Tuesday, May 29, 2012

Easter in Northern California

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(annual Easter Sunday best, 2012, Palo Alto)

For Spring Break of sorts my entire family headed for San Francisco/Palo Alto (where we lived for awhile about 12 years ago)
It was a great 5 days of fun and all our old fav restaurants, beach spots, and memories from our life there.

We started the trip with 2 days in San Francisco

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Visiting golden gate park and walking the bridge

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And Eric's favorite San Fran spot, the Ferry Farmers Market. And all its divine samplings and yummy gourmet food shops. OUr kids favorite was the spot where they make all kids of grilled cheese sandwiches. Eric loved the oyster shooter bar when you picked your oyster and toppings.

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Union Square Park, Max kept feeling jipped. He said every park we went to "where are the swings? slides?" San Fran is not exactly full of playground parks.

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The kids loved the Pier and Fisherman's Wharf, fun carnival food, games, and cool shops. Must more their flavor.

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Lucy loves her uncle Spencer, and she loves carousels maybe even a little more.

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We had the best dinner down on the Wharf at Scoma's, delicious seafood. Ady even did her first oyster shooter. Then we followed that up by dessert at Ghiradelli Square. Yum.

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When we lived in California, our very favorite beach to go to as a family was San Gregario. It always had tons of logs, we would build beach forts, and chase he tide into caves. And catch teeny sand crabs. We did all those things again. My kids loved it.

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Our try at a beach family portrait, I don't remember who took this pic but we had no warning we were about to get washed away.
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During naps one day Spencer and I hit the San Fran shopping scene. Hard.

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After 2 days in the city we headed down for 2 nights in Palo Alto, the town we lived in. And it is as wonderful as I remember.
We visited out old home, and even found remnants of a treehouse we built there. My kids loved running around the gorgeous yard and we loved having all our great memories come flooding back.

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Easter morning on Sunday proved a little tricky as we were in a hotel. But we worked it out, egg hunt on the gorgeous hotel grounds, baskets hidden in my brother and parents rooms, and the easter bunny himself even showed up for the hotels brunch. Our kids were happy.

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Then we headed off for church at our old Palo Alto ward. Good to see old faces, and places.

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The kids enjoyed themselves so much we practically had to drag them home. Maybe thats cuz our flight got in after midnight back to Utah. Oy. It was a exhausting trips, as are all trips with kids but lots of great memories were made.

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2 comments:

gentry's said...

i used to follow your blog religiously back when I was also consistently blogging myself. I remembered your family out of no where this evening and I happy to see that you and your family are as lovely as ever. Your little Lucy has gotten so big. Your family is gorgeous and I really hope my family can be as outgoing and loving as yours seems to be as we continue to live our lives. Thanks for being an inspiration to me. And congrats on having such beautiful family inside and out.

Jen Bird said...

I remember when you moved there....I was so sad! :( What a fun trip to go back and visit again!