We Left our Hearts in San Francisco (Part 2)

Sunday (5/11/08) was filled with activity. We took a cab to the Golden Gate Park, the Exploratorium and the Palace of Fine Arts.

The Golden Gate Park is HUGE so if you ever go, wear your tennis shoes and be prepared to walk for days! It is bigger than Central Park and is the largest urban park in the United States. The Golden Gate Park is comprised of wilderness, museums, playgrounds, two lakes and a music concourse. Some notable features of the park include the Japanese Tea Gardens, the de Young Museum and the San Francisco Botanical Garden. We ate lunch at the de Young Cafe which uses only organic ingredients in their meals and serves many scrumptious vegetarian dishes...mmmmm!

The playground at the Golden Gate park was built in 1887. It has obviously been updated with the best and most current playground equipment over the years and was by far the best playground that I have ever taken my kids to...here are some pics of them having fun at the playground, in and around the park as well as walking in the woods:


Here we are walking on one of the many trails within the park and enjoying the playground eqipment. California was in heaven.
Tennessee had an awesome time climbing throughout this rope structure. You can see him right in the middle in this picture. He actually got all the way to the top (yes...the child that is afraid of heights).




Check back soon for information and pictures of us at the Exploratorium, the Palace of Fine Arts and Ice Cream!

We Left our Hearts in San Francisco (Part 1)

I am not sure if any of you have noticed but we have been gone for a bit. We went to San Francisco on vacation. The above picture is from the lounge on the top floor of our hotel. We love San Francisco...not more than L.A. - but we love it in different ways. We love the way that everything is centrally located, downtown is SAFE and everyone is so friendly. It is also very progressive.

We walked over to the Yerba Buena Gardens on Friday (5/9/08). The Yerba Buena Gardens were named after the original name of San Francisco...Yerba Buena which means "Good Herb" in Spanish. The "good herb" was wild mint that grew abuntantly throughout the area.

Here are some pictures of us enjoying the Yerba Buena Gardens...





After that we went to Zeum. Zeum is located within the Yerba Buena Gardens (along with a playground as seen above, a carousel, a bowling alley and an ice skating rink see www.YerbaBuenaGardens.com for more info). Zeum is difficult to explain so I took this picture within Zeum in an effort to define the experience that we had there:



According to Zeum's website they provide hands on experience in four main areas: animation, sound, music production and visual arts. While we were there Tennessee created a stop motion video, claymation, music production, directed and starred in two videos and utilized green screen special effects for his movies. California also created videos using green screen speical effects, manipulated blocks to build pyramids and constructed a 3-D sculpture through the use of legos on a wall. See them in action below:





On Saturday(5/10/08), we went to the Golden Gate Bridge. It was just breathtaking! The bridge is a mile and a 3/4 long so we decided to just walk part way. Between L.A. Mama being afraid of bridges and Tennessee being afraid of heights, it is a wonder that we even stepped foot on the bridge! We did though...and I thought it was wonderful - my fear was gone instantly! Tennessee...not so much. You can tell how he felt by the look on his face in some of the pictures below:

Here are pics of the boys in the cab on the way to the Bridge...




Here are pics taken of the Bridge:




...and drumroll...a pic of us on the Bridge eeek it's a long way down!




This is what Alcatraz looks like from the Bridge...



If you want to experience the Golden Gate Bridge but can't afford to make the trip, PBS has created an incredible documentary called "American Experience Golden Gate Bridge". If you are interested in this, click HERE to see more!

After we went to the Golden Gate Bridge, we took a streetcar all they way up Market Street to Fisherman's Wharf and Pier 39. Riding in the streetcar was so much fun! San Francisco bought streetcars from around the world and refurbished them to use for mass transit within the city. I found a picture of our streetcar online and can be seen below.
This particular streetcar was adopted from Philadelphia...it was built in 1947. To find out more about this streetcar and all the others in San Francisco; click HERE.

We made it to Fisherman's Wharf, more specifically Pier 39. It was a nice sunny day and the temperature was quite mild. The boys befriended a seagull along the way...


We walked around and saw the sights and decided to go to dinner at the Hard Rock Cafe. Here is a pic of us waiting for our table:

They told us it would be 20 - 25 minutes so we found some time wasters...California was getting tired and a little upset, so I checked on our table at about 25 minutes. They informed me that it would be 5 or 10 more minutes. After hearing them tell five other people the same thing, I realized that they had been lying all along and who knows when we would acutally be seated. This was the rudest thing that we experienced in San Francisco...when your children are hungry, you need people to tell you the truth!! We went back to the hotel and got take out :)

Check back soon for Part 2 of We Left our Hearts in San Francisco. I will post pics of our experience at the Golden Gate Park, the Exploratorium and the Palace of Fine Arts and eating ice cream :)