Our Awesome Weekend

I just had one of the best weekends ever. My family came out to visit me in San Francisco and we totally did the tourist thing. Our sons had never been to California before though me, Tara and our friend Paul had all been at least once or twice. We took in Chinatown and the Fishermans Wharf on what was inarguably the coldest day in San Francisco in recent years. Within minutes of getting out of the car at Pier 39, we were buying jackets and hats and scarves and anything else we thought would give us some relief from the wind and cold air blowing off the bay. Still it was incredible and we ate at a RainForest Cafe where all sorts of creatures came to life and talked to you while you were walking through or eating. We sat near one of the tropical fish tanks so we could enjoy the fish while we dined. Syrenboy loved it as did we all. It's amazing how fast time flies when you're having fun. We took a carriage ride down from the Wharf to Ghiradelli Square where we proceeded to buy way too much chocolate but we couldn't help ourselves. We topped the night off with drinks (coffee mostly) with a friend of mine that lives here now.

The next day we were set to goto Alcatraz only, me being the complete idiot that I am, I didn't check to see exactly when our tickets were for until the day of. It turned out after we spent 30 minutes trying to figure out why our tickets wouldn't print that I'd missed the date. I could have sworn I set them for Saturday not Friday. We recovered from that setback though and made a great day out of it still. We went to the San Francisco Zoo and had an awesome time seeing all the different animals. We read some very interesting facts on Gorillas and Chimpanzees and were only dissappointed because the Lion and Anaconda exhibitis were closed. The wheather kept most of the animals indoors where we could still see them but they probably weren't as active as they would normally be. It was pretty chilly at the Zoo in the shade but nowhere near as chilly as it had been the day before down by the wharf. We were all pretty excited about Saturday too because we were meeting Chelli and Jim later that evening. After the Zoo, we took another trip downtown to really get into the heart of Chinatown. We didn't do much shopping in Chinatown due to time constraints but we did have Dim Sum and it was delicious. It was actually the first time I'd gone to an authentic chinese restaurant without one of my authentic chinese friends tagging along to translate and tell me what was good and so forth. Now that Tara and Paul have tried it, we're definitely going to check out some of the local DimSum restaurants in Atlanta. By the time we finished eating, it was nearly time to head across the bay to meet up with Chelli and Jim. Thank Cod for our little Garmin GPS that came with the rental car. Anywhere we needed to go, all we had to do was put in the address and in many cases we didn't even have to do that. We spent a good portion of Friday evening looking up places by category and letting the GPS take us there so we could see all of the neat sites in the city.

We were supposed to meet up with Jim and Chelli around 7-7:30ish saturday but by the time we finished paying and getting the car, the little GPS thingy was telling us we would arrive around 7:30pm. Another stop at the hotel to change the baby who'd spit up all over himself and it was closing in on 8pm. That's when we arrived and walked in to find Chelli and Jim pitcher in hand waiting for us. We were a little concerned that our friend Paul might feel completely out of the loop as he knew very little of OT or RealityTVWorld for that matter. I told him beforehand how me and Tara met and about our little community but he was about to come face to face with it firsthand. Chelli is such a comedianne and Jim is so funny that within minutes they were laughing and swapping stories and everyone was just having a great time. Jim and Syrenboy spent most of the night playing hide and seek. Syrenboy was determined to take pictures of Jim and thus Jim spent a good portion of the evening with his hands in front of his face. Meanwhile Chelli and Tara spent a lot of time outside gossipping about what, I dont know but they were very giggly. We just had so much fun that before we knew it the clock was reading 11:30ish and the restaurant was thinning out. Syren is so cute when she's had a bit to drink and her and Chelli were just adorable running around the place together like long lost sisters. It sucked big time when we had to say goodbye and head back to our hotel but we still had things to do and relatives to meet the next day and I'll post more about that later.