I thought it was great)

Dylan's absolute favorite part of the whole experience (other than the room with cracked plaster damaged in an earthquake that he still talks about today...the broken room) was the gift shop. Not for the knick knacks though. There was an old school "game" that was totally up his alley and really one of the oddest things I've ever seen. When you put in a quarter, the "spooky" church graveyard came alive and the zombie and skeleton came up and down out of hiding. The drunk guy in the grave also sat up and down and the gate swung. Totally weird, right? We were also entertained by dropping a few quarters in the player piano.

The Haunted Churchyard

After that morning's activity, it was naps and night time hanging out. We did a lot of that at the house but didn't get many pictures of it. Dylan, Cade, Elise and Cate really got along great and did lots of drama free playing together. Here are some of the few (and not so great) hanging out pics:

Dylan and His Friends Cate and Elise.
Dylan announced last week that he was flying to California to see his friends Cate and Elise and he would be back in a few minutes. Then he set up his seats in the play room to be the plane. He was the pilot, Cade the copilot and me the passenger. Too cute!

Aren't Theo and Ana Maria just adorable? That purple polka dot kid chair really suits Theo.

We also read a lot of Skippy Jon Jones. The kids loved that book and now a couple of the books live at our house, thanks to Mr. Cupid.

With only 1 more full day left with the Preller's, we had a lot to pack in. More tomorrow.

Wine from the vine

While most of our vacation was spent all together as a family, I did have 2 quick jaunts away from everyone. One day, Ana Maria and I were able to go out on our own (thanks to sweet Mike who took responsibility for all the kiddos) and go for a little hike. We took the same route that we went on with the families but were able to explore a little further. We got to see our deer friends again. We saw them briefly on our hike with the kids, but with the noise that came along with our group, they quickly skedaddled. This time, we got fairly close to them and got to spend a little time observing the herd of 8.

Only a short trip up another hill past where the families made it to, the trail ended at a road. Continuing on just a very short bit, we saw a sign for wine tastings. Obviously, there was no choice but to travel down the road where the sign pointed and see what we could see. It being right at 5 o'clock when we arrived at the winery, we missed our window for wine tastings. But, we got some info on when they would be open and checked out the stables also on sight. We vowed to come back the next day. As we traveled back trying to beat the oncoming darkness, we ran into some folks on horseback. We spoke with Ana Maria's neighbors for a bit who were heading back up to the winery from where we had just come...that's where they stabled their horses. Nice folks. And we got a nice sunset view of the landscape on the return home too.

The next day, we decided we would head back up while the gang was napping. Unfortunately, Cade was not cooperating with the nap effort. After trying to get him down for some time, I decided he was coming with us. We were running out of time to make the tasting again and we were determined not to miss it. And man, it was tough practically running up that long stretch of uphill trail with a squirming almost 2 year old on my back. Despite the cool weather, we were both sweatin' by the time we got there....luckily just in time for some wine sampling!

Cheers!

Cade had a great time drinking water from his wine glass and having a few palate cleansing crackers.

Cute Building Where They Held The Tastings

After our tasting, we went to visit the horses. Cade, not surprisingly, absolutely loved it! He even got to feed one and pet a few. 

We also ran into our new friends that we had met the previous day on the trail. And as a special treat, we got to meet their miniature pony. That lucky little guy resides in their house!

After meeting the mini, we headed back down to the house and had dinner as a group.

Good workout, good wine, horse petting. Not a bad way to spend a couple of hours of a vacation afternoon!

The Amazing Redwoods

As I said in my last post, I had low expectations for things "to do" while in California. The focus of the trip was spending time with friends, not sight seeing. However, there were two things I really wanted to prioritize and do that week. One of which was to seek out these amazing Redwood trees I've heard and seen pictures of. In photos, they are so large in scale that they seem impossible to exist. I needed to see them with my own eyes.

On Tuesday, my boys and Ana Maria and her girls all packed into our hot minivan and took the extremely windy 16 mile road to Big Basin State Park. It was a beautiful drive! Well, it was definitely scenic from the front of the car looking forward at it. From the back of the car, well, it was more of a roller coaster that went on far too long. We stopped midway for the back seat passengers to get out, get some fresh air and try to de-green their cute little faces. Then we set out again. Right after we passed the 1 mile sign to the park, poor little Cate tossed her cookies. So when we got there, we took some time to do a little clean up and get folks feeling better. Good thing we still had some extra clothes for the boys still in our backpack. Cate rocked the camo pants and skull shirt!

Once the kids were back into sorts, we headed to the visitors center. Right outside was a humongous Redwood that we all took turns hanging out in....not that we needed to take turns because the whole group (and then some) could hang out comfortably, I just couldn't everyone corralled in there at once.

Hanging IN the Redwood

After everyone got in a potty break, we got a trail recommendation, checked out the displays in the visitors center then headed out for a wee little hike.

The kids did a really great job on the hike and I was amazed and completely in awe of these magnificent trees. While pictures are cool, there is definitely nothing like feeling like an ant next to the skyward Redwoods. I highly recommend this to anyone. Put it on your bucket list. Words and pictures cannot do this experience justice. So, I'll stop blabbering and let the captioned pictures speak for themselves.

Cate and Elise
This Redwood fell in 1983 (?). What is seen here is what's left of the root system.

We all walked up this lain tree for a group shot.

If you pan out, you get a much better idea of how far up we all are...
and we all fit side by side on a portion of the exterior of the tree.

Some of the "smaller" trees

Rippled Bark

I Spy a Cutie

Looking Up

This tree was called the chimney.
Redwoods are very fire resistant.
The middle of this tree had burned out but the exterior was still thriving.

The Chimney Tree
ALL the kids are actually hiding inside of it in this picture!

Another tree that burned. This one wasn't as lucky as the previous on and is no longer living.

It was an easy trail with lots of cool natural wonders to discover. If you find yourself in the Bay area, I would highly recommend this park. You get all the beauty of the Redwoods and get to miss some of the bigger crowds that other parks have. In case you're interested, here's a link that tells about the trail we did. I'd love to go back someday with older kiddos and attack some of the more challenging hikes.