San Francisco

Have you ever had a post to write that was so huge that you just could never muster up the energy to do it? That's how I feel about our Utah/California trip. It is just an overwhelming number of pictures to go through. But today is the day (and tomorrow, and the next day) I'm going to finish it up (over 2 months later!).

We did a lot of hiking this trip. Here we are climbing Mt. Baldy which is up Dry Creek Canyon. It was...um...dry.

Great view!

For Mother's Day we got a flowering pear tree and planted it in my Mom's yard. For future reference Mom, we really enjoy doing things like planting trees on our vacation, so please be thinking of the next project you want accomplished in August.

On to California...

First we went camping in Yosemite for 3 days but I'm going to hold off on that for right now. We stayed with my sister Michele and her family in San Jose for most of the time which was so fun! I haven't been back to San Jose for almost a DECADE! Fortunately, it still felt like home. A little too much like home actually...it was hard to leave and I started feeling all homesick. There is something about the place you grew up that always feels so comfortable and familiar. I had forgotten how much I love the foothills, the beaches, the cities, and most of all, the people.

We love these boys (my nephews). There was definitely an overwhelming majority of men in house (7 boys, 2 girls) which I am kind of used to I guess. Needless to say I have never seen so many shows about shooting crocodiles, fishing, hunting, etc. This place is a man's paradise (with a woman's lovely touch, I might add)!

We took a day trip to San Francisco and did the typical touristy things. It was a beautiful day to be there and windy as usual.

Pier 39

Luke loved the seals (even though the expression on his face does not indicate that) I think he could have watched them all day.

Clam chowder in the famous Boudin sourdough bread bowl. Yum. Did you know Boudin still uses a piece of the original (1849) "mother" dough to start every loaf of sour dough bread. I don't know if that's cool or sick.

A little trip to Ghiradelli Square went over really well with Luke (lets be honest, it went over really well with everyone and all of our faces basically looked like this :))

We drove down Lombard Street, but oddly we were the only ones driving down it and they had a few signs that made it unclear whether or not we were allowed to drive down. Then all the tourists around were staring at us for some reason. So as exciting as it was, we were just sort of nervous and confused the whole time like maybe we were about to fall into a giant manhole or something.

btw, you ARE allowed to drive down Lombard Street. No manholes :)

We have about 15 pictures like this and Luke isn't looking in a. single. one.

If you're able, I would recommend being at the Golden Gate Bridge for sunset. It was absolutely beautiful!

And then it finally happened. Our luck ran out. We always set our camera up in crazy places (on timer) to try and take pictures all together. We have done this for years. But the infamous SF winds finally brought that to a screeching halt as you can see in the last normal picture our little point and shoot will ever take:

On its way to its death.

This left us in a predicament because it really was the most beautiful sunset with the most beautiful view of the bridge. Luckily, a random photographer who was taking some engagement shots, started taking pictures of Luke and emailed us a few. So nice!

This picture of me is so dorky, but I'm a Mom now so I have to include dorky pictures of myself when my family looks so cute. Welcome to motherhood!

Up next: Monterey