Goodbye San Fran!

So how would you spend your last day in San Francisco? I spent the morning finishing up homework for my online classes and took a test. Isaiah spent the morning selling his motorcycle. Quite frankly...we're beat! We mostly relaxed today. San Francisco has been wonderful but we are ready to get back home!

The best part of the trip (according to Isaiah) Alcatraz because the tour was really cool! The worst part (according to Isaiah) some really gross Thai food we ate today (we were trying to get out of our food comfort zone but really it was no good).

For me the best part was being able to spend time with Isaiah. I'm so lucky to have such a great husband who likes to go out and do stuff. The worst part was having to do homework. (I'm taking online classes through SLCC to finish up the last few classes I need to take to get my associates degree. )

Here are a few pictures from our day of leisure...

Isaiah riding the cable car...

View of the street from the cable car...

Before we left we had to go back from another cupcake. This place was soooo good!

These are our coconut vanilla cupcakes. Man where they tasty!

After our cupcakes we walked down to the beach and sat on a bench to watch the water.

This about sums it up. Isaiah + Rosie forever :)

SLC here we come! We can't wait to get home :)

The Rock - Alcatraz

Yesterday we hung around Fisherman's Wharf and the pier for most of the day before heading out on the ferry to Alcatraz.

This is us riding the cable car to the pier. They really do let you hold on and ride on the outside of the car like you see in the movies. You just have to be careful not to hang out or you'll get hit by a car!

These cable cars were parked at the end of the line. They're really cool to ride and a very iconic part of San Francisco.

We checked out the aquarium at the bay. It wasn't as spectacular as the aquarium we went to on Tuesday but it had some cool stuff.

This was their Nemo tank. Can you spot Dorie, Marlin and Nemo?

The coolest part of this aquarium was the under ground tube. It is set underneath the bay so you see the underside of all the animals in the water. It's a little bit weird being in the tube. If the great California earthquake happened that is not where I'd want to be!

We signed up to take the night tour of Alcatraz. It started with a boat ride around the island. Originally Alcatraz was built for the military to help protect the bay during the gold rush. Later is was converted to a military prison, then it's most famous job was the maximum security prison most of us know it as. January 29th is the 102nd anniversary of the island so we picked a good day to go :)

The large building behind us is the cell house where the inmates were housed.

Most of the pics of the inside didn't turn out great. This is what the cells looked like. There are three levels of cells on each side.

The cells were so small too!! This one is missing the small cot they would have slept in.

This is what a cell in Block D looks like. Block D is where prisoners were kept in solitary confinement. When the door closes on this cell it is pitch black!

Me enjoying the tour :)

This is a prisoner's view of the San Francisco sun setting behind the Golden Gate Bridge. San Francisco is about a mile and a half swim from Alcatraz. The view was torturous to inmates because the city was so close yet so far away.

This is us with San Francisco behind us. Our little camera doesn't do the view justice. The view of the city from Alcatraz was SPECTACULAR!!

After the audio tour one of the park rangers told us about some of the different escape attempts. Out of 36 escape attempts only one person is known to make it to shore - then within 2 hours he was picked up by authorities. 3 people escaped and were never confirmed dead or alive...dun dun dun. If you are ever in the San Francisco area an Alcatraz Tour is a must. It really is pretty cool to see the island and tour the prison.

2009 Year of the Ox and the Exploratorium

This bench was outside China Town...

Ponder no evil, hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil...


Isaiah and me at the entrance of China Town.

How much for that doggy in the window? (Arf Arf) The one with the waggily tail.

In one of the shops the owners had a dog that was hanging out in the window. We thought that was pretty funny given the song.

It's a cool week to be in San Francisco. Chinese New Year started on Monday and China Town was all decked out with these banners. Happy year of the Ox!

After China Town we made our way down to the Exploratorium (building below). The Exploriatorium is a science kids dream place. There a tons of little stations that are all hands on. I didn't see any "don't touch this signs". It was pretty cool.

I think our favorite thing in the Exploratorium was the bubble table. Isaiah was really good at making big wavy bubbles.

I was not as skilled but sure tried hard.

After a long day of walking we ended at Kara's Cupcakes in Ghirardelli Square. It's an adorable little cupcake shop. So far we have been enjoying BEAUTIFUL 65 degree weather. It's been just lovely. I'm sure we'll come home to lots of cold and snow though :( Cheers!

