San Francisco!

On March 17th it was our NINE year anniversary! I really just can't believe that we have been together for nine years - the time has gone by so fast!

We wanted to do something fun to celebrate. So we begged Maren to come spend the weekend with the kiddies and we hit the road to San Francisco!

We left Friday night as soon as the girls got home from school. I wanted to leave earlier, but Brian wanted to wait, so that he could tell the girls goodbye. Because we hit the road late, we hit rush hour traffic. So it took us a while just to get out of Vegas. Then about 300 miles into the trip the bearings started to go out on one of the truck tires. We pulled over to check in out, and to decide what we were going to do. At this point it was close to 11 PM. We couldn't fix it. We had 200 miles left to get to the hotel - but it was 300 to make it home. We decided to push forward to the hotel, praying the whole way that the tire wouldn't suddenly fall off. We finally got to the hotel in San Jose at 2 AM.

Brian woke up early the next morning and was able to immediately get the truck into the dealership to be fixed. He went to drop off the truck, and I showered and got ready to go. I was just finishing packing when he pulled up in the rental car - a Mercedes!

Luckily, because he was able to get the truck in so early - it didn't mess up our schedule at all!

Our first stop was the Winchester Mystery House. It was awesome!!! It was so big, and weird. On the tour, they told us that construction lasted 24 a day 7 days a week for 38 years. They literally NEVER stopped building. The house was also remodeled 600 times in those 38 years. The servants had to had a new, updated map of the house weekly - so that they could find their way around.

Your not allowed to take pictures inside the Winchester House. But because I am a rebel, I was able to sneak one of my cell phone:

This is a picture of some stairs that go up to the ceiling.

After touring the Winchester House, we met our friend Tammy for lunch at a super yummy Indian restaurant. Then we dropped of the rental car, picked up the truck and headed to San Francisco to see the Muir Redwoods.

On the way to Muir Redwoods, and back to the hotel in San Franscisco we had to cross the Golden Gate Bridge:

And through this rainbow tunnel:

The next morning we got up bright and early to catch the ferry to Alcatraz Island. I had booked us a hotel close to Fisherman's Wharf, where the ferry leaves from, so that we wouldn't have to drive (driving in San Francisco is a NIGHTMARE!). So we set out walking - only problem was, we were heading the wrong direction! Luckily, we figured it out, and got to the pier just in time.

We LOVED Alcatraz! It was really cool. We arrived just in time to take a ranger lead "behind the scenes" tour about escape attempts. It was awesome, because we were able to go in alot of buildings and areas of the island that are normally closed to the public. After the ranger tour, we took the regular audio tour the the cell house.

We spent a few hours at Alcatraz, then we came back and spent the rest of the day hanging around Fisherman's Wharf.

Monday, we spent the whole day driving home. We were ready to get home and see the girlies, and rest my stiff legs from all the walking we did! But it was so nice to get away from a couple of days, with just the two of us!!!