Down by the Bay (San Francisco Bay, That Is)

Last week Leila and I joined my mom and Ashley on a road trip to Oakland for a cousin's wedding.  We drove out Tuesday and had a great 12 hour drive.  Leila did great in the car and the biggest downside was the smoke from all of the wildfires once we hit Reno.  Once we got to Oakland we grabbed some grub and then hunkered down in our hotel for the night.

When it was time to get Leila to bed, she surprised me by climbing right out of her crib.  As much as I've known the day was coming, I hadn't even considered that it would happen for the first time while we were on vacation, especially since she had just been in it 3 nights earlier.  No matter how many times I would put her down, she would promptly pop back out.  Not the best thing for a small hotel room being shared with her grandma and aunt as well.  It was after 1 before she finally crashed, after watching nearly 2 hours of Sesame Street.  The little stink had me searching for airfare home knowing that I wouldn't survive an entire week of nights like that.  Thankfully, she did a little bit better each night after that (due to lots of Elmo, a barricade, and pure exhaustion) so we never had to resort to jumping on a plane.

Wednesday morning we headed into San Francisco for a bit.  We walked around Ghiradelli Square and mom bought her prizes for Bunko at one of the chocolate shops.  Then, we walked out along the Hyde Street Pier.  The morning fog had burned off enough that we were able to see the Golden Gate Bridge in the distance.  Unfortunately the sunshine did little to counteract the wind out on the pier.  It was pretty chilly!

Yummy!

But, the wind was an advantage for the 2 huge racing sailboats (teams from New Zealand and Italy) out on the bay.  They were racing in the Louis Vuitton race (a preliminary race for the America's Cup).  We sat and watched them zoom all around the bay (and around Alcatraz) at speeds that were unbelievably fast for boats with no motors.

Then our touring time was up and we headed back into Oakland to pick up my grandparents at the airport.  Leila loved having additional passengers in the back seat (you'd think she gets bored with me or something) and was soon calling them Mimi and Papa and would cry every time we had to drop them off.  After we got them settled into their hotel, we headed off for dinner at Fentons Creamery.  They gave Leila a coloring page from the movie "UP" and Ashley pointed out that Fentons was the ice cream shop in the movie.  Kinda fun!

Thursday was the wedding day.  We got up and going and made it to the Oakland temple in plenty of time.  I am constantly amazed at the locations the Church is able to acquire for these buildings.  The Oakland temple is up on a hill and has a beautiful view of the bay.  We had arranged for Leila to stay out with a younger cousin, only she wasn't there yet.  So we sat and enjoyed the serenity of the grounds.  But as time kept ticking by and the ceremony was set to start, my babysitter still hadn't shown up!

Eventually they sent someone looking for us, so I sent my mom and Ashley in thinking that I'd just have to sit out.  A few minutes later my mom came running back out in her stocking feet saying that they had something worked out.  So we rushed back inside and Leila got to go play in the children's waiting room while I was gone.  I was so grateful the temple workers took pity on me because it was a wonderful ceremony!

"Sliding" down the ramp

Enjoying the View

I Love to See the Temple

Newlyweds!

Happy Papa!

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Beautiful Bride!

After pictures at the temple, we made our way to Scott's Seafood Grill & Bar for the luncheon.  When we walked in, it was a pretty formal setting and I was worried at how well Leila was going to behave.  But I didn't need to worry because between food, people, and an iPad, she was super well-behaved almost the entire 3 hours!

We had some more time to kill on Friday, so we all made our way back into San Francisco.  This time, we wandered around Fisherman's Wharf/Pier 39.  We saw a bunch of sea lions and Leila was fascinated.  She couldn't quite tell what they were.  She could see them swimming and thought they might be fish.  But then she heard us calling them sea lions and would start roaring.  On top of that, they bark like dogs.  Needless to say, she was confused and really wanted a closer look.  I had to keep a tight hold on her to make sure she didn't make a jump for the water!

There was a big carousel along the pier and Leila got really excited when she saw it.  I don't think she really knew what it was, just that it was colorful and had lots of horses on it (she LOVES horses).  Papa (quite the horse guy himself) offered to take her for a ride and we all had fun watching the two of them go around and around.

We stopped in at an old-fashioned candy shop and at lunch at Boudin bakery before leaving the city.

Enjoying some chili and sourdough bread

That night we made our way out to Modesto for the reception.  It was at a beautiful garden reception center and Leila had a great time running all around.

My little mooch

Mimi and Papa busting out the dance moves!