San Francisco Day 2 - A Walk in the Park

We spent all day yesterday in Golden Gate Park. The park is HUGE! You could probably spend a few days there seeing everything. The park has lots of different museums and other attractions.

We spent most of our time at the California Academy of Sciences. It is the greenest museum in the world. These are the garbage cans they have. There is a spot for recyclables, compost, and landfill. Awesome!


Anyhow. This was the coolest museum I've ever seen. It had a natural history area, an aquarium, a planetarium, a rain forest, and a living roof exhibit!

Here is us infront of one of the ENORMOUS tanks. There were thousands of fish in there. It was really cool.

This tank was probably 20 feet tall and 40 feet wide.

Sorry I forgot to rotate this... The rain forest exhibit was really cool. It was located inside a HUGE bubble. There is a spiral walkway that circles the edge of the sphere so you can see the rain forest from all levels. All the trees and plants inside were real. There were tons of butterflies inside that would fly right up to you.

After the museum we walk over to Stowe Lake inside the park. We rented a paddle boat and relaxed on the lake. This was much needed! By the end of the day we probably walked around 6 miles or so!

This is us chasing some ducks. I was a little bit worried that some of them wouldn't get out of the way :) Don't worry, no ducks were harmed during this vacation.

There was lots to see from our view of the lake. Here is some Japanese architecture...

There was also a waterfall at one end of the lake.

Need to get away? Isaiah and I did! This morning we took off for San Francisco. We wanted to do something fun for our 5 year anniversary that is next week so here we are!

We left SLC this morning with snow lightly falling. After we got out of SLC this is what we saw from the airplane...

It's so weird to see the clouds below you instead of above you.




Self portraits are never a good idea...


Once we got into San Francisco we headed down to Fisherman's Wharf and enjoyed a DELICIOUS sourdough breadbowl with clam chowder.

We then walked around the pier. This is a pic of Alcatraz. On Thursday we're going to take the tour :)



At the pier they had a retired submarine (on the right you can kind of see it) and a retired ship that you can tour.

I love these signs...

We were able to board the S.S. Jeremiah O'Brien and walk around. It was pretty cool to see what they look like up close and see inside.

We went up to the gunner deck and Isaiah took aim. Bad guys of San Fran beware - he's got you in his sights!

We went down below and I helped drive the ship. Full speed ahead!

Outside the ship there was a museum that had tons of old coin operated "games" from the early 1900s. They also had one of the coin press things. I got me a Rosie the Riveter penny :)

These are a great examples of what was in the Museum. Wow, this really is entertainment. I'm glad these only cost a quarter.

I kept waiting for this to do more...like have them attack the guys. Nope they really did just move their head up and down.

I thought this was funny...

Then Isaiah and I walked up to Ghirardelli Square. This is Isaiah enjoying a Ghirardelli hot chocolate in front of a Ghirardelli sign.

We thought we'd try walking back to the hotel and came across this hill. To get a point of reference on the incline look at the street light on the right. Can you imagine if San Francisco got snow?!? The cars would slide right down the hill!

After a long day of travel and site seeing we're looking forward to a good night sleep!

YW here I come!!

Last Sunday I got called to be the 2nd Counselor in the Young Womens! I'm so excited! For the last week I've been thinking of how much fun I in YW's growing up. We had the best ward and the BEST leaders ever! I'm so excited for Girls Camp, Youth Conference and all the other activities. We have AWESOME girls in our ward and I'm excited to get to know them better and be able to hang out with them.

When I told Isaiah I was excited for camping he looked at me and said - You camp? As much as I don't love dirt I do love the outdoors.

The best part of girls camp was this:

Hanging out with my girl friends. Becky, Paula, and I were known as the three musketeers...


Worst part about camping...enough said.

We called these B.I.F.'s (bathrooms in the forest :)

I noticed the date on the above pic is 2000. Some of the girls I'll have in Young Women's now were in diapers when this picture was taken. Wow...were getting old!


Here are a few more pics for your enjoyment....

This was the first year I went on the 4th year hike. I think Becky, Paula, and I went on the 4th year hike 3 times. I love the idea of backpacking it's just the no bathroom part that concerns me.

(If you couldn't find me I'm second from the left on the front row)