San Francisco Trip

Many of you know that Austin and I took a trip to San Francisco a few weeks ago. We left Rachel with her grandmas, and she did great until the last two days. (Six days is the longest I'd ever been away from her.) We were able to visit Austin's brother, Bryan, and his wife, Sarah. They were great tour guides and helped to make our trip so enjoyable. We loved spending time with them! We stayed with them for a few nights and enjoyed Sarah's fabulous food. We got a hotel for the last few nights and got to eat out at lots of little San Francisco food places. It was so fun. These are just a few pictures of our jam-packed trip.

We got to go see Wicked! I have been wanting to see it for years and memorized all the music to this show a long time ago. I loved it! It was Austin's first broadway show ever, and I was so pleased that he acutally enjoyed it.

I thought Fisherman's Wharf was delightful. Such a cute little tourist place. We took a bay cruise there around Alcatraz Island and under the Golden Gate Bridge. Saw Ghiradelli Square, rode the Historic Street Cars (I learned that they don't call them trolleys.) And The Aquarium of the Bay.

A trip to San Francisco wouldn't have been complete without a visit to Chinatown to buy cheap souveniers. Authentic fish smells, lots of Chinese spoken. Pretty fun.

We loved the Muir Woods National Monument, about 30 minutes from San Francisco. I'd never been to any Redwoods before. It was so lush and peaceful there. And so different from the national parks I love in Utah. Bryan and Sarah came with us, which made it even better.

We also visited the Japanese Tea Gardens and then rented bikes and rode around Golden Gate Park. It was a great way to see the park, since walking would have taken half the day. We rode around Stow Lake and down to the beach. It was so lovely, and I'm becomming a fan of using bikes to do sight-seeing (this is the second time we've done it.)

We also went to the Cal Academy of Sciences (very cool), the Legion of Honor, the De Young Tower, and a beautiful hike along the shoreline called Land's End. It was a wonderful trip, and I'm glad we did it because I don't think we'll really travel for a while after the new baby comes. I wish I had the patience to upload more than 5 or 6 pictures per post, but Austin has already uploaded a whole album of San Francisco pictures to our Shutterfly account, so feel free to check out more pics there.