A Little Adventure

Milo is a funny kid. He is getting funnier as his speech and ability to communicate improve. Recently he has demoted Monica as his bath giver. For some odd reason Dad is all the rage in giving baths. I am not sure why b/c Milo gives strict instruction on how the bath is to proceed (and it is exactly how Monica does things). It goes something like this…

“Water on!”
“Hurry, bubbles.”
I add bubbles.
The water fills the tub.
“Stop! Too much water.”
He plays for a few minutes.
“Dad, soap.”
“Squeeze soap.”
“Rub hands.”
“Get hands wet.”
“Wash me.”
I wash his body.
“Dad, shampoo.”
“Squeeze shampoo.”
“Rub hands.”
You then shampoo his head and wash out the shampoo.
“Me bath done.”
“Dad, pull white plug.” (we have a white bath stopper b/c the real stopper is broken).
“Get me out.”

It is a pretty simple process you see

There were still a few things that we wanted to see in San Francisco, so we decided to make yet another trip. We started out the day in Golden Gate Park. On the way in we stopped at the windmill. It was very fun. Scott didn’t take any pictures because he really hates plain white skies. Plain blue skies aren’t much better, but they are at least tolerable.

We went to the Conservatory of Flowers first with the hope we could beat some of the crowds and find parking near the conservatory. That plan seemed to work well as we easily parked within a 5 minute walk of the conservatory and were able to see what we wanted to see without elbowing too many innocent bystanders.

We went to the “Butterfly Zone” exhibit first. Scott and I were a bit excited to see this exhibit as they remembered something similar at the Boise Zoo. It was an excellent exhibit with many butterflies…so many in fact that a number landed on us during our visit. The exhibit at the Conservatory of Flowers was disappointing in comparison. They did have a few butterflies, but none of them were particularly exotic. Milo loved the exhibit and spent a lot of time there. According to Scott, the best part of the exhibit was the cocoon/chrysalis house where you could watch butterflies being “born.”

We then walked through the potted plants and the lowland and highland tropics. Milo didn’t seem too interested in these. I did like the potted plants as there were some pretty flowers. The exhibits here were nice, but not spectacular. Scott expected to find more flowers at the Conservatory of Flowers…

Scott and Milo enjoyed the aquatic plants exhibit. Milo walked around and around admiring the water in this exhibit. Scott enjoyed the amazingly beautiful lilies in the exhibit. They were a bit hard to shoot without a tripod, but he did get a few nice images.

We walked around all the exhibits a few more times before Milo got tired and was ready to leave. It was quite enjoyable. We all had a great time.

After the Conservatory of Flowers, we left the car parked and started off in the general direction of the botanical gardens. We weren’t sure if we would make it to the gardens or just have an interesting walk. We found these really cool houses nestled in the nice San Francisco fog and wanted to take a picture.

After taking the picture of the houses, we were considering heading back to the car when we saw the botanical garden. It is quite large and surprisingly cool. It has trees and plants from all over the world. Scott kept the camera in his backpack, so we don’t have proof of the coolness this time. You will just have to believe us…

We decided to go back to the windmill so Scott could take some pictures. After looking at the pictures I had taken with my cell phone, he decided he could do some different things with it. On the short drive over there, Milo fell asleep. I stayed in the car with him while Scott went to take the pictures.

When Scott came back from taking pictures of the windmill, Milo woke up. We ate lunch on a nice little grassy area near the windmill.

From that point we headed into the Presidio in an attempt to explore that area a bit more. The hope was to find some different vantage points and eventually end up at Crissy Field. We visited Crissy Field with Scott’s grandparents and wanted to drop by again. We stopped at Baker Beach for a really great shot of the bridge. It is a beach on the southwest side of the bridge.

After we went to Baker Beach, we stopped at another vista point. We saw some great views of the bridge. Scott followed a trail and was able to walk on the bridge for a bit.

