Chineese New Year Flower Festival in San Francisco

Our family took a little trip to San Francisco's Chinatown for the start of the Chineese New Year festival.  We have wanted to take the ferry into the City for a long time and finally found a day we could do it.  We drove to Vallejo from our house and then tried to catch the ferry into San Francisco, but the ferry was too full.  So they boarded us on nice buses and we drove just as fast over the bay bridge into the city.  It was a beautiful day in San Francisco.  70 degrees and beautiful blue skies. 

We were dropped off in the Financial District at the Ferry Building.  Alex imediately spoted the bow and arrow and wanted to go and check it out.  We had plenty of time so we went to see it.

 Afterwards, we went and found a yummy place to eat some lunch.  Then we walked over to Chinatown.  We entered through the Dragon Gate.

  "the only authentic Chinatown Gate in North America. Unlike similar structures which usually stand on wooden pillars, this iconic symbol conforms to Chinese gateway standards using stone from base to top and green-tiled roofs in addition to wood as basic building materials. The Gateway was designed by Clayton Lee, Melvin H. Lee and Joe Yee in 1970." -Wikipedia

 Then it was time for shopping.  Every Chinese nick-nack and do-dad you can imagine was in Chinatown plus some really cool stuff.  We told the kids they could each pick one souvenir.  The hunt was then on.    Alex picked a panda bear, Sarah a scarf, Lily chose a pink umbrella.

 We went into lots of Shops and saw some really fun things. 

 Chinatown has lots of beautiful colors. Mommy enjoyed taking lots of pictures of all of the colorful decorations for the new years celebration. 

 We came upon a dragon dance.  It was really neat. 

 The dragon chased the ball but never caught it.

 Of course, a flower festival needs beautiful flowers.  The orchids were gorgeous.  Mom found one that she wanted to buy, but Dad didn't have enough cash.  They started to walk away and then the man selling the flowers called out to her that he would sell it to her for what she had.  Mom really wasn't trying to haggle, but did end up with a pretty orchid for a good price. 

 On one street corner, we saw some girls dancing with pink cherry blossom umbrellas. Lily really like this and decided she wanted an umbrella just like theirs.  Luckily, they were easy to find.

After shopping and mingling in the crowds, we met up with Uncle Mark and Aunt EJ.  They had driven into town after work.  We found a yummy Chinese restaurant to enjoy dinner together. 

One funny thing that happened at dinner was that Dad had lost his voice from a cold he had that day.  By the end of the day it was mostly gone.  When we went to dinner, somehow, Dad was the one that the waiter kept talking to for our order.   He could barely communicate with him because of the language differences and let alone not having a voice left.  When the they brought the food out to us not all of our food was there.  Later Daddy told mommy he kept trying to communicate to the waiter that the order was wrong and then finally he just gave up.  Mommy remembers him looking very stressed but didn't know why. She thought maybe he wasn't happy with what we were ordering, but she was sitting on the other side of the table and had no idea what was going on.  So our dinner turned out a little sparce.  No Cashew Chicken tonight. 

To top it off we found out that that restaurant only took cash.  So Dad (because he is the fasted runner of our group) had to run 3 blocks to the bank pull out cash and run back.  Needless to say he was pretty worn out after that dinner experience.

 We rode the Trolley Car down to the Financial District, because our feet were so tired from walking all day.

  Then we caught the Ferry home.  The Bay Bridge was twinkling outside our windows.  It as a fun adventure.  Everyone (even Daddy, as tired as he was) had fun. 

Lake Tahoe Snow Day

 We drove up to Lake Tahoe to go sledding a couple days after Christmas.  We were a little disappointed though because there wasn't much snow.  On the positive side, the weather was great 50 degrees and Lake Tahoe is always beautiful so we decided to go for a little walk in the snow instead.  The kids were good sports about it and ended up having lots of fun throwing snowballs and exploring.  After a long walk and playing in the snow we headed home.  We stopped and got hot cocoa first and sipped it on our drive down the mountain back to 65 degrees and palm trees. 

Christmas 2013

We had a really nice Christmas this year.  On Christmas Eve we went for a hike around Folsom Lake.  The lake is really low, but it is still beautiful.

 Not sure what Sarah is doing in this picture.  :)

 Holly and Pine.  Someone decorated the forest for Christmas.

 We sat on a stone wall and ate some apples while looking out at the lake.

 Lily picked some Mistletoe.

 Looking down at the lake. 

 Lily and Alex hiking back to the car.

 After our hike we went back home and got ready for Mark and EJ to come.  We made lots of yummy treats for our dinner that night.  Mark and EJ brought lots of yummy food too. 

 It was nice to have them here and be with family.

 The classy corn dogs were for Alex to eat.  :)

 That night we acted out our nativity play.  Lily was an angel.  Alex, Sarah, and Daddy were shepherds.  Uncle Mark and Aunt EJ were Joseph and Mary.  Mommy got to be the narrator this year. 

 After our nativity, we sang lots of Christmas songs until everyone was tired.  It wasn't long before the kids were tired and wanted to go to bed, so Christmas Morning would come. 

 Christmas morning was fun.  The kids all liked opening their presents and then playing with them afterwards.  Lily loved her teddy bear. She named him Cozy Lozy.  

 That was all she asked Santa for this year. 

 Uncle Mark enjoying a new book and Sarah playing on the Apple (ipad).

 Lily, Sarah, and Alex in front of the tree.

Lily spent several hours just like this.  Playing in her new doll house.  Merry Christmas!