Monday, May 2, 2011

San Francisco!

Today we started out the day at Coit Tower. Built in 1933 Coit Tower was used to watch for fires and direct firetrucks to the site of a fire. The tower is 210 feet tall. We cheated and took public transportation up to the base of the tower. We did walk from Coit Tower to Lombard (crooked street) Street.



View of Alcatraz from Telegraph hill(where Coit Tower is located).


View from the top of Coit Tower. You can see The Golden Gate bridge is in the clouds and barely visible at 11:00 in the morning.



The Bay Bridge is clearly visible from Coit Tower.
Transamerica building built in 1972 and standing at 280 feet is what makes San Francisco recognized in photographs.

I wonder how anything in these houses could be straight? It was difficult to walk down the hill. Our legs are hurting now and really going to hurt tomorrow!


Heading down Lombard street toward the crookedest street. Very Steep!
This tourist attraction brings many cars and people on foot to check it out. One by one the cars head down. I can't imagine living on this street and having to pull into one of the garages. Where would your party guests park?
You can see Coit Tower off in the distance. That is where we started! That is a segway you see following that car down Lombard Street.

We thought this was pretty cool. You can rent one of these little cars and it has GPS to tell you exactly where to go to tour San Francisco. You can also rent bikes to take across the Golden Gate.
Trolley Cars! We saw lots of them going up and down Hyde Street.
When we were in San Francisco 5 years ago for our honeymoon we found this tasting room for Wattle Creek Winery in Ghiradelli Square. We had to go back and visit. You can buy a bottle of wine and sit on chairs outside and listen to music. Wonderful!
Eric swears we have a view of the water from our hotel room....he does have to stick his head out the window to see the water:-) It is right on Fisherman's Wharf, so it is the place to be.
On our way to the hotel yesterday in our rental car we spotted an old friend...Palomino! The Palomino in Minneapolis closed in December. We were very excited to find one in San Francisco, so we went there for dinner last night.

More Trolley Cars!
It was beautiful in Fisherman's Wharf, but very chilly. I've been cold since we got here. At least the sun is shining and there is blue sky and it is not raining, so we can't complain.


Our hotel on Fisherman's Wharf.
Sea Lions on Pier 39. They look to have a carefree life of laying in the sun and barking at each other and pushing each other in the water.
Bread Art! The Boudin Bakery had these darling loaves of bread you could purchase. Delicious!
There must've been a sailing regatta yesterday afternoon. These guys were pretty dressed up for sailing!

A tour bus with a William and Kate banner:-)
This shop was right next to Wattle Creek Winery. We went in and looked, but I didn't buy a cupcake. I might have to stop by tomorrow. I'm intrigued by a store that can survive just selling cupcakes! Kara's Cupcakes...DELICIOUS!

Kara's Cupcakes has her own van for transporting cupcakes to events.



The Golden Gate Bridge a little later today after the clouds went away. We'll be heading over that bridge tomorrow on our way to Napa!
Tomorrow we are heading to IN-N-OUT burger for lunch.
Historic fire engine tour. We took the tour 5 years ago, but just got a picture of their truck today. If you are ever in San Francisco I recommend you take the tour..It is AWESOME!
We had to head back to Wattle Creek today to enjoy some more wine after all that walking:-) Notice the sweater and scarf...and I was still cold! Temps in Napa should be in the upper 70's, so we'll be warm very soon.

Tuesday, April 26, 2011

Horses!

One of Eric's coworkers lives not far from us and has some horses. Last night we went to see the horses. That is Pedro you see the boys looking at off in the distance.
Alex got to pet Pedro. Evan didn't want to pet Pedro the first time he came over to the fence.


He pet him a little later.



This colt is only two weeks old. His name is Clay. He was kicking up his heels for us!


He was so cute!

This was J.J. He got to watch us from a distance and was very curious.
This was the gate to get over near where J.J. was. Alex found this chain and was trying to figure out how to get in there. He was also trying to figure out how to climb under the fence to get closer to Pedro.

Hi Pedro! Brotherly love sharing the chair this morning.



Yeah right! Check out Alex's leg...he's trying to give Evan the boot!


Sunday, April 24, 2011

First boat ride of the year!

Getting ready to head out on the boat for the first time this year!


Wonderful day to be on the water!





"Clouds up there Mommy"!


An airplane flew right over us on the lake!

It is so nice that he can walk this year! It was 4th of July before he was walking last summer.

On our way back to the car..... Soon we will lose the sweatshirts and leaves will be on the trees and lily pads will be on the lake. Can't wait! Notice Eric is sporting shorts...it's not that warm!!

Happy Easter!

The Easter bunny came and hid eggs in our house!
So many Eggs I can barely lift this ice cream bucket is too full!
I think I got 1/3 of the eggs my brother got.
Now it is time to open the eggs and put the candy in a ziploc bag. I love the candy, but I kept drooling out the candy juice. Good thing I'm wearing a dark shirt.
Evan has been asking me since 6:00 this morning to eat this chocolate bunny. I told him he needed to eat some ham first. Once he was done with the ham he wanted the bunny.
HAPPY EASTER!
Easter baskets!
Evan checking his emil(e-mail) this morning. He's standing on his tippy toes on his Elmo chair."BIG TOWER CRANE" In Chanhassen they just put up this big crane and the boys yell in the car whenever we drive by it.
They also yell "CAR WITH THE HAT" whenever we go by Napa. Sorry this picture is sideways, but I couldn't get it to go the right way.