Our first stop was to drive up to Coit Tower. It has a really small parking lot so we knew that we wanted to get up there early. Turns out we got there TOO early and the tower didn't open for another hour! We walked around for a while and took some pictures in order to kill some time.
Coit Tower is up at the top of Telegraph Hill so there are great views all around the city. It was a beautiful clear morning so the view was especially good.
Cute picture of Cameron... looks like Leah is doing the hula!
View of Lombard Street from the tower
Bay Bridge
Family picture
Cameron asked Tim to take a picture of him...
...of course, Leah wanted to have a picture of herself too.
Then we tried to get a picture of them together. Neither was interested in that and some scuffling ensued.
Obviously, you can see who won the scuffle. And doesn't he look proud of pushing his little sister off the wall?
Not the greatest picture of Cameron but his eyes are so blue in the picture - as blue as the sky!
Coit Tower
Since it wasn't open yet, we let the kids run around and play where ever they wanted. One of their favorite parts was swinging like monkeys on the stair handrails.
Once we were done running around and playing, we still had a lot of time to kill before we could go up in the tower. We were close to Lombard Street so we decided to drive down it. Here is a picture mid-way down the street; check out Coit Tower in the background of the picture.
Looking up Lombard Street. There are beautiful gardens along the entire street.
We ended up driving down Lombard twice because the kids really liked it. Leah said "Wheeeeeee" the entire way down. She said it felt like going down a slide. It was definitely one of her favorite parts of San Francisco and she kept talking about driving down the twisty street.
We headed back up to Coit Tower hoping it wouldn't be too crowded yet. We got the last spot in the very tiny parking lot and bought our tickets. We had to wait for the elevator to take us up. Aaron decided to wake up just in time to head up and check out the view.
Looking towards Bay Bridge
The America's Cup was just starting and Tim was excited to be able to see the boats and part of the course from the top of the tower.
The Rock
View of the city with a bit of the Golden Gate Bridge hiding in the fog
We had to document Cameron's favorite part of Coit Tower - these stupid coins that were behind the windows around the tower. He really, really, really wanted to get one of those coins. At each window he would try to slip his fingers under the window ledge in order to reach a coin. We ended up yelling at him to stop because he was almost pinching his fingers and we didn't want him taking the money. But of course we had to take his picture with the coins that he wanted so badly!
More of San Fran
Mama and kiddos. As you can see, Aaron didn't last long. I guess he got bored with the views.
Leah loves her crazy pictures.
Artsy shot looking straight up in the middle of the tower
Being models while Tim gets the lighting right for a family picture. Leah doesn't seem to enthused about more pictures, does she?
Cool city view
Still waiting... making faces passes the time.
Family photo - it's a cute one!
We had a little bit more time before we were meeting Aunt Susan so we decided to stop at Grace Cathedral. It is another place that Mom and Dad told us about, it has a labyrinth on the floor of the cathedral. Walking the cathedral labyrinth is supposed to help a person get into a meditative state, to give them time to think as they walked the path. Here is an overhead view of the labyrinth from the Grace Cathedral website, to get an idea of how involved it is.
Cameron was very excited to walk the labyrinth, which pretty quickly turned into fast walking the labyrinth. He did a great job staying in the lines and went through the entire thing pretty quickly. Leah liked it too but she had trouble staying in the lines. Cameron made sure he did every single line correctly and made it to the middle.
Walking down the steps of the cathedral
It was a beautiful place
This hotel was across from where we parked the car to go to the cathedral. It was funny because we always place a game where we count how many American flags we can find. Occasionally we find three or four together in one place, but they are mainly one or two. We happen to be playing the American flag counting game when we went by this hotel and the kids were very excited to try and count all of the flags.
We went back to our hotel where Aunt Susan met us. We rented a van for our entire California trip so she hopped in with us and off we went. We headed over to Chinatown for lunch and to check it out. Right before the gate to Chinatown is this little bench with See No Evil, Hear No Evil, Speak No Evil monkeys. Poppa had posed with the bench doing a Smell No Evil pose, so of course Cameron and Leah had to do the same thing.
I love the Leah is the same size as the monkeys on the bench.
Gate to Chinatown
Chinatown
Our first stop was for lunch. We went to a dim sum restaurant and had some yummy food. The kids did really well, trying lots of different things and liking a decent amount of it. Of course, they had the most fun playing with the chopsticks.
Yay chopsticks!
Chopstick antennae
Mama, Aaron and Leah
Mama and all of the kiddos. Aaron does not look very happy, does he?
After our yummy lunch, we walked over to the fortune cookie factory. Aunt Susan and Cameron walking down a Chinatown alley.
Inside the fortune cookie factory. It was so cool!! The little circles on the right are the cookies; the worker would take one of the circles off the machine while it was still warm and would fold it on another part of the machine to shape it. Then she would tuck it into the tray to cool and keep its shape.
We watched for a while and then bought a bag of mixed cookies - some chocolate and some plain. They were all very yummy! Outside the factory was a man playing a really cool instrument. We stopped to listen to him play a few songs. Cameron especially really enjoyed the song and was intrigued by the instrument. He wanted to take a picture with the musician.
We walked around Chinatown for a while more, stopping in a few stores to buy some souvenirs. It was a really neat area, very busy with so many people. One of Cameron's favorite parts of Chinatown was a gift that Aunt Susan bought for him - little popping firecrackers. They are the kind that are wrapped in thin white paper with a little string on them, and you throw them on the ground to get a POP. Of course, both kids LOVED playing with them and spent the rest of the walk back to the car throwing poppers every 2 feet. They had a blast!
We headed back to the car to figure out our next place to stop. We thought about going to the Cable Car Museum but we couldn't find any parking anywhere nearby. By this point it was late afternoon so we decided to go over towards Fisherman's Wharf to find a place to park. We found a parking structure and dropped off our car, then started our walk down towards the wharf.
On the way we stopped at an amazing place that Aunt Susan knew of - an outdoor area at the Levi Strauss building that had a really great fountain. The fountain had stepping stones in it and you could walk throughout the entire fountain. Cameron was in heaven, running at top speed from stone to stone. We were just hoping he wouldn't miss a jump and end up in the fountain!
Such a cool fountain
Cameron helping Leah to the next stone
My handsome guy
Daddy, Leah and Cameron on the stepping stones
Jump!!!
We stayed and played at the fountain for quite a while, taking a nice break and relaxing while the kids played. After that we headed towards the wharf to grab some dinner and find a spot to watch fireworks.... but that will be in the next post!
2 comments:
Having both Cameron and Leah pose with the 3 monkeys, like I did a few weeks before, certainly illustrates the saying "Nut's don't fall too far from the tree"!
Such beautiful pictures!
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