Back to the Golden Gate Bridge

Hello again from San Francisco!

How are my three kiddos? I love you and hope you are having tons of fun at home.

So yesterday was the first day of Daddy's conference. That means that he was at the conference session listening to people talk about virtual computing most of the day. So while Daddy was in classes, I decided to go back to the Golden Gate bridge. I hopped on the bus and headed over there.

Luckily for me, this time it was sunny- hooray! Doesn't the orange bridge look just fantastic against the blue sky? I love it!

This time as I crossed the bridge, I decided to show you just how big the cables are on the bridge. Check this out!

Wow! See? I can't even put my fingers together around the cable because it is so big. You can see the city in the background too. Here is a better picture of San Francisco!

This time I wanted to go all the way across the bridge. Look at how tall the bridge towers are!

There were not as many ships in the harbor because it is a work day. But I did see another HUGE cargo ship that I thought I would show you. Cool, huh?

Sheldon really enjoyed walking along the Golden Gate Bridge on such a nice sunny day.

Dolphy really wanted to play in the water, but I convinced him to stay on the bridge with me! I was afraid that he wouldn't be able to find me again if he went to play in the bay.

I think the Golden Gate bride is so pretty! I love the towers and the cables.

It took me a while, but I walked all the way across the bridge! I even made it up a big hill on the other side so I could take a REALLY great picture of the bridge.

When I got up the big hill I was afraid I might not get to take my picture because there was SO much fog. Sometimes I couldn't see the bridge at all!

Good thing I had Sheldon and Dolphy to keep me company. We were patient and waited until the fog blew away so I could get a nice picture. It was REALLY windy up on the hill.

Dolphy and Sheldon liked to see how small all the cars looked driving across the bridge. We pretended that they were giant and scared all the cars and pedestrians on the bridge! Haha.

The fog completely cleared out and I got the picture that I really wanted. Isn't it gorgeous!

I really liked that you could see the city behind the bridge. It was beautiful!

I was happy  to be able to see the Golden Gate Bridge again! It was awesome!

I was tired, but I had to climb down the big hill and walk across the bridge again! I was going to call you guys on the bridge, but it is SO noisy on there! There are lots of cars crossing the bridge, which made it noisy. So I rode the bus back to the hotel and called you when I got back.

It was great to talk to you and I am glad you are having so much fun. Last night Daddy and I got to go to a small party. It actually wasn't very exciting and we didn't stay too long. But there was another one of those cartoon artists at the party, so we had him draw our picture again.

Here is Mommy and Daddy!

It was a different artist who drew us this time, and I think I like this one too! What do you think? Does it look like us?

As Ephraim requested on the phone, here is the picture of the submarine that we saw over the weekend.

You can see the Liberty ship behind it in the back, but here is a picture of it up close.

It was HUGE!

Today I am going to go to Chinatown and look around. Daddy and I went together our first evening here, but I want to go look around during the day. Sheldon and Dolphy are excited to go see the sights with me!

Love you guys!
See you soon
Mommy

Letter from San Francisco

My Dearest Devereaux Darlings,

Hello from San Francisco! How are my three cute kiddos? I miss you and hope you are having a great time at home with Grandma and Grandpa Devereaux.

Thank you for sending Sheldon and Dolphy with us to San Francisco. We have had fun walking all over the city, showing them the sights and sounds of San Francisco. Here is what Mommy and Daddy have been doing in San Francisco for the past two days.


When Grandpa dropped us off at the airport, we went right to our gate and go onto the airplane. Then we waited for everyone to get on the plane so our airplane could take off.

Dolphy and Sheldon didn't mind waiting. They had never been in an airplane before and wanted to check it out! We were on the plane for less than two hours and then we landed in Oakland, California. Next we needed to ride a shuttle bus to the transit center. We had to wait a little while at the bus stop.

The bus came and took us to the transit center. Then we waited for our train to take us to San Francisco. Did you know that the train from Oakland to San Francisco actually goes into a tunnel underneath the water? Wow!

There were lots of people on the train, but Dolphy found a seat!

Soon we were finally in San Francisco! We walked from the Bart station to our hotel room. Hooray! We were glad to finally arrive and drop off our bags. Sheldon thought the room was pretty nice!

We went and had a late lunch and decided to take a bus to go see the Golden Gate Bridge. It is a really cool suspension bridge on the north end of San Francisco. It is a cool orange color and looks like this.

There we are by the bridge! Cool, huh? You can see that it was cloudy/foggy and a bit windy when we were out there. But it was still amazing to see that enormous bridge! Isn't it pretty?

Sheldon was pretty exited that we got to walk across the bridge. See all the cool cables that hold the bridge up?

Dolphy liked that we could see so many boats out on the water. See all those white specs in the distance? Those are sailboats!

This is what they look like up close. Can you see the man on the back of the boat?

We even saw some big cargo ships go underneath the Golden Gate Bridge. Cool, huh?

We had fun walking across the bridge, and I have TONS more pictures to show you when I get home. When we got back near the hotel we went and had dinner and the walked around the city a little more that evening. Then we were SO tired that we went to the hotel and went to bed.

