Monterey Day 4...

Yeah, I know, it's a bit late... Anyway, yesterday we headed down to the beach in Monterey for a bit...

The kids of course had to go bike riding again, so Carolyn and I took them out riding again...

One of the places we passed while out riding the bikes...

While we were out riding the bikes, Cory and Jessica decided they wanted to rent a kayak, so off they went... Of course Chance and Tanner want to do that now as well, we'll have to see about that... :)

LeRoy and Timbery got into town today, so we cooked dinner and had them and Titus over to eat...

Monterey Day 3...

We decided to drive down to Big Sur today, there were MANY gorgeous views along the way so we decided to stop and take a few pictures...

We decided to stop at the Pfeiffer Big Sur State Park. Once we got there, we hiked out to this waterfall...

We found the Trailhead Restaurant inside the park and decided to have some lunch...

After we ate, we went down to the river. The kids had a ball walking around on the river rocks...

A bit further down, the kids decided to go for a swim since it was deeper. I heard Tanner tell Chance, "If Daddy got in here, he would get out immediately!" He was right! I HATE cold water! :)

Monterey (Again)...

Up at Lover's Point, we parked our bikes for a bit and climbed around on the rocks...

Ditto!

Cory and Jessica at Lover's Point...

Another spot we found while we were riding our rental bikes...

Monterey...

So yesterday we left the hotel we were staying at in San Francisco, picked up the rental and headed to Monterey... Here is the house we rented in Monterey. It is literally right around the corner from Titus and Jackie's house, so that is super convenient!

Once we got there, Titus brought Sophie over and the kids had a BLAST playing with her in the backyard of our rental house...

This morning we all got up and took Sophie to the beach in Carmel... The water was FREEZING!!! I was amazed that the kids actually got in the water and splashed around for a while. The water was SO cold that I wouldn't even put my toe in the water!

We had lunch at Bubba Gumps in Monterey...

We took Titus back so Jackie and he could go do some things, then we headed back to Monterey and rented some bicycles for a ride up to Lover's Point and then around on the bike trails... The kids thoroughly enjoyed it!! Of course we ALL did! :)

More Day 4...

Everyone standing in one of the trunks of the huge trees...

Ditto! :)

Cory and Jessica in front of one of the trees...

As promised, once we got back from Sausalito, we went back down to Pier 39 and had dinner at the Crab House so Chance could get his crab meal in! :) He was READY to tear into them!! He loved them, I wasn't sure if he would or not, but he did!

Not sure if everyone is aware that Barry Bonds hit his 754th home run last night, but we could see the fireworks from the hotel window. Cory wanted to go to the game last night, but didn't. He decided he WAS going to the game tonight, so he checked with the concierge and him and Jessica took a taxi down to the ballpark not long ago to catch tonights game... Myself, I'm not interested in any way, shape or form... Cory enjoys it though, so hopefully they have a good time! :)

San Francisco Day 4...

So we decided to do the trip to Sausalito today, and then take the bus over to Muir Woods. So we left the hotel at 9:30 this morning and took the F line down to the San Francisco Ferry Building. When we got there, they had ALL sorts of markets and shops, we were kind of wishing we had gotten there earlier to check them out, but we got there with only enough time to get our ferry tickets and board the ferry...

The kids were quite excited about getting on the ferry, and I MUST say, I've been on ferries before, but never one this nice!

We took this pretty much as soon as we got off the ferry in Sausalito... What a nice little town!

Turns out the bus to Muir Woods didn't leave for a little over an hour, so we found this little place to eat lunch. It was actually pretty good, wasn't very big though.

This is a picture of us at Muir Woods in front of one of the trees. The trees were massive! The picture here doesn't quite do them justice though...

More Day 3...

Right in front of Ghirardelli Square we found this little beach which the kids were VERY excited about!

They immediately started playing in the sand. Tanner and Taylor actually got in the water, it was WAY too cold for me, not to mention it was VERY windy! It was so windy for half the day, I thinked I got wind burn, if that's even possible! Of course the kids don't mind things like wind and cold it seems... :)

I forget where this was, somewhere on Pier 39 I think... There were boats everywhere, of course that's not surprising I suppose, considering all the piers there were... :)

Finally heading back to the hotel!! What a NIGHTMARE it is trying to get on the F line bus (or whatever they call it)... It is SO packed, there is barely room! This shot I took after most of the people had gotten off. When we TRIED to find either a cable car, bus or other means of transit to get back, the line for the cable cars was so long, there was no way. We finally managed to figure out where the F line stop was that would take us back to our hotel. The first one that came was too full for anyone to get on, so we walked up to the next stop and managed, barely, to get on the next F line that came by. Poor Taylor was practically squished when we first got on, but we managed to get her between us and finally a few people got off and then we were able to sit down for the last few minutes of the ride... I can't believe that some people do this every day! I'll take Acworth over this city living ANY day of the week!! :)

San Francisco Day 3...

Got a late start today, so headed straight down to Bubba Gumps on Pier 39 for lunch. It was probably the BEST meal we've had yet since getting here! The kids LOVE that place, although we've only eaten there once before and that was in Monterey last year...

