Pier 39

The next day we decided to check out pier 39. Wow! What a fun place to visit. It reminded me a little of Pike's place market in Seattle. Once again we were lucky enough to have someone offer to take a picture of all of us together. Yeah! If you look closely you can see alcatraz in the background.

We love San Fransisco just like we love Seattle. There is so much to see. The kids loved to see the trolley's and cable cars. That was what Jaxen choose as his souvenier that day. Of course it's some kind of car. Anything on wheels for Jaxen. Tristan found some post cards he liked and again I can't remember what kaeryn choose. But we loved going in and out of all the shops. We got sourdough bread and of course cotton candy.

You can't go to Pier 39 and not stop to see the sea lions. I had heard that you could see sea lions but I didn't realize it would be this many. There were so many. they have their own section of the harbor that they have claimed. It was so fun to watch them play in the water. Again I was loving it. I've seen seals and sea lions in aquariums and books and on tv. Now I can say that i've seen them in the wild. Even though the sea lions were on the pier. It was so fun!

This is definitly a place we will visit again. Hopefully, the carosel will be working that time. We had a wonderful adventure and are so thankful for all the beautiful things in our world. We are so thankful that we are able to experience and see the neat treasures. Happy thanksgiving everyone!

The Academy of Science

After our fun little detor we found our way back to the bridge and San Fransisco where we went to the newly opened Academy of Science. It was so cool! That is another love our family shares, we love science. they had so much information in there. There is even an aquarium. they had many different kinds of fish, salt and fresh water. The albino alligater is there. that was neat to see. There were skeletons of all kinds and sculptures. One of my favorites to see were the penguins that are in the african room. The sting rays and sharks were pretty cool also. Jaxen loved the coral reef because he could see nemo and dori.

The academy of science was so full of information. The only things we weren't able to see that day was the planetarium because it was sold out and the living roof. We were just to tired and the place also closed. Kaeryn and Tristan both saved their allowances so they could get some souveniers. Tristan choose to get a dinosaur exavation kit. You get to dig and find dinosaur bones and then put the skeleton together. Kaeryn choose a fossil rock and a few other things that I can't remember. Jaxen of course found a little safari truck and that was all he wanted. It was such an amazing day for us. We loved our adventure that day but we were happy to go to the hotel and settle down for the night.

Rodeo Beach

When we got back to the parking lot, an ambulence was passing by. They saw how excited Jaxen was and stopped, came up to him and gave him some stickers. I thought that was so cool of them to do that. Kaeryn and Tristan came running up and they gave them some stickers and tatoos also. It was so cute. I was also happy to see them because we weren't sure how to get out of the area we were in because the road we took ended up being a one way road. They showed us which turn to take that would actually take us back to the golden gate bridge. Yeah! We knew how to get back home. We weren't sure if we were going to find the way anytime soon. So we made our way back down the hill side to the road the we were shown and when we got there we saw a sign for a beach called Rodeo beach. We decided to go and check that out since we were there and not to mention we knew how to get back out. To get there we drove by more of the baraks. They were right along the lagoon area and beach.

Ron and I loved these big rocks that were off the beach. Especially the hole in the rock made from the waves of the ocean.

There were some pretty big waves which were fun to see. They were bigger than ones we had seen before.

It was great that there were a few people on the beach as well who agreed to take a photo for us. yeah! we have a family picture. Our hair may be a mess in the wind and our clothes stained with dirt from the wet sand, but hurray, we have a family pic!

California Condor

We walked along the trail to the light house as far as we could go. They hadn't opened it to the public yet and to get to it you have to go through a tunnel through the mountain. We were stopped at the gate of the tunnel. It was a little disappointing that we didn't get to go all the way to the light house, but we enjoyed the walk so much that it was okay. As we turned around to go back to the car a huge california condor flew litteraly right over our heads. He just swooped and soared right over us for several minutes. It was really cool. We stopped in our tracks and followed and watched him until flew off into another spot. But it was so cool. I of course couldn't stop clicking the camera.

I was able to get several pictures. It was very neat. The kids were all excited because the bird really wasn't that far away from us. Several times it almost perched right by us.

We were amazed at the size of the condor and the length of it's wingspan. It was huge!

All in all, it was really neat to see an endangered animal out in the wild. For me, it was really exciting and beautiful.

another view of the bridge

i forgot to add this picture to the last post. I was happy that you can see a little bit of color on the boat.

THE GOLDEN GATE BRIDGE

From where we were I was actually able to get this shot of the bridge. It's really neat to see it from this side. Hopefully someday i'll be able to get a good picture of the bridge when it's not so foggy.

More of the ocean

After we were finished exploring the bunkers we continued on our way to the light house. The trail was only about a 1/2 mile long. It was really cool because the light house is on a penninsula and so on one side is the bay and the other side is the ocean. It was beautiful. As we started up the trail we saw a sign that said to not disturb the harbor seals. We were excited about that because we've never had a good view of seals in the wild. As Ron was reading the sign I looked down and there they were. Basking in the sun. A few of them were playing. But they were mainly sleeping and a few were also talking that deep seal bark. They are so cute. We stayed and watched them for a bit.

Anyone who knows me knows that I love wild life and I loved seeing the seals. To some it might not be as exciting, but for us we are always trying to see any wild life we can. We love all the animals. I thought they were just beautiful.

The seals were on the bay side of the trail. When we decided to move on, I looked on the other side and saw some beautiful views of the ocean and rocks. There were some sea birds perching on the rocks. You could them squaking a bit, but mainly you listened to the sound of the waves crashing on the rocks.

It's so beautful and breath taking up here. We are definitly coming back.

Views of the bay shoreline

These are some of the ocean views taken from where we were exploring the bunkers. It really was beautiful!

Thanksgiving Trip!

For our thanksgiving break this year, Ron surprised us by taking us to San Fransisco for a couple days. Since he travels alot for work he was able to get some reward points at the hotel he stays at each week. It was alot of fun. The first night we stopped and stayed with Ron's brother and his family. That was a fun visit. They live in Peteluma. That was a fun visit. We went to a mexican place for dinner and then went downtown and walked to the cutest candy store for dessert. I can't remember what it was called but it had everything from old fashioned candy to ice cream, pretty much you name it and it probably was there. It was so cute. Kaeryn and Tristan and Jaxen had so much fun playing with their cousins. Jaxen was in heaven because his cousin had a huge box of cars that he shared with Jaxen. The entire kitchen table was covered in cars. It was cute. It was so fun to see them and we are hoping to get together with them again before they move to New Jersey next year.

They next day we made our way to San Fransisco. We were in the direction that we were going to cross the golden gate bridge. Cassie had told us that their was a road you could take that was right before the bridge where you could get some really cool pictures of the bridge. So we decided to take the road and see what we could see. I'm not sure if we were on the road cassie told us about but we did get an awesome view and a neat adventure out of it. It was a little foggy so I didn't get out to take pictures of the bridge. I'll have to do that another time. Instead we kept driving on the road to see where it went. It was a mountain road and it drove right along the shoreline of the bay and ocean. It was really beautiful.

We saw a light house and decided to drive and see it. We ended up finding some world war 2 bunkers. We got out and explored them. Kaeryn and Tristan asked alot of questions about what happened and what they were for. Luckily Ron and I love history and could answer their questions.

It was really fun to see them climb up and down. You really had an amazing view of the ocean from up there. It was also neat to see a part of history. You could also see all the baraks that are still there.