The next day Daddy and I spent to day together exploring San Francisco. The first thing we did was have breakfast at Mel's Drive in. It is a really popular place to eat here in San Francisco.

Sheldon thought the jukebox was pretty cool and the balloons were festive too!

After dinner we took a bus out to the Embarcadero. It is a place where ships come and go from the Port of San Francisco.

When we walked out to the edge of Pier one we saw the Bay Bridge. It is another suspension bridge, but it is much longer and bigger than the Golden Gate Bridge. Plus it is grey, not orange.

Dolphy thought it was pretty cool that we could see so many big boats out on the bay!

There were also lots of seagulls hanging out on the pier.

Here is a picture of Mommy and Daddy at the edge of the pier with the Bay Bridge behind us.

In case you wondered, piers are like sidewalks that go out onto the water. Here is Pier 3, which we also walked to the end of. See how it has water on both sides?

Here is Daddy at the end of the pier. You can see some of the city behind him. You can also see how long the walk to the end of the pier was!

From the end of the pier we had a good view of Alcatraz. It is an island that used to be a famous prison. Dolphy and Sheldon did not especially want to visit the prison. They were happy to stay on the pier with Mommy and Daddy.

I will have to show you some of the other nice pictures that I took at the end of the pier.

Next we decided to take the bus down to Pier 39. It is a famous Pier in San Francisco. It is kind of like an amusement park, see?

They even had a carousel! This was one place that we thought you kids would have enjoyed. They had lots of shops and fun things to look at on Pier 39.

We were hungry when we go there, so we decided to go eat. There were lots of places selling fish, crabs and seafood. But we decided to have lunch at the Hard Rock Cafe.

Dolphy thought the food was SO good! Yum. We were completely full when we finished our lunch, so we decided to leave the Pier and take a walk. We said goodbye to Pier 39 and the cool crab statue.

We walked a little further and went past Fisherman's warf.

There were lots of really cool boats out by the bay. Check out this big ship!

We also saw a submarine and a cool Liberty ship that I will have to show you pictures of when I get home. Next we walked to Ghirardelli square. Guess what they make here?

They make Chocolate! Yum! (We may even have bought some chocolate to bring home to you!). Next we decided to take a hike up a steep hill! We walked up so far that we could see the red ship way down below. Dolphy and Sheldon thought that was cool!

Look how steep the hills are in San Francisco! It is crazy!

We walked clear to the top of this hill so that we could see Lombard street, which is the crookedest street in the world! Look at how curvy it is!

See the curves in the road? We got to see cars driving down the road and it was pretty cool. We could also see Coit tower in the distance. See it? Dolphy and Sheldon thought it was pretty cool.

At the top of the hill we decided to catch a ride on the cable car down the hill. It was pretty cool! Here is the cable car that Dolphy and Sheldon got to ride on.

There are cable cars all over San Francisco! They are pretty cool!

After our cable car ride we went back to the hotel. My legs and my feet were SO tired! We walked a LONG way yesterday. But we saw a lot of cool things and had a great time.

We didn't stay at the hotel too long. We had to go to the conference hall and see all the fun booths. Daddy and I got tons of fun surprises for you boys! I can't wait to bring them home and show them to you.

While we were at the conference, we had someone draw our pictures. What do you think? Does this look like mommy and daddy?

Pretty funny, huh?

Today Daddy is going to his conference. I am going to go see more parts of San Francisco and take more great pictures. I may even go back to the Golden Gate Bridge. I am definitely going to go to Chinatown and take some fun pictures and maybe even find more surprises for you guys.

Daddy and I are having a great time together in San Francisco. We miss you but know that you are having a blast with Grandma and Grandpa. Be good and have fun! We will be home before you know it!

Love you,
Mommy

Family Photos 2012

Hooray! We FINALLY got back the photos from our mini-session. You know the one that got cancelled and rescheduled three or four times?!

Of the three family pictures we got back, there was one that is definitely my favorite.

Isn't that a nice picture? It is really good considering the fact that Amelia was trying to run away from us nearly the whole time! There was one other family picture that I didn't care for at all, and this next one is ok. I probably won't get it printed or anything, but it's not bad.

I really loved this picture of Joe and me.

Aren't we cute?

I also had her take some head shots of just me. I wanted to have a new picture of myself to put on my blogs, Facebook, etc.Aren't these pretty?

I have never really had pictures taken of just me! I love them.

I also liked this picture she got of the boys. We were trying to get all three kids, but that didn't happen.

Sine I am putting up all our family pictures for this year, here is the one that I put together of my three kids wearing the same clothes.

These pictures will all soon be gracing the walls of my home! I love getting new family pictures, but I am determined not to go through as much stress next time. I have already contracted my good friend Cari to take our pictures again in the spring and I am going to take her family pictures for her. What a great trade! We both get something that we cannot do for ourselves and I am flattered that she wants me to take her family pictures since she actually studied photography. The other bonus is that this way I can get ALL the pictures from our photo session and edit them however I would like! Hooray!