Spring Break

This is going to be a LONG post, I'm going to tell you all about Spring Break which was the week of April 5-9th.

This year we decided for Spring Break to take the kids to San Francisco. Devin and I have both been many times and have enjoyed our trips there, so we figured, why not.

We flew out Tuesday morning on Delta. The kids love going on the plane. An hour and 45 minutes later we landed in sunny San Francisco. The weather was definetly nicer there, we were all glad to leave the snow behind that was on our lawn that morning.

After taking a van taxi to our hotel, we took a stroll down to the pier so we could pick up our City passes. Our hotel was walking distance to the pier. But first, we stopped to have lunch, we were hungry. The city passes gave us umlimited bus, muni, and trolly access, as well as passes to the places we were going to visit.

The very first thing we did was visit the Aquarium on the Bay. I love real aquariums and have always wanted to take my children to one. And this one was definetly better than the aquarium we have in Utah, if you can call that an aquarium.

The kids loved going on the moving walkway going through an aquarium. There was sharks, tons of fish and star fish and all sorts of goodies in the huge walk through aquarium. They couldn't get enough.

After the aquarium, we headed to Musee Mechanique so we could put coins in the old machines. Brayden even had give him a fortune.

The next day before our scheduled trip to Alcatraz, we stopped by Pier 39 to see the Sea Lions. Chloe loved the Sea Lions. We watched them for a good 30 minutes before we had to go.

I have been the only one in the family to go to Alcatraz before, so I was excited we could all go.

The kids had a lot of fun listening to the history behind Alcatraz. We had to pause the recorders a few time so we could take pictures in the cells.

After the tour, one of the guys who was in the Alcatraz prision was there signing his book. Brayden walked up to him and asked what it was like in prision at Alcatraz. The old prisoner responded, "It was like living in Hell!!" Brayden had a smile on his face for asking, but quickly walked away. lol.

After Alcatraz we headed to our dinner reservations at Rainforest Cafe. Whenever we find one, we always make plans to eat there.

Thursday we hoped on a bus and headed to the Exploratorium. Everyone was excited to go there and get there hands on all the exhibits. We were there for the majority of the day. This is the one place I suggest to anyone visiting San Francisco to go visit. There is so much there to see and do. It's similar to the Childrens museum in SLC, but 100% way better.

After the Exploratorium we went to China Town. Brayden has been waiting for a long time to see China Town. There is something about China that Brayden finds fascinating. Of course, he would much rather go to real China, but in the meantime, this will do.

Besides souviers that needed picked up in China Town, the one place we had to visit was The Fortune Cookie Factory. Here in this little shop is where they make actual fortune cookies.

First, the thin circular cookie is pulled off a hot press. Then, a fortune is placed on one side of the hot, flat dough. Next, each soft, hot cookie is shaped over a steel rod into the shape of a fortune cookie. This process must be done very quickly, otherwise the cookie will harden before it has the right fortune cookie shape.

There are 3 women who are at these machines making them. Only 3. Really amazing! This small fortune cookie factory has been making fortune cookies and shipping them around the world since 1962. We of course bought a bag of chocolate and vanilla fortune cookies, and another bag of just vanilla. YUM. They are all gone now. lol.

For our last day in San Francisco we decided we would go see the Golden Gate Bridge and go to the Science Museum for a while. We had to be back to our hotel by 3 pm though so we could catch our taxi back to the airport.

When we got off the bus to see the Golden Gate Bridge the kids were super excited. They have been eyeing the bridge ever since we got to San Francisco.

After looking at the Golden Gate Bridge for a while, we hoped back on a bus and headed to the Science Museum. This wasn't our favorite place to go. Way to packed for a science museum, and way to busy. We did spend some time looking at their aquarium, and we did visit the rooftop which was cool, but really, it wasn't something we would do again.

This picture that didn't turn out to good because you couldn't use flash is of a Seaweed Dragon, or something like that. They were really cool.

We are definetly glad to be back home and are glad we took the kids. They haven't stopped talking about it since we've been back. They definetly want to go again.

As you can tell I've slowly started scrapping our trip. With over 200 pictures that were taken, it was hard to pick and choose what to show you. I can't wait to scrap it all!