San Francisco.

Oh SAN FRANCISCO! Every other year my dad's side of the family has a big family reunion. It also rotates through the siblings on who plans and coordinates the vaction. Well this year my dad's brother Alan was in charge and he decided to go to San Francisco. This vacation took place in June of 2007! We stayed in these two houses right by the ocean. The roads to get there were unreal! Let me just tell you. They were so windy and twisty that almost everyone got carsick. When we got there my grandma wouldn't leave because she didn't want to drive the roads again.

We did a lot of really cool things on this vacation. One of them was we spent a day in downtown San Francisco. This picture is of us waiting to catch the trolley. It was such a cool thing. We road the trolley car into China Town actually. And we ate at this place that I will never ever forget. It was like old time "real" Chinese food. The people walked around with carts with really random food on it and then they would ask you if you wanted a plate or two. If you took it they would just write on your "card/receipt" that you took it. The stuff on the plates was crazy. I cannot even describe it. I can just say that I was starving when we got there and all I ate was half a glass of water.

We also did a lot of other things while in town that day. We went to this little "mall" and went into all of these cool little shops. My favorite was the Ghirardelli chocolate factory! They gave us a whole chocolate for free! It was even my very favorite kind... caramel!! Oh man it was sooo good. It was fresh from the factory and just melted in my mouth!

We also went to this really cute little cupcake bakery. It cost like $4 for one cupcake! So we got two and split them with the fam. They were really cute and delicious... but a cupcake is never worth $4 in my opinion! We also visited a bakery that made all sorts of breads... you could go around and look at the machines that made the bread. We ate there for lunch... I got a sandwich and split it with momma! Then for dinner we all ate at the Rainforest Cafe. Which is always a blast! All-in-all the day in town was my favorite part of the trip!

Another thing we decided to do was go to Alcatraz. This is a picture of us on a boat ride on our way over there. As you can see... it was really cold and windy! But it was super interesting. They gave you headphones that plugged into a cassette player and you would walk through the jail and listen to the tape. It was one of the creepiest, scariest, most interesting things I have ever done! I loved it!

The most epic thing we did was visit the Golden Gate Bridge! It was SO cool. We only walked half way and then walked back. But it was seriously one of the coolest things I have done. It is a HUGE bridge! Let me tell you. I felt like I walked 5 miles and I was probably pretty close. So this is the picture my dad took of us when we were half way across the bridge and then we decided to head back.

Here we are at the beginning of the bridge. Yes Matt is looking very cute with his tongue sticking out. My family is very good at not taking one good picture! Haha oh and this is the picture Spencer got his profile picture from for Facebook. And it has been his profile picture for the past 3 or so years! He says "It's my sexy picture" haha good times!

We also did a lot of cool things back at the houses. They were right on the bay of the ocean. There was an inlet that was basically shut off from the ocean and it was fresh water. Don't ask me how that is even possible but it was. It was really cool! And the houses came with these kayaks. So we went and played in the water and it was a ton of fun! This is a picture of me and Spence coming back from our kayak adventure. And that is the "dock" that is right up against the house.

We also did some playing on the beach! We had awesome kites and since it is so windy there we flew them quite a bit. This is a picture of my dad being my dad and of course holding the kite in the exact right place so the octopuses "legs" are whipping us in the face! Oh how I love my daddy!

This is a picture of me attempting to fly the kite. I love having my picture taken as everyone knows so this is me smiling seriously for the camera. Look at that joy! Haha I am not a good kite flyer is what I discovered on this trip of ours! I would run up and down the beach as fast as my legs would let me and the kite would just slide across the sand... it wouldn't go in the air for me. So my dad would get it in the air and let me hold the rope! What a nice man!

This picture is of the whole crew! (Mike's on his mission) It was such an awesome vacation! I did and saw a lot of things that I believe someone should see sometime in their lifetime! I would love to go back to San Fransisco someday. There is so much history and just cool things there. Overall, it was a very successful family vacation.

san francisco.