San Francisco: My Hearts Devotion

For some reason saying "San Francisco" makes me think of West Side Story and the song America. Weird, I know!

Anywho... for part of the Christmas holiday, Reese and I met Wyatt and his parents in San Francisco. I had never been to San Francisco, so I was quite excited! We were there for 6 days. Plenty of time to explore and get to know the city. If it looks like I am constantly wearing the same clothes, its because I was. You try fitting 6+ days of clothes in a carry-on!

Reese and I got their one day early and walked around South San Francisco. We walked, walked, and walked. It was a great time to walk in my boots. (NOT) Reesey was clever and looked up some places on  the travel channel and food network and found an amazing sub place. Seriously. If you go to San Francisco you HAVE to go to Little Lucca. It's this hole in the wall, trailer type sub shop with no seating inside. They make their own deli meat, bread, secret garlic sauce... the list could go on! If you go, make sure you go just before noon or you will wait in a line that runs out to the street and along the sidewalk. We were lucky enough to get their a little before noon and only waited in line for about 10 minutes. While we were eating our subs outside, the line just grew and grew and grew. It was insane. 

SO GOOD!

And the subs are massive! Reese and I should have shared one. I barely made it through on half. We saved our other halves for dinner. Worked out great!

We did everything you could possibly do and see during our week in San Fran, including a football game! It was surprisingly a lot of fun. And a BIG thanks to my father-in-law, Jon, for the awesome seats at the game. 

 The players getting warmed up!

The family! Can you just see the excitement in the Reese, Jon's, and Wyatts face? Priceless!

 Nobody seemed to pay much attention to the cheerleaders. Except Triana and I. We decided that you had to be in your 30's, have long hair, and love football to be one. 

 It turned out to be quite an epic game. Not because of the actual game per se, but because a truck had hit some electrical poles and turned off all the power in the stadium. It was pitch black. I thought it was part of the show. But then they came back on again for a bit only to go back out half way through the game. It was quite interesting. Oh, and people were smoking weed in our section. That was cool too!

The start of the game:

Why so serious, boys?

What do they say? Something, something, hike?

 Oh my word. So like I said, this game was actually really fun. Ja- the 49ers were winning, the electricity kept going out, and people were smoking weed... but you know what else? Some middle-aged guy ran across the field. The only thing that would have made it more entertaining is if he was in the nude. 

And of course he got a standing ovation when they escorted him off the field. Either way too much alcohol, or he decided it was a good night to check out what a jail looked like!

The most terrible thing that happened at the game was James Durbin. He was a contestant on American Idol last season and basically screamed a lot. This performance was no different. He was dreadful. 

The people they paid fans cheering on his screaming. 

All in all, it was a great game and a good first NFL experience for me! 

We drove all over San Fran. I don't know where this is, but what they say about the uphills are true!

We spent some time in Haight and Ashbury. It's a famous part of San Fran because of the hippie movement I think. There are a ton of secondhand, vintage shops down there. 

The Amoeba Music store is cool because it has tens of thousands of cassettes, cd's, and vinyl records.  

The weather couldn't have been more perfect. I have heard that San Francisco can be freezing, windy, and just miserable at times... but the week we were their was amazing. It was actually warm. So lovely- we had to make some time for the beach!

San Fran proved to have some cool looking, colourful homes too! 

And of course, the Golden Gate Bridge! 

Oh Wyatt...

Love, love, love! 

Wyatt taking everyones photo:

My favourite in-laws ever! :) 

Such greatness!

My sweets:

The trip would not have been complete without these two.... My favourite memories of Wyatt during the trip was him asking me what brand of tampon I use, him trying to make a $1000 deal with Jon that he wouldn't cut his hair for a year, and him trying to make a deal with Triana not to say anything gross or annoy her for an entire day. That lasted an hour. Ha ha. :)

Clowns!

We made sure to go down one of the most famous streets ever, Lombard Street. 

Its super steep and has 8 (I believe) hairpin turns as you go down. Its usually covered in flowers, but because it was winter, everything was dead. 

 You can see what it looks like in the summer time here.

And of course, we can't forget about Pier 39 and its world famous clam chowder. Clam chowder (when done right) is one of my most favourite foods to eat. I could probably eat a whole pot by myself. This is why I have no pictures of the actual clam chowder. By the time I even thought of taking a photo, all that was left was an empty bread bowl!

We spent some time looking in all the cool shops along the pier. Also stopping to take some pics in front of the enormous Christmas tree.

Reese and Wyatt at their finest:

Reesey and myself:

The one shop I found most entertaining was Lefty's. A store dedicated to all the left-handed geniuses out there. (Me being one of them!)

Posing with my better hand and looking a tad pregnant. I am not, just for the record....

Shot of where you will find some delicious clam chowder!

Another fun thing we got to do while we were there was take a boat out to Alcatraz. That place is pretty awesome, I have to say. 

The Island is very windy and freezing cold! So you can imagine being inside the brick and cement buildings. Cold, cold, cold!

If you ever get the chance to go, GO! Its definitely worth it. This is the inmates showering area and also the same place where we picked up our headphones to do the self-guided tour!

The actual prison cells: 

The self-guided tour was pretty cool. You just go to where it says start, press play, listen, and follow along. 

My first time in a prison cell:

And Reese in his!

Christmas card picture?

This was the library:

They set up some of the cells to look like what they would have looked like back in the day:

Families also lived on Alcatraz. The guards and their families could live on the Island in separate flats and homes. Kinda creepy... living so close to some of the most dangerous criminals in the U.S.

Some Alcatraz views of the windy city!

This was the main office/operating room of Alcatraz. 

And here are some pictures of probably the most famous cells in the jail! You can see the hole in the cement that the prisoners dug out with spoons and other weird objects. Also the creepy mannequin head to trick the guards!

This is what they escaped into:

And finally we have the kitchen/mess hall:

Alcatraz: The 3 most wanted...

Another must see while in San Francisco is the Walt Disney Family Museum. Its so, so cute and really interesting. It's about Walt's life and that of course relates all back to how Disney started and all that jazz. It's definitely worth a stop!

Pretty sure I died and went to heaven once we got to Ghiradelli Square. For lunch that day I got an enormous chocolate banana sundae and ate the whole thing. I know, I know. 

I would probably bath in that if I could...

After lunch dessert, we walked out along the one of the piers. It was another stunning day. Along the way, we spotted some crazy women swimming in the frigid water. 

The Golden Gate Bridge, in all her glory again!

Wyatt trying to impress the girls/Reese/Jon. 

Trying. SO. hard. 

Another perfect day in San Francisco. We couldn't have asked for a better week! The only thing that was missing was Andy, Hillery, Sadie, and Maddox. 

We spent one of our last days in Santa Cruz. We ate awesome Brazilian food. If you go to Santa Cruz, you MUST go to Cafe Brasil. Amazing! And the weather was once again perfect- check the people playing beach volleyball in costumes in the middle of winter!

It was my first trip to the Bay area, but definitely wont be my last. We had such a great time seeing all the sights and spending time with each other. And like I said, the Rays were sorely missed! But that was pretty much our Christmas! We all flew back to Albuquerque to eat my mother-in-law, Trianas, delicious food and spend Christmas day together. And of course, we were too busy eating and opening presents to take any pictures... but it was one for the books, I promise!