San Francisco!

Darin and I took a 10-year-anniversary trip to San Francisco in August!  The kids packed up their suitcases, pillows, and sleeping bags and headed to Gramma and Grampa's house for a long weekend!  They, of course, were very excited and not at all worried about being away from Mommy and Daddy.  

 We spent our first day exploring the city a bit.  I loved these beautiful row houses that San Fran is famous for.   I love the Victorian look and the earthy colors.  Beautiful!

 We had to ride on a cable car, of course!  We got the city passes so were able to ride the Muni system, including cable cars, as much as we wanted!  This was a wonderful investment.

We also did our fair share of walking around--even up the super steep streets.  This was the view from the top of one of the streets.  Since the cable cars were so packed, we often walked a ways along the cable car path to catch one after people had hopped off.  This gave us quite a workout (we started at sea level and walked up streets to get this picture) but we figured it was good since we were also doing so much eating!  

This is the San Francisco Bay in the background. 

 Speaking of eating, I had to include this picture of Darin!  He was making a silly face since I don't think he was thrilled that I was taking pictures of us/him eating.  :)  This was some of the yummy Thai food we got.  I think the best food we had was at a brunch place called Zazie.  I fell in love!  Sour cream poppyseed pancakes with lemon curd on top.  Delish!  We seriously ate ourselves silly on this trip!

 We also decided to bike across the Golden Gate bridge.  It was so cold on the water that we wore our heavy coats even while huffing and puffing along the 10 mile journey.

 We caught some beautiful views of San Francisco and Ghiradelli Square...

 the beach...

 and Alcatraz.

It was pretty foggy the day of our bike ride so we didn't get any usable pictures of the Golden Gate Bridge.  But I did get this one of Darin!

We also took a day and walked around Golden Gate Park.  Our favorite were the Japanese Gardens.  They were so peaceful and serene.  

Hydrangea outside the gardens.

 And we had to stop by Lombard Street.

 We missed the kids very much and it was so wonderful to get back and hug them again.  We bought them these hats which I am hoping they will agree to wear a few times this winter.  :)

 We had a fantastic time!!!  It was wonderful to get away for a few days to celebrate being married to such a wonderful man!