We headed down to the San Francisco Maritime National Historical Park and boarded all the historic vessels that are moored at the Hyde Street Pier. That was interesting! Here are the kids aboard the Eureka.

Us, about to board the Balclutha... It's interesting to see how they operated back in the late 1800's and early 1900's, it's also AMAZING how far we've come in the past 100 years...

I think this was the officer's mess inside the Balclutha...

San Fran At Night...

WOW! So Carolyn, Cory and Jessica decided to go out and do some shopping once we got back and the kids and I stayed at the hotel... The kids tired of that rather quickly and wanted to get out. I figured, why not?? Tanner didn't bring a jacket, so I figured this would be a good time to run over to Old Navy and get him one. There are SO many characters out there on the streets of San Francisco, you can't really even make it up. People asking for a dollar, a quarter, spare change, a cigarette, whatever... Of course I'm like, "No, give me a freaking dollar, are you nuts??" Most of them just look at me and move on though, I guess it's evident that I'm NOT interested, period...

You can't really tell the percentage of freaks out there from this pic, but it's the only one I took. I was too busy keeping track of where my kids were in relation to the weirdos out there...

So we got Tanner his jacket, went to the Apple store and a few other places and then grabbed some Burger King and headed back to the hotel... It STILL mystifies me what the allure of this city is... Seems to attract a lot of people though... It IS fun to visit, but live here?? No thanks...

More Day 2...

Taylor LOVES riding the carousel, so when we got done eating the kids and I all rode that while Carolyn, Cory and Jessica checked out a few of the shops...

On the Bay Cruise Adventure ride around the Bay. It was actually kind of windy and chilly, but the kids still enjoyed it, I just had to take them down inside the boat a few times to "warm up for a second" as Taylor kept saying... :)

Once we decided to head back to the hotel, we walked back down to where the cable car stop was at, after trying unsuccessfully to find a bus to take. We got there and the only cable car in sight was unmanned, but full of people. We got in line and started waiting and this guy came up and was telling the people behind us that one of the cable cars had broken down and the wait from where we were was going to be at least an hour, but he had a limo and would take anyone who wanted to go back to downtown for five bucks a head... The people didn't act interested, and I spoke up rather quickly! So into the limo we went and headed back to the hotel. Turns out the guy also does tours up into wine country. So Saturday we are going to take the limo up into wine country for a seven hour tour, that should be quite fun and interesting, we'll see... :)

San Francisco Day 2...

Starting out in the morning... We decided to take the cable car down to the Fisherman's Wharf area and see what the day brought forth...

It takes a WHILE at times for the cable cars to get there, and the line at times is almost too much... It wasn't too bad though as we headed out...

Chance was THRILLED to be able to hang off the cable car as we headed down to the Bay. Although I think it made Carolyn a nervous wreck at times...

We walked all the way down to Pier 33 to try and get tickets to go see Alcatraz, but they were sold out until August 1st... :( We missed it the last time we were here as well. We might try and go Sunday when we head back to San Francisco after our visit in Monterey though... So we decided to take the Bay Cruise Adventure instead. The cruise takes you out to the Golden Gate bridge and around Alcatraz, so everyone enjoyed that.

Of course you can't be anywhere near Pier 39 without eating at Neptune's Palace, so that is where we had lunch/dinner... I finally got Chance and Tanner to try crab, and they discovered that, "Hey, this is pretty good stuff!" Chance asked me if he could just get crab next time instead of chicken fingers... Which is a good thing, because there is more to eat in life than chicken fingers... :)

San Francisco...

Well, after the events of last night and getting about an hour's sleep, we finally made it to San Francisco! Of course today everyone was kind of tired, so we really just made it over to the hotel, checked in, had to wait for them to finish cleaning the rooms because we were a bit early, got our bags in the rooms and then went to find something to eat and walk around...

Chance and Tanner on the plane (obviously)... Cory, Jessica and Taylor sat a few rows up from us, apparently 7 seats together is a bit hard to do when the flight is full...

Waiting in the lobby of the Parc 55 Hotel for them to get our rooms clean... We were ALL ready to just get the damn luggage to the rooms as we had just lugged it via the BART train from the airport... Next time, it'll be a limo for sure! There were no cabs or other vehicles to bring us all over at the same time... Anyway, we are all settled in now finally!

Cory and Jessica waiting in the lobby as well...

This is the restaurant that we went to after walking around for a few blocks... The sign said "Since 1908", so we thought, "Hmm... Been around that long, must be pretty good!" WRONG!!! So that place is marked off the list anyway!

I guess tomorrow we are just going to take it easy in the AM, then go have lunch at Neptune's Palace and try to get to see Alcatraz this time as we missed it last time because they were sold out... Who knows what the day will bring though, as we have ZERO schedule other than when we go to Monterey and the wedding and associated festivities!! :)

ER...

Yeah, I JUST got back from there...

I was outside checking on the pool cleaner, slipped on a broken piece of flagstone, landed in the spa and on the way down I somehow managed to snap my thumb knuckle and shove it out the back side of my thumb... OUCH! Of course we leave for the airport in two and a half hours, so I suppose I should probably go to bed... At least we didn't have to postpone, because they were talking at first about micro surgery and spending the night...