San Francisco - Amazing Trip

Last week I had an wonderful opportunity to go to San Francisco for a 3 day training seminar. Matt was luckily able to join me and we make an extended trip out of it to get some sightseeing in and some quality adult time. I have never been to San Francisco but it has always been on my top "MUST SEE" list. I am so glad we were able to go, the city and scenery is amazing! It was very hard to leave the kids for 6 days. We flew out early Sunday morning and got back Friday afternoon. I talked with the kids everyday and even got to Skype with them on the computer. My parents stayed with them at our house while we were gone. I know Grandma and Grandpa were ready for a break when we came back.. My house is hectic during the week, but I love it and wouldn’t trade it for anything.

The night before we left Colin decided to get his first black eye, by launching over Katherine on our bed and hitting the end table. Good thing it happened on our watch. It was super hard to leave Colin, I have never left him more than 2 days. But it is good for us to have some separation, though he has been SUPER clingy since we have been back.. Of course he has been sick. We got back Friday and Sunday night Colin and I spent the night in the ER with a really bad case of croup. I think the black eye and croup is Colin's way of telling me never to leave again! Monday when getting ready for school, Colin started crying, I asked why and he said "Don't leave me again".. Heartbreaking!

Back to San Francisco…Sunday Matt and I had an amazing time sightseeing. We went to Lands End, a beautiful park with walking trails right on the coast and is home to several ship wrecks. That night we went on a sunset catamaran sail around Alcatraz and Golden Gate bridge (thanks Syl for the suggestion)! The sunset was amazing and it was great to have Matt there to share it with me! While I was in class Mon- Wed, Matt went to Golden Gate park, potential gardens, Japanese gardens, Haight-Ashbury, tour of Anchor Brewery, and some other places. In the evenings we went and ate & shopped in Chinatown, ate at Pier 39, Fisherman's Wharf, but our favorite place was North Beach also known as Little Italy. We found two great places to eat there and the Italian bakeries.. Yummy! The food there was amazing. Good thing we walked so much up all those hills, so I didn’t feel so bad about all that we were eating. One evening we also went to go see Lombard Street.
Thursday we had all day to sight see. We did the early morning tour of Alcatraz.. What a beautiful island so rich in history. I really enjoyed the tour and walking around the island. After that we went and saw amazing views from Coit Tower, then we headed to Presidio Park (an old military base that sits at the bottom of Golden Gate Bridge.) The park has biking and hiking trails that give you amazing views of the bay, Golden Gate, and the rocky shoreline.
As much fun and amazing sights we got to experience, Friday I was super ready to get back to our kids. Friday night everyone started off in their own bed, but by Saturday morning, everyone was snuggled in our bed with us, the best feeling to wake up Saturday morning with everyone all cozy in bed!

PS- We have 250 pictures from the trip, so this is just a small small sample of pictures we took.