Elliott started his new job with Riverbed Technology on January 2nd, and the company is based out of San Francisco. That meant one week of training and one week for the sales kick-off, for Elliott in Sand Francisco. So after much deliberation we decided that Emma and I would go visit him over the long weekend. This meant that I would need to ween Olive off of nursing and she would stay the weekend with Grandma and Papa Loerch. THAT WAS A TOUGH DECISION FOR ME TO MAKE! Olive was NOT happy about quitting nursing, but she was perfectly happy and Grandma and Papa's. Apparently, she didn't even cry once! AND, when it was all said and done I am so thankful we were able to have a little alone time with Emma, and I think she enjoyed every minute of it as well. I think it is something we will try and repeat once a year if possible.
Little Ms. Emma working on her "Trip Journal" that her teacher Ms. Dravis sent with for her to work on. Here she is drawing a picture of a Delta airplane before we took off. I love every minute of watching learn and explore in her school work.
Emma and I arrived on a Friday afternoon and took a cab from the airport to Elliott's hotel room just two blocks form the Fisherman's Warf. He was going to be a couple of hours stilla t training, so Emma and I went out to see what we could see. We were literally just two blocks form the water. I took this lovely picture of the water, there were boats, big waves, the golden gate bridge and Alcatraz Island... All Emma was interested in was chasing the sea gulls! SILLY GIRL!
After some ice cream, and a giant sweet tart necklace, Elliott arrived! Of course it was the COLDEST weekend of the year in San Francisco! Emma wore her winter hat and mittens the entire trip, and I was basically cold the whole time. Elliott finally gave in and bought a hat and I bought gloves. On Friday evening we ventured down along the coast. There was an old game museum, full of old arcade games that ranged form the turn of the century all the way to Pole Position Atari.
That is Alcatraz Island you can see in the background behind Elliott and Emma. We really would like to go see it, but maybe next year when Emma is a bit older? Anyway, you need to book the tours weeks in advance! We did however get to tour this amazing WWII submarine! AMAZING how they were able to live and work in such close quarters.
Those are bunks above the torpedos!
Saturday morning we moved to the swanky Hilton Hotel at Union Square, as this is where the sales kickoff was taking place beginning on Monday. Our hotel room was on the 37th floor and we had a stunning view of the bay! you cannot see in this picture, but there were seven cargo ships waiting in the bay. It was a STUNNING view, especially in the evening.
After some breakfast Elliott and Emma rented a GOKart and did a little freezing driving for two 1/2 hours. They went all over SF city, all around Golden Gate Park, saw an old soldiers fort there, went back down to the warf, etc. Of course emma found this all very relaxing and slept 45 minutes of the ride! Elliott spent that whole time making right turns because she was lying on his lap and her helmet got in the way of the steering wheel!
I spent some time walking around the glitzy stores of Union Square, and bought the girls a couple of mathcing outfits at Zara! Once Elliott and Emma we back we headed over to China Town. That was fantastic! So much of it was touristy, but I'd still recommend it to anyone.
Emma tried both her food and she tried her chopsticks... neither worked very well!
Emma and Daddy being "cute" in China Town
Just a bit before dinner time we headed over to the Trolley and watched and waited for it to take us back down near the Fisherman's Warf and Piere 39. THAT WAS FUN!
Elliott wanted to stand on the trolley so of course Emma had to too. You can't beat that smile on her face though! It is pretty amazing how fast they can go, and how close the get to one another when passing directions on the tracks. It was fascinating to see how the driver worked the different levers to make the trolley work. I'll look forward to doing this again sometime.
When we finally got back down to Piere 39 I was so thrilled to see that the Sea Lions were out in full force! Some were sleeping as lazy as could be and others were hollering way, playing in the water, jumping onto and off of the docks, and some were fighting for the best spots. There were really a joy to watch. If it had not been close to 7pm (9pm MN time!), no dinner eaten yet and having been gone from the hotel since 9am, we would have stayed to watch them longer.
Since it was so late and we'd had a late lunch we decided to take the trolley back to the swanky hotel for dinner... MISTAKE! The can of soda was $7!!! Yes, it is true, but in all honesty we had a fantastic time in our room enjoying some good food. Sweet Emma was SO tired, and she NEVER, and I mean NEVER admits to being tired. She said to me as we were waiting for the food, that she was so tired that she wasn't sure if she could stay awake until the food got there!
Sunday morning we left the hotel about 10am to meet my dear old friend Elizabeth Donahue, who I went to high school and then roomed with in college my senior year. Liz, her husband and daughter lived just about a 10 minute sub ride from our hotel.
Oooh! forgot to mention the dancing that we did at the Pier Saturday night. Emma was drawn to just about every performer we came upon. This particular performer was legit and we had a blast moving to the music.
Liz and her daughter Violet who will be 3 this spring
After visiting Liz and playing in Golden Gate Park, and then enjoying a fantastic lunch at their apartment, we headed back to Union Square to do a little shopping for Elliott. He had brought pretty casual clothes with him, not realizing how formal the sales kickoff would be. So we went shopping for him from about 4-7 and Emma was SUCH A TROOPER! She was really willing to roll with the punches and pretty much hang out. Me and her decided that we would look for some dress shoes for her, so that did help. Particularly, she wanted some heels! So after a couple of hours we headed off to Nordstrom (Union Hill is the shopping district and there is every high end store you can imagine, and pretty much everything in between, all within three blocks of each other). Elliott made purchases at Old Navy, Aldo, Gap, Nordstrom, Macy's and Banana Republic! I LOVE what he got and will definately be shopping with him in the future:) Little Ms. Emma? Well, she was spoiled with some beautiful black peep-toe heels from Nordstrom, in addition to a puff purse from Gap. All of which she is wearing in her undies as we wait to go downstairs fro breakfast Monday morning.
As a matter of fact Emma did quite a bit of shopping ont he trip. Papa and Nana Hinrichs gave her some money for Christmas, which she took with on the trip. She bought her special doll from China Town, a studded dog jewelry holder from China Town, a huge shell from the warf, and a panda pillow back-pack for the airplane!
Getting ready to leave for the airport on Monday morning. I thought there would be so much traffic on the way to the airport, but alas no, so we arrived about 2 1/2 hours before our flight needed to board! So, we enjoyed a little sit down second breakfast:) Emma was simply fantastic on the airplane, and I look forward to taking some more trips with just her in the future; it was a really special weekend.