As we continued down the road, we stopped to see the bridge near Fort Point. This turned out to be exciting. We parked within a few feet of the ocean. The waves were so big, that several times they got the car and us wet. Milo had a fun time there. He was yelling “big splash!” whenever the smallest wave would hit the rocks. Good times!

In between waves, we were able to get a fun family picture with Milo showing his great love for his parents. I guess he must not hate the travelling too badly

We ended the bridge watching by going to the grass lawns at Crissy Field. Scott got some great pictures. We were able to watch some huge boats go under the bridge (the lettering on the boat in the photo says “China Shipping Line” and was the biggest boat we have seen go under the bridge). It was amazing to see them. We had a great time! Milo had called Aunt Jill to tell her about the big waves and Scott snapped a photo while he was on the phone.

Scott also took a great photo of the skyline.

To end the day, we went to Ghirardelli Square for sundaes. They were good. You can tell that Milo enjoyed the one he had very much. He was trying to get every last little bit. The people at the table next to us were even laughing at Milo “licking” the sundae glass…now that is a shocker…other people laughing at Milo and frowning at his irresponsible parents.

We had a great time in San Francisco. We have always seen something new along with some of our favorites. We have grown to really enjoy seeing the sights in San Francisco. The weather is great and there is plenty to do.

Here are the movies that my sister took. Each one is between 5 MB and 8 MB, so they might take a while to download.

The first one is a movie of the surfers we watched last Friday. If you listen with the sound, the noise you hear in the background is Milo, I think. Then at the end (if you listen closely) you can hear Milo say “Yeah, guy!”

Surfer Movie

Now for my favorite. Milo eating the lemon at Mel’s Diner in San Francisco last Thursday. This was classic Milo. It made me laugh so hard. If you listen to the sound on this one, you will hear my sister laughing and talking to Milo in the background.

Milo and the lemon

I hope that you enjoy the movies as much as we did!

On Saturday, we decided that we would drive up to San Francisco, park the cars, and walk around to catch some of the major sites in San Francisco near the Piers.

We started out at Pier 39. We walked around Pier 39 and looked in several shops. Milo seemed fascinated with the Merry-Go-Round. He would stick his head through the bars as far as he could to watch. We asked him a couple of times if he wanted to ride and each time he told us, “No!”

We also went to the end of the pier to see the sea lions. That was very fun and interesting. On the way back some of the girls did a little shopping while the rest of us hung around on the benches and watched the people. We started early and beat most of the crowds, but things were starting to get busy by the time we left. Scott did however manage to get some nice pictures of this fun, little fruit stand that they have near the entrance of Pier 39…including his favorite fruit stand guy. Dude just seems happy as can be arranging fruit.

After we spent time at Pier 39, we decided to walk down the street and head up the stairs to see Coit Tower. My mom and Milo stayed to play in the water at Levi Plaza (the headquarters of Levi-Strauss).

Scott, my sister, my dad and I hiked up the stairs to Coit Tower. It didn’t seem as bad as I thought it would since I had actually been down them once before. It was fun to see all the little houses. There are no roads to these houses, so the residents have to carry whatever it is that they take home up or down the stairs.

I enjoyed seeing Coit Tower. They have some very interesting murals on the inside. They are about San Francisco during the early days. We saw some great views of the city. We could see Alcatraz, the Golden Gate Bridge, the Bay Bridge, the curvy section of Lombard Street, Ghiradelli Square and of course everything else in the city.

When we got back down to the plaza, we saw Milo and my mom come out from their hiding spot. Milo didn’t have his shirt on. He had gotten a little wet in the water and it was drying. After this, we walked back down to Pier 39 to get some clam chowder in a sourdough breadbowl. It was very good.

After lunch, we set out to find Ghiradelli Square. We stopped to see all the sailboats on the bay. There seemed to be quite a few that day. This time we did find Ghiradelli Square and the ice cream shop although due to Scott’s leadership we took the long way around. We all had sundaes. My, oh my were they good. I think we all enjoyed them very much. After our sundaes, Scott, Milo and Laurann set off to walk up to the curvy section of Lombard Street while my mom, my dad and I took a little rest at the park, then walked back to the cars.