We got up and going early the next morning to start our long drive home.  Not that it mattered.  We got stuck in traffic right off the bat and it ended up taking us 14 hours to get home.  Blah!  But even with the long drive and sleeping hiccups, it was well worth the trip!  I hadn't been to San Francisco in over 20 years, so it was all new to me and I had a great time making some memories with some family members.

State Parks Scavenger Hunt-Central Parks

Another summer weekend has come and gone.  This past weekend was our last state parks overnighter and we hit a record TEN state parks in two days: 6 on Saturday and 4 on Sunday.  And yes, I know I am crazy.

Palisade

Can I just say how shocked I was when I saw how well this picture turned out?  1) She is sitting still.  2) She is looking at the camera. 3) She is smiling!  Now, if only the blasted wind hadn't been making her hair go crazy.  Oh well!  Still one of my new favorite pictures of her!

Daddy's little girl

Yuba Lake

One of the scavenger hunt tasks for this park was to enjoy their famous deep-fried Oreo dessert.  So how could we refuse?  The plate comes with like 5 deep-fried Oreos covered with ice cream, whipped cream, and chocolate syrup.  Yummy!

Horse-drawn compactor

Territorial Statehouse

My cute prisoners

Dancin' Fools

Fremont Indian
Right when we got to the park, the storm that we'd been travelling towards all day hit complete with pouring rain, thunder, and lightning.  We took refuge in the visitor center/museum and were pleased that they had a kids' discovery area that Leila could play around in.

Grinding corn

The fear of lightning kept us from doing one hike that was up along the cliff edge, but I still went and did this quick walk to the Cave of a Hundred Hands (praying that the clouds wouldn't unleash another downpour on me while I went).  You can't see it in the picture, but there are petrographs of hands all along the back of the cave wall.  I counted 28 full handprints with several smears, smudges, and partials around them.  Guess this was the spot to leave your mark back in the day!

Piute
Unfortunately the rain would stick with us for our last two parks of the day.  Thankfully it didn't disrupt us too much.  At Piute State Park I wrote our name using rocks along the shore while Jason picked up some trash.  All this was done while watching the lightning in the distance (in the direction of our next stop).

This was harder and more taxing than I had thought it would be.  I am so out of shape!

Jason showing off our completed project

Doing our part to keep the state park clean

Otter Creek
By this point we once again found ourselves in the pouring rain and didn't dare stay out too long because lightning was popping all around us.

Horseshoes in a lightning storm anyone?

You can't tell, but I am standing next to a replica of an Indian shelter

Goblin Valley

We stayed in a hotel in Green River Saturday night and then got up and going again the next morning.  Thankfully the skies were blue and there wasn't a bolt of lightning in sight!  Our first park of the day was Goblin Valley.

Of all the parks on our schedule for the weekend, this was the one I was most excited for.  We came here once as a family and I remembered having a blast (other than the fact that our car battery died and we had to wait there while it charged via the trailer's solar panels).  I remember us all on top of one of the hoodoos and my dad had his camera set up on a tripod below to take a family picture.  He had to scramble up the rock several times and get in place before the timer took the picture.  It was one of the many times we teased him about setting up a video camera to capture the behind the scenes of our family photos.  Unfortunately, I think the roll of film got exposed so we never even got the pictures.  Its a good memory though!

Conqueror

Leila loves sand and "bockos" (Leila speak for rocks)

The only way I could drag Leila away was to put her on my shoulders and let her pull on my hair.  Crazy, crazy girl.

Millsite
The scavenger hunt task for this park was to pack a picnic and enjoy it by the reservoir.  So we stopped at the little convenience store in the nearby town and loaded up with food before we went into the park.

Apparently we weren't getting her food fast enough

Huntington

I thought that this was going to be a pretty fast stop for this park since all we had to do was find a geocache.  I was wrong.  It probably took us an hour of walking back and forth through a bunch of burrs, gopher holes (one of which had a dead gopher in it), rabbits jumping out of bushes and startling me, and asking the ranger if he knew where it was before we finally found it.

Hot, sweaty, tired, but determined

Scofield
This was our last stop of the day and only and hour and half from home.  We were all anxious to be home at this point, so we only stayed long enough for me to get my feet wet and snap a picture or two.

I felt a twinge of despair as we were driving down Spanish Fork canyon and there was a touch of color to some of the leaves.  Don't get me wrong, I love fall and the cooler temperatures (we still reached a hundred last week).  It just doesn't last nearly long enough.  And then it will be winter.  Sighs...