San Fran--day 1

Before we ever headed out on this road trip, we sat at the table together as a family and told each of the children that they could pick something they would like to do on the trip.  That way, they each had something to look forward to on the trip, they were excited about each others activities, and didn't feel like we're necessarily dragging them everywhere. It was great.  I highly recommend it.

little g and G had scouted out a great place for mini golf and laser tag at Golfland in Milpitas, California.  The kids had a lot of fun there and it turned out to be an award winning mini golf course/courses.  The three courses were difficult and the grounds were really neat.  We were off to a great start with all of the kids happy that we had driven a little out of our way to get to a great spot.

Once we arrived in South San Francisco, we unloaded our stuff in the hotel and took off to Downtown San Francisco for the 4th of July fireworks.  The kids were so excited to see fireworks since we are always gone every 4th of July on our family vacations.  They were really stoked after reading on MSN that San Francisco had the 6th best fireworks show in the country.

After leaving our hotel we were driving along and found the Golden Gate National Cemetery.  It was cool to think we had happened onto it on the 4th of July.  We grabbed a picture and continued down the road where there were several cemeteries including Greek Orthodox, Catholic, Chinese, Italian, Japanese, Orthodox, Russian, Serbian and Jewish.  If we hadn't been in such a hurry to get a "place" to watch fireworks, I would have loved to have taken some time to visit them.  So neat.

I couldn't help but think this was a little gift from Cupid.  Love my D.  <3 p="">

We parked the car at pier 35 I think, paid $60 for the tiniest parking spot EVER and walked a long ways down to pier 39.  While walking we happened onto some of the Exploritorium exhibits.  The kids had fun pushing each other around on huge clock hand things.  Then they discovered a wall that lots of children were climbing.  They all had their shoes off climbing until some men saw them and told them that it really wasn't a climbing wall. It had something to do with an equation of solar energy. haha

The girls loved seeing Smurfette .

Once we scored our spot at the south end of Pier 39, we grabbed a couple of pictures.

We sat there for more than two hours, maybe three before the fireworks started.  It was fun watching the kids watch.

We got back to the hotel late and then talked a bit, or a lot.  It's hard to just go to sleep when you've got everyone in one room.  But I love it that way.  Makes me so happy.  :)  It had been a long day.  But it was a good one.