Scott was once again leading and trying to punish those willing to follow him on these crazy adventures. He had read that Hyde St. was an interesting route to Lombard St. It is interesting and straight uphill. It was a hot, sweaty slog up the hill on this rare, hot San Francisco day. It was worth the pain and we watched the cable cars move quickly down the steep hill only to be stopped at the bottom. Scott took a picture of this cable car mainly because it had a Rice-A-Roni advertisement on it. Scott hadn’t seen any other ads for the “San Francisco treat” around…I wonder why At the top of Lombard St. things were a mess as usual on a Saturday. They had traffic services in place, but there is only so much that can be done. We headed down the steps near the road. Laurann and Milo took a rest on the steps while Scott photographed these beautiful purple flowers. I bet you can guess where they are if you take a look at the shot of Lombard St. from Coit Tower. The house is just covered in them. It was amazing.

On the way home, we got stuck in traffic, because it was Saturday evening in SF and there was a SF Giants game that we didn’t know about. When we got back home, we had burgers at In-N-Out. It was a fun day, but we were tired.

On Friday, we decided to go see a few of the lighthouses along the coast. We started and went across to Half Moon Bay. I took them up to see Point Montara Lighthouse. I was amazed to see this one again, because last time Scott got some great pictures of it with a blue sky. This time it was foggy. It was still very nice. We enjoyed seeing it.

We headed south on Highway 1 and stopped at Pigeon Point Lighthouse. This was very fun as well. Last time I saw this lighthouse, it was foggy. This time it was clear. It was so very interesting to see the different sights on different days.

After seeing the lighthouses, we continued down Highway 1. We were starting to get hungry and had brought sandwiches with us. We were looking for a spot with a picnic table. I suggested that we look for a state park and try eating there. When we arrived in Santa Cruz, we went down near the coast. We went through Natural Bridges State Beach. We didn’t see any picnic spots. We continued along the coast until we got to Lighthouse Field State Beach. We found a picnic table there. We chose the table in the shade so we wouldn’t get too hot. We found that it was very cold in the shade. We ate our lunch somewhat quickly.

After we ate lunch, we went over to the beach to watch the surfers. We saw the Mark Abbott Memorial Lighthouse and Surfing Museum, but I didn’t go inside it. We all enjoyed seeing the surfers ride waves. There was a cliff on the edge, so we couldn’t see all of them. The funniest thing that happened was after we watched one guy ride the wave, Milo clapped and exclaimed “yeah, guy!” I thought it was hilarious. I will post a movie my sister took of one of the surfers tomorrow.

Here is a picture of Milo and my sister at the ocean. Milo had a great time with family being here.

We were going to start down the coast to see some more things, but it was getting later in the day. It was decided that we would head back home. We just hung out at our place and rested. It was a nice afternoon.

For dinner that night, we decided to go to Armadillo Willy’s BBQ. It was very good and we enjoyed our dinner. Afterwards we went to Baskin Robbins and got some ice cream. What a great end to a great day!

My mother, father and younger sister came to visit us this past weekend. We had a really great time. We had some good times while Scott was working.

Last Thursday, we decided to set out for San Francisco. We decided that it would be best to go see the Golden Gate Bridge first. I was grateful for that, because it was actually not foggy! It looked beautiful. We walked out on the bridge from the vista point to the first tower. It was a lot of fun. Milo didn’t seem to enjoy it too much. That might have been because it was a little windy and loud from all the traffic on the bridge. It was great seeing the bridge again.

We then decided to go over into the Marin Headlands to see the bridge from a different view. I couldn’t remember which turn we needed to take. After that wrong turn, my sister wanted to keep going to see what else was on the road. This proved to be a great adventure. We ended up in Sausalito. We drove up the roads up the mountain to see the houses. It was a lot of fun.

We did make to to the Marin Headlands, but didn’t stop at Battery Spencer. It was crowded, like normal. We did drive up the road further and stopped to see a beautiful view of the bridge.

