Monday, May 21, 2012

Diamondbacks vs. Dodgers

So, my awesome friends in Maricopa gave me these tickets to see this game.  I had planned to go with Michael, but since Ethan had recently been having seizures, I decided to leave him home with his dad, and take Em.  She was so much fun!  She loved watching the game (well, what she could see . . . she has an appointment scheduled to get her eyes checked and she needs it).  She also had fun cheering, eating ice cream and taking some pictures with the camera (it has great zoom).  Such a fun girl date!  I love baseball. Diamondbacks ended up losing, by lots, but we still had a blast being together!

My cute girl



Em took this picture

Huge sundae . . . she loved it!

Me and my Em


Sunday, May 13, 2012

San Francisco Mom-cation {Sunday}

Sunday I woke up and the plan was to be able to see Ghirardelli Square, Lombard Street and the Golden Gate Bridge before my flight.  

There was always a line up super long to ride the cable cars . . . but I did enjoy watching them turn it in the roundhouse at the end.  Very neat!




Ghirardelli Square




Quickie walk through of the process of making chocolate.  This part was a let down to me because I have been to the Hershey factory in Hershey, PA, and they have a whole ride and it is LONG!  This took me about 3-4 minutes total to walk by and I was walking SLOWLY!






I started to walk up the street/hill toward Lombard St.  Thank goodness for GPS and how it made it easy for me to find places.  As I was walking I saw Alcatraz Island and thought it looked cool from where I was.

View of the city and the crazy streets uphill

 
Lombard Street -- the crookedest road


I saw these cool flowers on the way back down toward the harbor (My friend told me they are called Bottlebrush -- which I think is the perfect name)


So I get in a cab, ask the driver to take me to the Golden Gate Bridge and she starts driving me away from the Golden Gate Bridge, so I wait a minute or two thinking maybe she has a quicker plan in mind, and she is driving me away still, so I tell her to pull over and I get out and she has taken me to Chinatown.  Ugh!  Fortunately, I was close to a bus stop and rode that back to close to where I started and then found other buses headed where I wanted to go.  Stupid cab driver.  It would have been so much faster if she wasn't a jerk face!  It was cool to see some of Chinatown though!

 


After an eventful morning, I finally make it to the Golden Gate Bridge!  
It wasn't even all that foggy yet either!  I got lucky!  









When I booked, the way they had cheap flights was that I had a 12 hour layover scheduled in Los Angeles.  I figured that would be okay though, since I have an annual pass to Disneyland, I would just rent a car and drive over and play for a couple hours.  So that is exactly what I did, but since I finished up in San Francisco a bit early, I asked the booking agent if they had an earlier flight in to Los Angeles, and they did, so I got there an hour earlier!  It was a fun way to end my mommy time, riding single rider at Disneyland!

Saturday, May 12, 2012

San Francisco Mom-cation {Friday & Saturday}

Happy Mothers Day to me!  Due to the fact that I have been feeling extremely burned out as a parent, my husband said I could go on a little mom vacation, just me, somewhere not too far away/not too expensive and explore, relax, etc.  I decided to go to San Francisco because I had never been there.  I arrived really late Friday night and it was kind of creepy to be in a city I did not know at all, but an awesome guy on my flight stayed with me until my GPS on my phone located where I needed to be headed and I was okay and on my way.  I checked in to my hotel and was quite happy with where I had chosen.  It was lovely.  

The next morning, I slept in.  When I woke up, I watched the news (not cartoons) while I got ready for the day and then went off exploring. I took about a bazillion pictures, so I apologize in advance.  I will try to only post my absolute favorites!

 
View that I woke up to out of my hotel window (totally forgot to close the shades)

 
Views from my walk down to the harbor area


Fruit and Veggie market

 


Bay Bridge

Coit Tower

Random Fire Alarm Poles next to parking meters

On the boat to Alcatraz Island (View of City behind me)

(View of Bay Bridge behind me)

Alcatraz


 

Cell Block

Typical cell

Me inside of an icky cell

If you broke the rules, you got to go in here . . . eek!  Dark and scary!



View of the city on the boat ride back

My feet were sore a bit (stupid me, I wore tiny flip flops), but I decided to walk down and explore Pier 39 a bit before calling it a night.  It wasn't really that far to walk and there was so much to see!



Hand built carousel - coolest thing is it was double decker


A gazillion flavors of salt water taffy

Hard Rock Cafe


For as long as I can remember, I have been fascinated by building, especially really tall ones, and the cool unique styles of architecture, and textures they have.  As I walked back, I got detoured because they were shooting a commercial for Monster.com and had closed down a couple whole blocks, and I ended up seeing some interesting buildings and taking some pictures.




When I got back, I grabbed some Subway on the way back to my room and then ate dinner and soaked my tootsies.  A guy had handed me a paper about a comedy show and the admission was like $7 or something, so I decided I would check that out.  I arrived at the address listed and this is the comedy club I found. (Below)  The show turned out to have I think 4 total audience members besides myself and 6 or 7 amateur comedians performed for about 7 minutes each.  It was quite an interesting experience.  They were pretty funny!  I met a Canadian couple from Quebec at the show.  They invited me for a drink after the show was done, but I declined as I was tired and ready to crash.