San Francisco, day 1!

Alison came over super early in the morning while the girls were still

snoozing so we could leave for the airport!

Bless her.

Sadly, this would be her last overnight babysitting gig for us since

she is getting married in February.

Sniff, sniff.

SO happy she found her perfect man, though!

We invited Casey's parents to come along a week before the trip!

I am happy it worked out that they could come so last minute.

Walking to the air tram to get to the terminal.

Love that big smile on his face.

So excited, but a little nervous for his first flight.

He caught wind that you get free soda. AND permission to get Dr. Pepper. 

We could have ended the trip right there and he would have been happy!

Our Lyft driver to our hotel said we were super lucky to be staying in Union Square during the workers strike.
We didn't quite realize what a big deal it was until we pulled up to
mega phone chanting and drum banging chaos ALL DAY AND NIGHT. 

Our hotel was right across the street from the fancy schmancy Westin St. Francis, 

which they were majorly targeting. 

Luckily our room was towards the back so we couldn't hear them at night.

We stayed at the Handlery and it was AMAZING!

I would stay there again in a heart beat.

Super nice with great rates rates in the heart of Union Square.

We dropped our bags and headed out to start check marking off our long to do list!

We were famished but didn't have a lot of time to eat before our ferry left for Alcatraz.

We turned the corner and voila, food trucks!

These were the best philly cheesesteaks of our lives. 

No joke.

 Philadelphia needs to take notes.

Papa opted for sliders.

We went into a Walgreens to buy our city transit passes (that we used the whole trip and worth every penny) and got on the closest cable car to Pier 33!

The weather couldn't have been more beautiful.

I over packed on weather gear. 

Rain was scheduled for the following day and you hear how cold

 San Fran is so we had layers of clothing on. 

We were stripping down because we were getting too hot!

The boys were so excited to see the prison.

I am really happy they had a general knowledge of the history of it from

 watching that movie before hand.

B-Block corridor known as "Broadway"

The courtyard where they spent free time.

Papier mache heads with hair clippings from the barber shop.

Those prisoners were crafty! Haha.

They had the most gorgeous succulents on the grounds.

Heading back to the main land.

Golden Gate Bridge in the golden sunset.

Pier 33 is right next to Pier 39 so we walked over to check it out!

I loved all the Christmas décor that was out.

It made it more magical.

It is so hard to visualize what it will be like in person.

My mind was way off, lol!

What a crazy fun place.

We were starving, once again. 

And once the sun went down we started to freeze.

So we quickly ran to see the famous seals before heading to dinner.

I wish we could have explored a bit more, but oh well. We got the gist of it.

These seals, what a crack up!

I think we sat and stared at them for 20 minutes.

They were so noisy!

Just big fat blobs trying to soak up as much sun as they could.

Kind of reminded me of … me,  ha!

Get in my belly!

Boudin Bakery was a must on my list.

The atmosphere was also fun.

This is hard to post about because it makes me want to jump in my screen and devour the

most delicious ice cream creations from Ghirardelli Square!

We originally planned on sharing a couple of things.

Once we looked at the menu we ended up ordering our own sundaes 

PLUS hot chocolate and candy bars!

Pretty sure nothing went to waste, either.

We threw in the towel and called it a day.

This funny little elevator had us laughing pretty good trying to get back to our rooms.

Papa and Lane were the only ones brave enough to try it. 

The rest took the safe looking stairs!