San Fran Easter Trip

Yeah...I'm FINALLY getting around to posting our Easter vacation. We went to San Jose to visit family and had a great time. In preparing for the trip I was the most nervous about how Ellie would do flying. Of course we had all the 'oh no please don't sit by me' glances as we walked on the plane with a baby. But to everyones surprise Ellie was excellent. She is a flying champion! When she wasn't looking at books, playing with toys or eating she fell asleep in my arms. For both flights we had a lot of people (I'm sure out of relief) comment to us about how well El did on the flight. We were very lucky to not have a screaming child. Especially with hind sight...finding out that not only was she teething but also had the beginnings of an ear infection!

Here we are waiting to board our plane and fly off to CA

Ellie LOVED sitting with dad and looking out the window

Our first day my wonderful sister in law Kari watched Ellie so Jason and I could have a little vacation date. (THANKS again Kari!) We went to the Winchester Mystery Mansion. It was pretty interesting to tour through the mansion and learn about Mrs Winchester's obsession with building on and on and on to her house. After a child and her husband died a psychiatrist told her that the spirits of all the people who had ever been killed by a Winchester rifle were haunting her and the only way to please them was to keep building and never finish. Crazy huh? But that is exactly what she did. There are all kinds of random rooms, stair cases, doors and wasted space due to her crazy obsession. We weren't allowed to take pictures inside so this is all you get

The Winchester Mansion

The next day we headed to the Santa Cruz board walk for some fun in the sun. Too bad it was overcast and a bit chilly. After seeing all the clouds and bundling Ellie up I thought there was no way I would need to put the sunscreen I brought on her. WRONG! Poor little thing got her first sun burn. I felt SOOOOO BAD! Her exposed skin (good thing it was only her face, hands and wrists) were red by the time the day was over. I'll never make that mistake again!

Here's Ellie at the beach seeing the ocean for the first time. Can you believe I didn't even get her out and let her play in the sand?! I wasn't thinking clearly with the cold weather.

Cruzin' down the board walk with daddy

After some rides at the board walk, lunch, an exhausted Ellie and a long nap we headed off to our next adventure...The Mystery Spot. They say the laws of gravity are altered here. A 17 degree lean, a ball rolling down a board then back again, changes in height...it was really quite fascinating. Ellie was fussy so we didn't get to really enjoy or check all the fun things out as much as we would have liked to.

Me and El at the Mystery Spot. Note the lean...and no the house wasn't built to make it look like we're leaning.

Jason at the mystery spot..again note the lean

A little hike through the Red Woods at The Mystery Spot. I LOVED the smell of the mountains and trees! Ellie was thrilled with the bumper sticker she got to play with. It was a great afternoon.

The fam at The Mystery Spot

The next day we were off the the city...SAN FRANCISCO! Our first stop was Alcatraz. Ellie was pretty good for the first 30 minutes...but then she got super fussy. I didn't get to see hardly anything I wanted to or listen to the audio tour I started...but that's just part of being a mom. Traveling with a baby is SOOOOOO different from what Jason and I were use to. We use to go, go, go and cram as much sight seeing and activities as we could into one day. That doesn't work with a child. Although she was fussy she did pretty well considering we had her in a VERY different environment without her usual routine, we were hauling her all around and she was teething and getting an ear infection.

On the ferry heading out to Alcatraz

Ellie slept through her first boat ride

The Golden Gate Bridge from the ferry

Me and Ellie at Alcatraz...getting ready to start the audio tour. This was before the fussiness started

My handsome jail bird!

Me and El at Alcatraz. It was just a little bit windy ;-)

After Alcatraz it was off to Pier 39 for some clam chowder at Chowder's. Yummy! Look at that sourdough bread bowl!

Me and Jas on our 'pretend' cable car ride. Although we REALLY wanted to ride a cable car we opted not to when we found out it was an hour and a half wait!

When you can't ride the cable car there's nothing better to do that eat some chocolate at Ghiradelli square!

Driving though the STEEP streets of Cisco. You can see Alcatraz in the background.

Lombard street...the famous really crooked street. Not the best picture since we were driving past it (again another long line we didn't want to wait in just to say we've driven down it so we drove past instead) but you get the idea. Having a fussy child takes away all patience and desire to waste time waiting in lines.

Easter Sunday we went to church then had a relaxing afternoon and great Easter dinner. The next morning we flew back to Utah. It went by way too fast and we had a great time...fussy Ellie and all. THANKS JAKE AND KARI FOR A GREAT TIME! WE LOVED VISITING YOU AND APPRECIATE YOUR HOSPITALITY! :-)