San Francisco

We were able to spend ONE day in San Francisco and we maximized our time there.  We happened to be there during the America's Cup sail boat race, which I had never heard of, but I guess it's a big deal :)  It made the city REALLY crowded, but it was kind of fun to see some of the festivities.

We started by checking out Pier 39.  Caydence rode the Merry-go-round

 And played on the musical stiars

 Trying to get a picture of the kids with Alcatraz in the background

 Then we hopped onto the boat to Alcatraz.

 We had to take the very long scenic round to get to Alcatraz due to the race.  Here is just a small sampling of all of the sailboats out to watch the race.

 Once on the island we started the audio tour.  It would have been much better if the kids weren't both terrified and screaming the whole time.  But we still enjoyed it.

 A view of SF from Alcatraz.

Bike much?

 We waited 45 minutes to drive down Lombard street!

 We walked down by the beach after lunch.

 A couple shots of the Bay bridge.  They are actually tearing down half of it after Labor day, they built a nice new bridge to replace it.

 On Sunday we went to church with Danny's uncle.  Their building is right on the grounds of the Oakland Temple!  It was gorgeous.  Then we had a fabulous dinner and birthday cake for his Grandma.  I can't believe I forgot to get a picture with Danny's grandma and the kids!  It was the first time she had met Will and it had been 3 years since the rest of us have seen her.

Sunday evening we jumped in the car and drove 6 of the 12 hours home.  This portable DVD player saved our lives!  And Cars, of course :)

We drove the rest of the way on Monday, and worked like crazy to get ready for my brother coming home from his mission the next day!  More on that in the next post.