So, we went to San Francisco for our Spring Break this year. Didn't want to do the same old Disneyland thing but wanted to go somewhere fun and exciting. It's been 15 years since Janet and I went, so we thought we'd take the kids and check it out. We left Tuesday the 6th after work and flew into Oakland, hopped in our rental car and drove over the Bay Bridge into downtown SF to stay at the Marriott. Wednesday morning we slept in a bit then went down to the wharf to meet our neighbors at the Aquarium of the Bay and hang out with them and take in the sites.

Street performers were everywhere. They loved having their pictures taken (for a tip).

Once in the aquarium we saw lots of the wildlife that lives in the bay. (not them...the jellyfish in the background).


Looks like either a hold up or he's sliding down the glass. All I could think of was Patrick from Sponge Bob Square Pants. That cartoon has ruined aquariums and documentaries for me forever.

Don't know if any of you have ever picked out your very own pearls, have you? These vendors guarentee that there's a pearl in every shell. They must x-ray them or something. Anyway, we did this at Disney World too. You look in the bucket and pick out the clam you want, then the helper opens it up and pulls out your pearl. Then they try to sell you the setting and all the peripherals...but that's not the story here. Sarah got a huge pearl and had it set, but Amanda had twin pearls in hers. She decided to not have hers set at that time. I took a long video of this and not too many pictures, sorry.

What trip isn't complete without your picture with the sea lions of Pier 39. They've actually sunk boats moored here. That's why they have thier own docks to lounge on.

Then it was off to ride the ducks! The old naval amphibious trucks. I caught this picture as we were walking down the Embarcadero on our way to catch one. The folks on the boat were having a blast.

Here we are about to boar our duck.

This is one of the buildings that was pointed out on our land tour. We started chuckling as the driver started to tell us the story of the building. Evidently some famous people stayed in this hotel while getting thier start in show business...Bette Middler, Barry Manilow, Robin Williams...well the driver was looking at us because of our strange reaction and we reminded him that we were from Utah. This after he'd asked our neighbor how many wives she had. Duh!

Sarah found some sunglasses that she liked. Doesn't she look cool?

We were all issued quackers when we boarded. While on the tour the driver played music to enhance the tour and we were encouraged to quack along. It was quite funny. You could tell the locals from the tourists and visitors to the city. The locals just went about their business while the visitors were looking up to see the strange site and weird noises.

Don't we have cute daughters?

Got kinda chilly when we dove into the bay and started driving around some of the piers.

But the captain (he's a captain while on the water and a driver while on land, actually has a captains license and bus driver license) let some of the folks drive the boat around the bay. We might have topped out at 3 knots.

This was the view from our duck looking back at downtown SF. Beautiful day, no? We had sunny warm weather the whole time we were there. The locals and shop owners kept telling us how lucky we were.

Back to Pier 39 for dinner after riding the duck. Just before we went into the resaurant I turned around to see this site. That's Coit Tower on the left and the Trans America Tower on the right and in the background. You can see how the flags are standing out straight. It was quite breezy, but we (or at least I) didn't even notice or care.

No tours to the top of the Trans America Tower (rats!) but we'll go to the top of Coit tower in a couple of days. Stay tuned for photos of that.

Happy kids. Waiting for dinner at Swiss Louis Italian & Seafood Restaurant. Great food.

Happy full kids. Naw. Just another photo of our beautiful daughters.

After dinner we were walking around the pier checking out the sites and shops and ran across this hall of mirrors. We had a lot of fun playing in here for more than half an hour. Notice the rubber gloves on our hands. They distributed them to us so we wouldn't smudge the mirrors as we held our hands out in front of us. Smart idea. Except it didn't work for the little girl I saw run right into a mirror, head first. Poor thing looked like one of those sparrows that runs into a plate glass window then looks around to see if anyone saw it, then runs away. I didn't get a picture of that, but I'll always remember it.

Our neighbor, Brian, trying to blow up his glove over his head. He never did quite get it all the way up. But we all had a laugh watching him try.

Just before we stepped into the hall of mirrors this container ship went by. They were going by all day, but in the fading sun and with the boats in the foreground, it just looked pretty.