Our plan for Friday morning was to check out some San Francisco sites in the morning on our own, then meet Aunt Susan and continue on our tour. In the afternoon we'd drive down to Stanford to visit Alex. We were looking forward to a great day!
Our first stop of the morning was Boudin Bakery at the wharf.
We watched the bakers for a while, they told us how they were making bread and the kids asked questions. This is a giant sourdough alligator. Yum, yum!
This baker was so nice, she was explaining what she was doing and held up her turtle bread for us at the end. The kids thought it was awesome.
Lots of yummy sourdough bread animal choices
Nana and Poppa gave us money to buy each of the kids bread at Boudin Bakery. We let them pick and they each went with turtle bread. Tim and I bought a regular round loaf of bread and it was AMAZING!
We wanted to get a picture of Cameron and Leah with their bread to send to Nana and Poppa. Leah wanted the picture to have her eating her turtle bread.
Trying again....
And again... Oh well, still cute!
After a delicious breakfast of sourdough bread, we headed over to Pier 45 to check out the USS Pampanito (a submarine) and the SS Jeremiah O'Brien (a Liberty Ship). This isn't the best picture of me, but it is pretty cool and shows both boats.
We asked the kids to pick which boat they wanted to go on. Of course, I wanted to go on the submarine, but they ultimately chose the Liberty Ship. Cameron had slept over on a battleship with Cub Scouts a few months earlier and he thought that the Liberty Ship looked a lot like the battleship. It was really cool and I'm glad that was our choice.
Liberty Ships were cargo ships that were used during World War II. The SS Jeremiah O'Brien is one of only two liberty ships that remain unaltered (aka not taken apart for scrap metal or sunk as a reef). This boat was part of the Normandy Invasion. There was a really cool huge size diorama in one of the cargo holds that showed where the boats were positioned during the invasion. It was awesome.
Walking on the main deck of the ship
Cool sign that they had posted
They had hilarious cutouts that the kids could put their heads in. The cutouts were large size so the kids' heads looked tiny and extra hilarious.
Cam as Rosie the Riveter
Leah... at least she is the right gender, but I think her head is tinier than her bicep.
Cameron the officier
And Leah the officier
Cam in his sailor dress whites
Leah - apparently she is saluting above her head.
On the main deck they had giant guns you could climb up on. I had Aaron in the sling so I didn't want to climb up the tiny ladder, but Tim and Cameron climbed up there. Leah started up but got too nervous and decided to stay on the deck with me.
Very cool picture of the USS Pampanito with the city in the background.
Cameron on the gun. It was pretty cool - one side of the gun fired it and the other side controlled the position of the gun. Cam and Daddy had fun playing on it!
Hello little gunner!
Sibling love
Another amazing part of the SS Jeremiah O'Brien was the engine room. It was three or four stories tall and you could climb all over the place. Cameron especially loved it.
Mama and Aaron making our way down the ladders to the bottom floor of the engine room.
Very cool giant wrench!
We toured around the ship a bit more and then headed back to the car. We drove back to the hotel where we met Aunt Susan. She got into our van with us and off we went on our tour of San Francisco. The first stop was the Palace of Fine Arts. We had some snacks as our picnic lunch.
Family photo (photo by Aunt Susan)
There were ducks and swans swimming around in the pond in front. Leah really liked them, especially the swans.
We walked about halfway around the walkway, but it was a bit chilly and windy out. We found this plant with giant leaves and thought that the leaves might be bigger than Leah. We asked her to stand in front of the plant to take a picture and for some reason she WAS NOT having it. She did some amazing pouts that were super cute, so we had to take a picture.
We were able to make her laugh though and got a semi-decent picture.
Cameron in front of the Palace of Fine Arts
Leah's turn!
Cameron the cutie (photo by Aunt Susan)
Our next stop was to check out the Presidio, where Alex's high school was. We also went to the LucasArts office to see the Yoda fountain. Cameron loves Star Wars so he was pretty excited. We tried to get a picture in front of the fountain, but Leah decided to be a goof.
That's better!!
When we pulled into the parking area, the guard told us that the lobby was open and that we could go in and check it out. Aunt Susan had brought many visitors to see the Yoda fountain in the past and said that the lobby was never opened to non-employees, so we knew we had to take advantage of it. The lobby was very cool, lots of great Star Wars memorabilia.
Cam with Darth Vader
Cam wanted a picture in front of pretty much everything in the lobby area, including this bookshelf that had a few small things on it. He was just so excited about it.
Near the Presidio is an awesome overlook for the Golden Gate Bridge. The fog lifted for a little while and Tim got some beautiful shots.
Fog, what fog?
Only Tim and Aunt Susan checked out the amazing views - everyone else (Mama included) was taking a nap in the van!!
So many pretty shots
One by Aunt Susan
After that, everyone had taken a good nap so we went over to Golden Gate Park. We decided to go to the Conservatory of Flowers. In front is a really cool flower clock.
There is a huge open lawn in front of the conservatory so the kids had fun running.
They love each other so much!
There were so many pretty flowers in the conservatory.
They had a cool kids program - a worksheet with eight different edible plants that they had to search for throughout the conservatory. It really got them interested in all of the flowers and plants because they had to find the things on their worksheet.
I think Tim could have stayed here all afternoon taking pictures.
As it was, he was lagging behind Cameron and Leah who were racing around looking for the plants on their worksheet.
They stopped moving long enough for Tim to explain how the flytrap plants worked. Cam especially thought it was awesome.
I can't remember if Leah was pointing out a fish or one of the things on their worksheet. Either way, both kids thought it was a really cool place.
More pretty flowers....
There was also a butterfly exhibit set up in the conservatory with tons of very cool butterflies.
Aaron was not very interested in flowers or butterflies.
After the conservatory, we went back to the hotel to get Aunt Susan's car. We were heading down to Stanford for the rest of the afternoon to see Alex, check out the college and go out to dinner. Aunt Susan was taking a weekend class at Stanford the next day so she drove her own car down there. We all met on the main campus of Stanford.
Cameron standing in front of his future school? It was an amazing, beautiful campus!
Trying to organize a family picture
There we go!
The architecture was so beautiful. Cameron and Leah loved running around and checking it all out.
Tricky Cam
Cam and Leah loving on Mr. Aaron
He is not amused.
More awesome architecture - these long arched outdoor hallways were everywhere. So beautiful.
Tiny kiddo in the big hall
Cool picture by Aunt Susan
We went over to Alex and Julia's apartment for a while before heading out to dinner. Aunt Susan had brought a few of Alex's toys with her so that the kids would have something to play with. Turns out one of the toys was one of Alex's favorites of all times so he joined right in and played with them.
Both Leah and Cam loved the toy too
We had dinner at a yummy Mexican restaurant. The table had paper on it and they gave us crayons, so everyone got into the artwork while we were waiting for dinner and after we were done eating. Cameron and Leah really took a shine to Alex and Julia, and by the end of dinner Cam was on Alex's lap coloring and Leah was on Julia's.
Picture at dinner - a delicious meal and such good company.
After dinner we went back to Alex's apartment and played for a while longer. It was pretty late by then so we headed back up to San Francisco for one more night's sleep before heading off on our big drive down CA-1. It was a great day!!
