Ghirardelli Square

Back to San Francisco...

We went to Ghirardelli Square and saw this great view of Alcatraz before we actually crossed the street to the amazing square of chocolatey goodness!

We made it! These buildings are where Ghirardelli used to make its chocolate. Now, they've moved the chocolate making somewhere else, and all these buildings are little shops. 

We didn't go in the shops, but we did notice this piece of chocolate-making goodness. 

And then we went to the most important place there: Ghirardelli's Original Chocolate Shop. There we enjoyed the sights, smells, and tastes of excellent chocolate!

Jordan got ice cream involving peanut butter and chocolate. I got chocolate ice cream with strawberries, which is one of my favorites!

Stephen found some hot chocolate that actually competes with his mom's hot chocolate; that's saying something! 

Mel and I were very glad to go to Ghirardelli Square! 

Here I am!

I've been having blog issues, and I've been out of town again. Excuses, I know. But here's a post for now, and hopefully more will be coming soon!

Claire and I hung out on the couch for a while. She's my sweet girl.

Our neighbor is letting us borrow this little piano for now.  And Claire sat in a box to play it; I don't know why.

Cable Car

The next day, the boys didn't have much to do at their convention, so we packed a lot in to the time we all had. We walked down to the end of the cable car line and watched them turn each car around so it could go back the other way.

We had to wait in line for a while, and we ended up getting serenaded by a guy who was just trying to make a buck. He sang to us even though we showed no sign of paying him. And when I pointed out some change on the ground, he didn't bother to pick it up. I guess he wasn't in it for change; he really wanted bills. 

We were finally able to get on a car, and we were ready to head to Ghirardelli Square! 

Chinatown

During our first afternoon in San Francisco, we went to Chinatown!

The boys next to the classic lion.

A view of one of the Chinatown streets.

A view of the Golden Gate Bridge from the middle of the street. I'm glad I didn't get hit as I stopped to take this picture while crossing the street.

I just had to get a picture with this interesting instrument!

This street was very festive!

We had fun just walking around, looking in shops, and seeing sites we don't tend to see on a daily basis - like ducks in a window.

When dinner time came, we finally decided on a restaurant that was fabulous! We sat on a balcony and enjoyed the view of Chinatown from above.

 

We ordered a meal for four, and we had lots and lots of food. It was excellent!

This was only some of the food!

On the way out, I stopped to play this drum a little bit; the semester of percussion I took at Tech came rushing back to me! :-)

Chinatown was a great start to our San Francisco trip!

Eventful August!

August was eventful around here. First, Jordan and I got to go on a vacation (because of an anesthesia convention) to San Francisco. There, we met up with Stephen and Mel and had a fabulous time! Claire stayed in Dallas with my family during that time. My mom was going to be her primary caretaker, but she ended up getting West Nile Virus. She spent 4 days in the hospital and then had to recover once she got home. So Laura took care of Claire, and she had plenty of help from Matt, my dad, and Peter, too. They all juggled caring for Claire, caring for and visiting my mom in the hospital, letting Matt & Laura go out for their 2-year anniversary, and more while we were gone. Thank you all so much! We spent a few days in Dallas with our family after we flew back from San Francisco. And finally, we headed home.

About a week later, I drove to Houston to drop Claire off with Jordan's parents. They watched her (thank you!!) while I went to Boston with a number of my extended family members to support my cousin as he graduated from high school. When I flew back to Houston, we made sure to eat some great Mexican food, and I drove back home with Claire the next day. It was so nice to be home.

But being home was short-lived! I was only home for the weekend. One week from the day I drove to Houston before going to Boston, I ended up driving back to Houston to get out of Hurricane Isaac's way. Because we have family so close and out of the way of the hurricane, I would simply rather get out of the hurricane's way than try to hunker down --- by myself, with Claire. Jordan still had to work in McComb, MS. If Jordan had been here, maybe it would have been different, but we decided that I could go to Houston again for the week. So Claire and I stayed with Stephen and Mel, and Claire got to play with her cousins. That was nice. Thanks, guys!

Now, I'm finally back in town - until next week! :-) I do like having the flexibility to get up and go somewhere when necessary - and when I want to. It's nice. But it's also nice to be home! So I'm going to live it up at home this week! Yay!

And for those of you who really just want to see pictures of Claire, here she is devouring her ice cream last night. She had sprinkles, chocolate chips, chocolate sauce, and sliced almonds on top of Blue Bell's Homemade Vanilla. She wanted every last drop!