San Francisco

For the weekend, we drove up to Tylee's house in San Francisco. It was an amazing weekend. Tylee & Pete surprised us by taking the kids back to Tylee's house while Trek & I stayed the night at Pete's penthouse apartment in the middle of the city. They sent us to their favorite Italian restaurant & as we were getting ready to leave, the waitress informed us our entire meal had already been paid for in full.

Then we got to spend the rest of the night at Pete's apartment on the 14th floor. His entire apartment is surrounded by windows so you can see out over the entire city. It was GORGEOUS. What a great BIRTHDAY SURPRISE for Trek. . . & I got to enjoy it too.

Thank you Tylee & Pete for a WONDERFUL kid-free evening.

We woke up at the crack of dawn so we could go to the Oakland Temple. There's nothing like waking up at 5:00 am on a Saturday morning. ha ha ha. We got ready fast & drove 30 minutes to the temple to find it CLOSED FOR CLEANING. Oops. I guess we should have checked the schedule huh? It was only 6 am so NOTHING was open. We drove around trying to find ANYTHING open, but we were out of luck. We drove back to the city & parked the car near Tylee's house. Then we walked around for a couple hours to pass the time before the kids woke up. I never get bored of walking through Union Square, even if all the stores are closed. It was a nice morning for a walk.

When we got back to Tylee's apartment, she had a BIRTHDAY BREAKFAST waiting for Trek. She made him a FABULOUS birthday burrito. I was totally impressed. Tylee is becoming a better cook every time we come visit.

After our "Birthday Brunch" we all piled in the van & headed over to Sausalito to the Discovery Museum.

Bladen & Taya liked the toddler area where they got to play with fish in a stream. My kids love any excuse to get wet.

There was a huge open area full of learning toys that the kids loved. They played for a while. I was impressed.

The kids' favorite area at the museum was the art studio. There were so many neat things here. Cadence especially loved the weaving room. Bladen & Taya weren't into the weaving, but they sure loved the safety glasses.

Pete & Tylee bought Bladen some chocolate milk to keep him still while Cadence & Lorien weaved crowns & necklaces (which took FOREVER). He was good so long as he had chocolate milk in his mouth. ha ha ha.

The girls did a fabulous job at weaving wet wood into all sorts of shapes. Trek impressed me by showing them how to do the crowns. That's the boy scout I married. He was amazing!

There was a HUGE playground at this place. There was a corn maze type thing made out of willow sticks. There was a boat to play on, several sandboxes, a hike, & all sorts of other fun things. Taya liked crawling through a giant redwood trunk.

At the top of the hike was a big bell. The kids all took turns ringing the bell. They loved that.

After our trip to the museum, we stopped at the lookout point in Sausalito to get a spectacular view of the city & the golden gate bridge. It was GORGEOUS up there.

After our adventures in Sausalito, we went back to Pete's apartment & played in the hot tub for a while while Trek & Pete picked up pizza & Chipotle. We had dinner together & then we were on our way home again. It was one of the best weekends EVER.

Thanks again Tylee & Pete for an AWESOME WEEKEND.