We found some old army batteries. We went on a very short little hike. We came out on the other side of the mountain where you could see the Point Bonita Lighthouse in the distance. It was very cool.

At that point we were getting hungry, so we decided to go into San Francisco to find something to eat. I took them by the Palace of Fine Arts. It is an amazing building. We ended up eating at Mel’s Diner on Lombard Street somewhere near Fillmore Street. While we were there, Milo tried to eat some lemon. My sister got a great little movie on her camera of it. I hope to get that posted tomorrow. It was hilarious. I laughed really hard.

After we ate lunch, we decided to walk around to see some of the shops. We did that and found some fun little shops. We didn’t buy anything, but did stop to get some ice cream cones.

On the way home, we decided to drive by some of the destinations in Golden Gate Park. We did make one stop to watch some surfers on the beach along the Great Highway in San Francisco. That was really fun to see.

That night, we ate dinner at a taqueria near our house. We enjoyed our dinner very much. We had a very fun day!

After we were done at Golden Gate Park, we decided that we would try and find Alamo Square. Scott really wanted to photograph some of the houses in the area, so we decided to humor him. We parked a couple of blocks away because we couldn’t find any parking closer to it. At Alamo Square there is a row of houses called “Postcard Row” or the “Painted Ladies” but most of you probably know them from the intro to Full House. Scott stopped to take some pictures while the normal folks went to play in the playground.

This was one of the better playgrounds, and Milo had a fun time. They have two sets of equipment. One set designated for children ages 2-5 and one set designated for children ages 5-12. Milo decided that the big playground equipment would be a lot more fun. He liked going down the slides. Monica liked the playground because it had a fence to keep the kids in. We walked around the square a little more to see some other really cool houses. It was starting to get windy and we were running out of time and wanted to see some other things. Despite the fact that Scott wanted to take more photographs we moved on…

This is a communications tower called Sutro Tower that a guy from Scott’s work likes. Scott was looking for it and finally found a good spot to get a token photo of it. Cool huh! It is this industrial tower on the San Francisco skyline. It just seems to fit and not fit at the same time.

Our next destination was the Palace of Fine Arts. It is a building that was built for the World Fair in 1915. Scott’s Grandma knew about it because her mother had a picture of it hanging on her wall. She wanted to go see it. The ride from Alamo Square to the Palace of Fine Arts turned out to be an interesting one. We found out first hand how steep the hills can be in San Francisco. Nothing like going over the top of a hill and not being able to see the road. What a great experience…or something like that. The Palace of Fine Arts was very beautiful. Scott enjoyed it because the light was soft and beautiful. We were too late in the day to be able to go into the museum. Maybe we’ll have to do that another trip…

We then decided to see what the Presidio was all about. We ended up down by the coast on the Army base called Crissy Field. It isn’t far from Fisherman’s Wharf. We found that there is some grass down there and a breathtaking view of Golden Gate Bridge. It was so nice that you could actually see the whole bridge. Monica was happy to see the bridge without fog. We didn’t get to spend nearly enough time there, but we will certainly go there again (we are saying that a lot and our time is short…hmm…hmm…)

We finished up there and decided that we were hungry. Scott had looked for a few restaurants, but they were in a different part of the city. After some debate, we decided that we’d go to this restaurant back by Alamo Square. We made the somewhat long trek back across the city, and after a bit of searching, found a parking spot not too far away from the restaurant. When we got to the restaurant, we learned that it is a very tiny restaurant. It was unclear to us what whether we were supposed to wait for someone to help us or if we just sat down. No one came up to us immediately, and we were hungry. We spotted a small table in the corner and decided to squish into the space available. It was at that point that the host came over to us and asked if we had reservations. We of course said, “No.” He said that he’d have to get us a bigger table and when he checked availability told us it would be about an hours wait. We learned our lesson, felt pretty silly, and left. We decided to head back toward Mountain View and if we saw something that sounded good along the way, we’d stop. Needless to say we ended up coming back to Mountain View and grabbed some burritos. It was good. Not what we had expected to have happen, but good.

