Gonzalo is here and San Franscisco

Major Picture overload, but I wanted to document the one month Gonzalo was here in just a couple of posts, so I packed in the pictures.  We took the Rhino up to Farmington canyon for a ride.  It was beautiful and just a nice ride, no big scary hills or danger.  The view on the top was amazing.  There was still quite a bit of snow at the top.

This time while Gonzalo was here we decided to take our family vacation.  We headed to San Francisco and through the redwoods on a family ROAD TRIP.  We had an absolute blast.  I can't even describe with words the love I have for family vacations.  Its like we transform out of our normal regular life into something magical where there is little to no arguing and everyone has such a great time.  We rented a van for this adventure and Cameron thought that was the best part of the entire trip. It was roomy and we even had room to throw in a tent so we could camp part of the time and stay in hotels part of the time.

On the long drive down we stopped in Napa valley to check out the vineyards.  In Spain, Gonzalo's family owns a wine company and many vineyards.  It was neat to show our boys something similar to what they do in Spain.

Shane got us tickets to Alcatraz.  It was totally worth the money to see this historic site.  We took a ferry out to the island then walked around the jail and took a walking tour.  It was funny because everyone had their own headset so we traveled together but heard our own tour guide the one in Spanish was slower so we kept having to wait for Gonzi.  One time we lost Cameron because he turned right instead of Left and got a bit freaked out.  It was interesting and beautiful.

We HAD to stop for a sourdough bowl at Boudins.  It was very tasty.  Shane loves sourdough bread and straight from San Fran was so yummy.  We also went on a bread tour.  It was very interesting and we loved watching the bakers during the different processes.

We were waiting for it to get dark so we could see the Golden Gate with the lights on so we stopped at this park that had these red chairs all over it.  The boys hauled them all around and made a fort out of them that they kicked a soccer ball through.  It was one of those magical vacation moments that we all needed where we just relaxed and let the boys be children.  They were creative, nice to each other and had a ton of fun.

Oakland Temple.  On Sunday we went and walked around the temple grounds at the Oakland Temple  it was so beautiful and we love to share part of who we are with Gonzalo.

At the base of the Golden Gate Bridge is a fort that was used to protect the coast.  It is so windy and cold there.  In fact people lived there way back when and they said it was incredibly difficult to live there because of all the wind.  After we visited the fort we walked across the bridge.  It was also windy and we only made it about 1/3 of the way until we were satisfied.  There was great whale watching right on the bridge and we also saw a seal eating his lunch.  San Francisco did not disappoint that is for sure.