San Fran Trip

I find it odd that my first two blog posts happen to involve San Francisco…even though my trips out there happened about 6 years apart. Last week we were able to take a much needed trip, since Reed had spring break for his MBA program.  It was also a good opportunity to spend some two on one time with Eden Bug before her little brother makes his debut in June. The other awesome part about this trip was that we were able to stay with my college bestie and her fam, who we hadn’t seen for two and a half years. They were so kind to house us while we were there and we loved the time we were able to spend together on the weekends. Get ready for a photo and info overload!

Leaving Provo

We flew into Oakland, and I am guessing this may be the first flight Eden may actually remember in her later years. She loved the whole experience of flying and when we hit a lot of turbulence flying in she kept saying “Wheee! Wheee!” until that turbulence rocked her fast asleep for the landing. We flew into a cool and rainy bay area which made for a very green trip. Luckily it didn’t rain the whole time we were there, but we were glad to see so much moisture that was long overdue with the drought Cali had been experiencing.

Gangsta Posing in Oakland

First thing off the plane, Diana and Trevor picked us up and we headed straight to Fenton’s restaurant in Oakland for some yummy burgers and ice cream. I normally always get ice cream with chocolate in it, but boy do I love Fenton’s Banana Nut ice cream – it is a must if you like bananas! The cookie dough and chocolate peanut butter crunch did not disappoint either! On the way home we made a pass by the beautiful Oakland temple just as the sun was almost set.

Oakland, CA Temple

The weekend was rainy and made for a perfect visit to a lighthouse on the coast. This was my first time visiting a light house (or even seeing one in real life besides at a distance on the Maine coast when I was 16). It was breathtaking and the rain stopped, and the sun peeked through the clouds just long enough for us to hike to the lighthouse and back.

The rest of the weekend we took it easy and had fun celebrating Diana’s 30^th birthday. I hadn’t

been with her to celebrate her birthday since we both turned twenty, ten years ago! It was so fun being together and she is such a beautiful 30 year old mama and wife, who has accomplished lots of wonderful things in her lifetime! It was really neat reminiscing our college days, of dreaming of what our families would be like and then actually seeing it all unfold before our eyes as we watched our kids play together. Eden and Grayson really hit it off and each day that we left for trip adventures, Eden was always sad if he wasn't coming along...it was pretty stinkin’ cute!

On Monday morning we headed straight for the Jelly Belly factory (Eden’s favorite part of the trip). My pregnant self was a little hesitant to try the abnormal flavors, life vomit and booger, but I did muster up the stomach to try grass…which really tasted like grass. It wasn’t my favorite, but it wasn’t too bad either. I really liked the chili mango one, that was sweet with a kick of heat. We kind of felt like we were visiting Willy Wonka’s as we walked through the factory and learned about the process of making the Jelly Bellys and got to try samples at the different steps in the process. The robotics in the factory were amazing and we couldn’t believe the jelly beans upon jelly beans that we were seeing all over! It was crazy to learn that it takes almost a whole week just to make a jelly bean there! Before leaving we each created our own mixes of our favorite flavors and ended up with over a pound and a half of jelly beans J

After the factory we took a drive through the beautiful wine country of Napa and made a pit stop in downtown for some burgers at Burgerfi…yeah those burgers were amazing…or as Eden says, “Yummilicious!”.  Then we made a pit stop at a park there, which was fun, just hanging out among the locals, soaking up the sunshine and snacking on jelly beans.

Tuesday was our big San Fran day, where we hit all the things we wanted to do in the city. Boy did we eat well that day and sleep well that night! The weather was beautiful and the parking was ugly J.  First thing, we stopped at the bridge overlook, before heading into the city and hitting up Fisherman’s Warf. Reed and I had both had bread bowls there at Boudin before and decided to try a pizza on sourdough this time around…which did not disappoint! Then we headed for Ghiradelli to snag a brownie sundae and some chocolate( I can’t maintain this belly of mine by eating nothin’ ;) ). Then we headed to China Town to try some dim sum, pot stickers, Chinese pastries, and to get Eden her souvenirs from the trip. She has really been loving Mulan lately and was set on finding some goods there. We found her a fan and an umbrella on our hunt and also had to hunt for a potty, which was not an easy find, but luckily we were able to find one before anything disastrous happened. Then we made our way to the Painted Ladies houses (Full House) where we ate some more pastries and Eden modeled her new gifts, and played on a playground there…boy did that playground have a saweet view! Lastly, we made a stop at the Palace of Fine Arts Theatre on our way out of the city. This time around we did not do the crooked Lombard street, a bay tour with Alcatraz, or the Golden Gate Park since we both had done those on earlier trips, but I do really like all of those place as well! After we got out of the city we made our last stop of the night in San Rafael because there is this Crepe shop there that I love called Crepevine (and to let traffic die down a bit). We tried the Tuscany savory crepe and the Santorini sweet crepe (which was yummy, but we both would have preferred one loaded with nutella goodness more though).

One of the biggest selling points for Reed on going to San Fran, was the fact that they have Broadway shows and that Wicked just happened to be there. He had never been to a Broadway show and I had talked about how amazing Wicked was a number of times. Since kids under 8 weren’t permitted to the show, we were super lucky that Diana was willing to watch Eden for us so that we could sneak away for a date. We both wore our Sunday best and headed into the city to the Orpheum theater . The show was just wonderful – it is an easy musical to follow and the musical that made me start liking musicals in general. There were tons of experienced actors in the cast and there was definitely no skimping on the special effects.

 Thursday Diana, Trevor, and the kids were able to join us on our adventures, which was so nice since it was our last day to explore before flying out at 7am the next morning (Yuck)! We were super lucky to have Trevor to show us around  the sweet spots, since he grew up in the bay area and as a police officer has become even more familiar with that area! We all grabbed some delicious sandwiches from Mr. Pickles Sandwich shop and had a little picnic outside of Muir Woods before heading in for a nice long walk. The scenery of the redwood forest there was so beautiful and peaceful. Every time we rounded a curve in the trail I wanted to take more pictures (even though the pictures just couldn’t do this place justice). Then we headed to the beach, to run around on the sand and get our feet wet…well everyone who wasn’t pregnant and wearing compression stockings got their feet wet J. Eden was in heaven there! Squealing as she dug in the sand for treasures and dipped her feet in the cold bay water. I was in heaven just watching her and trying to catch some pictures of her running around. I loved the rock formations in the water there—probably because that is something I never saw on the beaches of Florida where I grew up—everything is just flat there. On the way home that night we drove through Sausalito and saw the most gorgeous homes with the prettiest views and experienced the horrible traffic.  We passed by these amazing soccer fields set down in a valley or green hills there, that was just breathtaking and made me wish I had grown up playing on those fields! We stopped for some dinner to let traffic die down again, headed home and packed for our early flight the next morning.

Boy did that week fly by fast!