San Francisco and more

Chris finds a new app on his iPhone to make my little prince look 12! Such a beauty queen



Boat ride under the Golden Gate Bridge, SO COOL!


Our little monkeys on our journey to Chinatown, SF


Girls eating nutella/strawberry crepe for breakfast


Chris and his mommy on V Day


really big snake at the Academy of Sciences!

Kaitlin had the day off of school Friday so the girls and I (along with a her friend Leo and his dad) went to the Academy of Sciences. It was amazing! The planetarium show of how a star is born and dies was mind blowing. There was an albino alligator, an aquarium, a rain forest with beautiful butterflies, geckos, and lots of snakes! See picture. As you know I am not a huge snake fan but these snakes and eels were so beautiful. I must admit though I was ready to see most of them until I saw the big anaconda. My legs almost dropped out from under me as he was only a few inches from my eyes. For the most part Emma was on good behavior. But man is she moody. I seriously dread teen age years with that child. On the way home I came up with a brilliant idea of going back to the city for the weekend assuming we could get a place and find a dog sitter. We originally planned to go to Santa Rosa with Chris' mom but I thought it would be so much fun for Arlynne and our family to spend a weekend together exploring the city. Once we got all our ducks in order (thank you Amanda and Eric for watching Rosie for us) we were off the next day.
I started out Saturday am on a good note, the gym! After getting packed and fed we headed up to union square to the Marriot. Our room was on the 27th floor overlooking Coit Tower. The sky was incredibly clear and the weather warm enough to be in tanks and jeans. Once Arlynne joined us we decided to take the mile long walk to our dinner reservations in North Beach and stop along the way. Our journey stared in Chinatown. We had no idea that it was the Chinese New Year's eve so there were firecrackers, poppers and stinky smoke bombs going off the whole time. I purchased the girls a few paper stars to drape from their ceiling. I'm sure you've seen these cool lights before, but of course as with everything in Chinatown they were super duper cheep. WHOO WHO. We stopped for gelato and tea and then ended up in North Beach at a great park where the kids could get their energy out on the playground. Dinner was at E'Tutto Qua, this incredible Italian restaurant that I had been to last month on a girls night out. The food is so incredible here and reasonably priced. Arlynne's capachino even had a heart made from the foam. Very cool. Back at the hotel we all watched some TV before Chris and I went out on the town. (thank you so much Arlynne for watching the girls!) We yelped all of our locations along the way. Started at Tunnel Top, had mojitos, then off to the Cantina, had Tuscan Sangria, then off to the Owl Lounge, had a few pineapple lychee martinis. At this point we met another couple. We had so much fun that we all got into a taxi and went across town to the Bubble Lounge. We danced until 1:30 or so before getting back in a taxi and heading to the hotel. Of course the girls were up at 6:30 so I was did my best to keep them quiet while grandma and daddy slept, but it only lasted for an hour before I hit the shower and went to SB to get us all coffee. Then we yelped a restaurant we had seen on our bar tour the night before called Cable Cafe and had amazing crepes. I had a pesto/turkey/cheese, the girls had strawberry and nutella. Arlynne had a breakfast ham/egg and can you guess what Chris had? hehehe, my peanut butter lover had peanut butter/chocolate/granola. Divine! At this point I was still feeling a bit tired..but more than anything I lost all my patients for the kids and was one bitchy mom for pretty much the whole day. But Emma was also testing her luck for the weekend. Her defiant nature drives me to the point of insanity sometimes! But I'm just going to pretend there weren't any bad behavior moments from either of the children and stick to the fun stuff. After breakfast and an attempt to get Arlynne an iphone from a REALLY dumb ATT staff member we took a taxi to Pier 39. Fed the cranky kids (again) and hit the aquarium. Small, but cool...you go on underground tubes with fish and star fish surrounding you. Then off to the touching pools where the girls spent most of their time. At this point several hours had gone by and I was too hungry to speak, or at least speak kindly to my kids so we ate and then went on the Gold something fleet boat on a ride under the golden gate bridge. This was probably my most favorite part. Kaitlin and I spent a lot of quality time at the very front of the boat riding the waves up and down as we journeyed under the bridge and back around Alcatraz. See pics. Just amazing! OHHHH very important thank you to Jamma for our city passes which allowed this whole weekend to be fun on a budget! The passes covered all our activities. We're going back up to the city to do all sorts of other things with the passes this week as they expire 9 days after use, but for anyone going to the city I definitely recommend getting them. Now we hiked the hills of the city to Ghiradelli's to find a line that was probably an hour or more long for ice cream. Seriously people? You would wait that long for 1000 calorie treat? We opted for Kara's cupcakes which were so so. But the girls demolished theirs so that was good. Then off on a taxi cab ride back to the garage. Emma was asleep in 2.2 seconds and Kaitlin read and slept the whole way home. Today we are off on a picnic up the coast with some friends. I'm hoping to catch a glimpse of the huge waves that Mavricks is experiencing. Here are pics to share.