In the City of San Francisco, July 29, 2007-Part II

We finally made it to Fisherman's Wharf and immediately, the kids wanted to go see the sea lions. They loved watching them bark out. In fact, they barked along with them of course. They really loved the foul smell that came floating over. They had a magic show going on for free, so the kids sat down and watched that for a long time. The kids went on the Carousel and made Rebecca go with them, spinning the tea cup the entire time. Rebecca used to love the tea cups at Disneyland, but age seems to be catching up to her. She did look a little green when she got off. We did find San Francisco hats and they all got to pick out their own. We ate at Boudin's and Jonah found that he now loves sourdough bread, especially in bowl form, filled with chili.

We walked down to Ghirardelli Squar,e for the chocolate of course. There is certainly a lot to see when you walk along the Piers. The kids stopped and got balloons in the shape of swords and ended up losing them with in a half hour. Like I said, too much to see and a short term memory. We got one big ice cream sundae with lots of dark chocolate sauce. The kids played around the fountain while Rebecca and I ate most of the ice cream ourselves. We then headed down to stand in line for the cable car. Rebecca took the kids over to get their charicatures done. They turned out great and the kids got a kick out of it.

Jacob really wanted to all sit on the front of the cable car and have dad hang off the side holding on for dear life as we rush through the city. Well, we ended up getting the place we wanted and they had a great time. I think this is probably the highlight of the day. They didn't want to get off. We rode it down to Chinatown. That was a sight to behold in itself.

Jacob rarely gets excited about a 'thing,' so when he identified a tie-died SF t-shirt hanging in the front of one of the many many souvenier shops, we obliged. He then insisted on taking a picture of the man we bought it from who didn't really understand why. But, he gave us great directions to a public bathroom around the corner, which turned out to be at a playground. Noah fell asleep on Rebecca's shoulder as we walked there, so we sprawled out on the grass for him to nap while Jacob and Jonah played and stood out as the only toe-heads in the entire park.

We got a little lost on the way back to the train station. In search of it, we ended up on a bus, whose driver gave us directions. They included a ride on the Muni subway, which took us straight to the Cal Train station we needed. So, in total for the day, we rode on 5 different forms of SF transportation. The kids had a ball totalling them up, first, our own car. Then, the train to the city. Then a public bus to Fisherman's Wharf. Then, a Cable Car to Chinatown. Lastly, a trip on the subway back to the train station. They also included their ride on the Carousel. This is the picture of the kids on the subway with thier tickets, which they kept for their trip journals.

We had our Anniversary dinner when we got back to San Mateo. We went to Macaroni Grill, which was great. The kids had a good time drawing on our paper tablecloth. We enjoyed our time with them, stealing romantic glances at each other between cutting food into bite-sized pieces, and games of tablecloth tic-tac-toe. Our waiter was great, and the one benefit of having children who have never met a stranger is that an announcement to the waiter that, "Our parents got engaged on the Golden Gate Bridge! It's their Anniversary today!" guarantees you a free dessert.

That's all for tonight. Tomorrow we head off on another child-indulgent day to Six Flags Discovery Kingdom. They don't know yet what we are doing. They will be so excited to see. If you haven't heard of it, it's a combination of an amusement park and Sea World. Until then...