San Francisco Days 4 & 5

I wonder if P. Diddy wears his chains to bed too?

Day 4 in San Fran had us driving out to Gilroy with Joey so we could hit up the outlet mall out there! Ryan spent 90% of our time there hanging out in front of the coin-operated machines, begging for 'money...money...money' so he could 'ride horsey.'

My favorite machine there- the San Francisco trolley car of course! :-) And get this- a few feet away from the trolley car, Rich found a $100 bill!!! What makes this even more hysterical is while we were there not too ago, I found $80 blowing in the street! So we like to joke that money grows everywhere in San Fran, and that we *can't wait* to see what we'll find there on our next trip!

After the outlet mall, we got a walking tour of the Mission district from Joey (he lives right nearby in Doboce Triangle). The night before we walked around the same area and pounded some Asian noodles at a standing-room only Burmese noodle house called Yamo.

But on that night, we were headed to dinner at an Ethiopean restaurant (loved it so much in NYC that we wanted to have it one more time before we left)! Notice Ryan's ever present chains on the table?

Like the new 'do? Since the next morning was Mothers Day, in honor of the occasion I decided to get my hair cut, colored and permed. See one of my little jars of Clinique from Rich & Ry for Mothers Day? The day before, Rich had hopped onto the trolley and ran down to Union Square so he could surprise me with the lotion/creams I've been wanting! Mama is nearly THIRTY FREAKIN' SIX now, so it's time for her to start taking care of her skin!

We thought Ryan would want to get a similar 'do as mommy, but apparently he wasn't all that into it! Check out that scowl and his arms being held down (so he wouldn't rip it off)! He was howling 'All done! all done!' the whole time! :-)

Right outside Uncle Joey's apartment in Duboce on our nightly family walk through the Mission-Castro-Duboce districts (which always ended at Three Twins so we could get lemon-cookie ice cream)!

After an early Mothers Day lunch at my favorite place to eat ever (Herbivore!), Joey drove us over to the Marina district so we could walk around and take a few pics (while Ryan snoozed in the car).

The family playing at Crissy Field with the Golden Gate Bridge and marina in the background...the best running/playing area EVER. Possibly even better than Central Park because of the ocean and bridge views!

Ryan & Daddy at Crissy Field...hours before we had to catch our return flights home.

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Strangely enough, even though we had a shared an obviously very meaningful moment the night before, Mayor Newsom was not at the airport to bid us a farewell. ???? I mean, maybe I'm reading too much into this, but didn't his smile in our photo together just totally scream "Please leave your husband and son to come and be my First Lady or I'll just die, die, die!?"

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Yeah. That's what I thought too. So it's all the more baffling that he didn't pull up next to us at the airport, standing up in the open window of a limo clutching roses and screaming my name trying to get me to change my mind... Ah well. He's playing hard to get, I bet. It's probably why he didn't squeeze my butt in the photo. I can respect that. He's trying different tactics...I like it!

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It's super hard to summarize this trip succinctly, but I'll try... Our first post-baby trip (Alaskan cruise/Seattle) was peaceful and nice. We loved it. But there was something super AWESOME about this trip. Even though it was a bit long (9 planes over 17 days!) and a bit rushed/tiring at times (San Diego), we JUST LOVED...getting to see our friends and family (Ryan LOVED all the attention and love), riding things with Ryan (planes/taxis/boats/trolleys/trains/ferris wheels/carousels), seeing cool people (David Letterman, the Cake Boss crew, Gavin Newsom), eating great Greek/Ethopean/Burmese/vegetarian food and playing in parks (NYC & SF boast some of the best food and parks in the country!), etc. All we could talk about was trying to buckle down financially so we can go back to two trips a year (when we lived in CA & Japa we always went back to Hawaii once, and abroad once). With tuition payments and soon-to-be mortgage payments this will be tough, so I'm crossing my fingers and wracking my Chinese-brain to come up with ways to save more money. :-)