Milo had fallen sleep on the way home and was so tired that he slept on Scott’s lap through dinner and didn’t even wake up when we got home. He was very tired. He tends to be that way after we go on our Saturday adventures….

After going to the zoo, we decided that we’d go to Golden Gate Park and eat lunch. After lunch, we would then look around. We soon realized that parking is a bit hard to find in the park…mainly due to the number of weddings going on it seemed. We did find someplace to park and eat lunch without too much trouble. Milo didn’t eat much, but ate his sandwich in his typical way. He opens it up, eats the insides, then eats the bread if he is in the mood. He wasn’t in the mood to eat the bread on Saturday because there was a nice green hill to run up and down.

I really love how this picture shows his cheeks jiggling. Good stuff!

After lunch, we walked down to see the Rose Garden. We did find that there was a wedding at the Rose Garden. We lucked out though because it had just gotten over. We found some beautiful flowers in the garden.

After the Rose Garden, we decided to go look at the Japanese Tea Garden. It is a traditional Japanese Garden. It was very interesting but very crowded. The most interesting part of the garden for Milo was the bridge. Scott, Milo and Grandma went to the top. Milo accepted help on the way up but wanted to go down by “meself.” He seemed a little scared but managed it alright. We looked around for a little bit, then decided that it was time to move on to our other destinations.

On the way out of the park, we saw some other things that piqued our interest…we’ll have to go and see them another day There were a lot of trees in the park and some nice trails in the park. There were also a lot of people there just hanging out. It was a very fun park and we were glad that we could go see it.

As Monica mentioned my grandparents were in town for a chunk of last week. Monica played hostess while I was at work during the week. On Saturday I joined the fun and we headed up to San Francisco for a busy day. In fact, it was so busy (or I took so many photos) that I am going to break the day up into 3 posts. Here is post number one. It covers our trip to the San Francisco Zoo.

Monica and Milo had gone to Happy Hollow earlier in the week where they have a few animals. Milo really wanted to see a giraffe, and they didn’t have any giraffes at Happy Hollow. I assumed that they would have giraffes at the SF Zoo but wasn’t sure. We left early enough that we could arrive about the time the zoo opened. As we walked up there was a small line for tickets. We were waiting in line when we realized that we could see the giraffes outside the zoo. Milo and I walked over to the fence and watched the giraffes for a few minutes while the others bought tickets. We of course went to see the giraffes first. Milo was quite excited and took off running to see the giraffes. Monica hurried to follow him. It was a pretty funny scene. The giraffes were part of the African Safari exhibit which was pretty impressive. There were giraffes, zebras, gorillas, and a number of interesting birds. The best part was that they had plenty of room to move about. Apparently the zoo had some baby giraffes born in mid-May. They were particularly fun to watch. In fact, one of the baby giraffes went for a little run. That was amazing to watch. I had no idea that giraffes could move that fast. Very fun stuff! There are a few pictures of the exhibit below.

This is one of the baby giraffes.

This is some sort of stork if you are wondering…

The silverback gorilla.

A female gorilla who had just woken up from a nap.

We left the African Safari and started to see the rest of the zoo. They have a number of interesting monkeys. Well, at least I thought it was quite interesting…Milo quickly became tired of the monkeys. He wanted to see the lions.

I found this monkey fascinating. We dubbed him the “old guy” monkey.

On the way to the big cats house we saw the penguins exhibit. We decided to see that before going on to the lions as Milo had requested. He started complaining about going to see the penguins when I saw an outdoor lion exhibit that was on the way to the penguins. Milo and I headed over there and the others followed. There was a female lion in the exhibit just lounging around. When she saw us she stood up and walked our way in a VERY intimidating fashion. It was really fun to see. Milo was amazed and then mesmerized.

We then headed over to watch the penguins. It is really fun to watch them swim around. This pair are apparently used to photos and posed for me. It was kind of funny.

We didn’t stay at the penguins very long because Milo wanted to see more lions. We headed on in to the Lion House. Most of the animals were outside. One pair of lions were being separated and the male was stuck inside and taking a nap. Milo quickly reminded us all to be quiet because the lion was sleeping. He was a bit nervous to be that close, but he really loved this lion. I guess it reminded him of Aslan in The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe movie because he asked me if the lion’s mane was going to be cut off. I assured him that wouldn’t happen. He was pretty funny about it. We started to leave, but he wanted to go back. We went back again for another quick visit.

We finally convinced Milo that we should go find some tigers. This one was lying on the ground just inside the glass. Milo was a bit nervous, but he finally did get close to the glass for a quick look. They had a few more lions and tigers in the exhibit. Most of them were taking a mid-morning nap. A little patience did result in a few action shots.

This pair of tigers was quite interesting. Tiger 1 would lick Tiger 2 until Tiger 2 became tired of the licking and would give Tiger 1 a good whack with the paw. Tiger 1 finally got smart and opened his mouth just as the whack came. It was fun to watch.

We did see some other lions sleeping. Milo didn’t seem to think that these lions were as good as the one sleeping in the Lion House….probably because you couldn’t get nearly as close…although he was scared to get close. He is a funny little boy.

Near the hippo exhibit, they had a bronze hippo that the kids could jump on. Milo enjoyed jumping on this hippo and then sliding off it.

The hippos were asleep in the water. All you could see was a little bit of their back. They were starting to wake up and we caught a few glimpses of their heads just coming out of the water.

There were peacocks all around the zoo. Some of them were in cages and some weren’t. It was fun to hear them. When we were close to one of them, it let out an interesting sound, which of course scared Milo. He wanted to move on after that.

I convinced Milo that he wanted to see the bears. We headed in that direction, but Milo quickly lost interest when he realized that there was a small steam engine doing loops nearby. He just loved to stand by the tracks and watch the train go by. We finally pulled him away from the train and moved on to see a few other interesting exhibits which I didn’t photograph.

Milo liked the lion so much, that we told him we’d go back and see it one last time. When we got to the Lion House, the doors were shut and we weren’t able to see it. We went to see the other lions, but it wasn’t quite the same for him.

I wanted to go back and see the giraffes one last time. This time they seemed to be sitting down and not up and moving around. We all decided that it was much better to see the giraffes when we did earlier.

We had a great time at the zoo. They had some great exhibits. Milo enjoyed himself. I was glad that we could show Milo some of the bigger animals in bigger spaces. I think that the bigger spaces really make a difference. It is interesting to see the animals up close and personal in smaller spaces, but it is more interesting to see the animals move around and do their thing a larger space. I guess that the next level in that progression would be to go on an African safari…

Scott’s grandparents are here visiting us for a few days. They wanted to go down to Monterey on Thursday to see a few things, so Milo and I went along for the ride. We were certainly glad that we did.

We headed down to Monterey and then drove through it and on down to Pacific Grove and out to Lover’s Point. The beginning of the day was beautiful.

We spent quite a bit of time at Lover’s Point. Grandpa and Milo loved climbing on the rocks. Milo was a good little climber.

I was disappointed to see that all the beautiful purple flowers were not there this trip. I enjoyed it anyway. We were watching the fog over by Monterey. We noticed that it was slowly rolling in. It was a lot of fun. We then went to see Point Pinos Lighthouse. We noticed that from the lighthouse you could see that there was fog on the edge of the coast.

We went on to the lovely Seventeen Mile Drive in Pebble Beach. It was very different for me because of all the fog. The fog made everything different. We did find a nice white sand beach to stop and walk around. It was very nice. We made the stop at the breathtaking Lone Cypress tree. Both times I have stopped at the tree I have found the background to be very beautiful. This time, there was a fog bank so you couldn’t see across to Carmel.

We then went down into Carmel and saw the tourist section. We finished the trip by driving back into Monterey to look at the boats on the wharf.

To finish off the day, we went with Scott to eat dinner at a great pizza and pasta place. It was great spending some time with Scott’s grandparents. It was a fun day and I enjoyed being able to see those places again.