Denise's Visit, Part IV: Coit Tower

Remember that photo I shot of Coit Tower after Denise and I went to Alcatraz? No? Here’s a reminder:

Well, one day Denise met up with me after work and we decided to walk up the hundreds of steps to the top.

It was really a nice walk up.

All the houses had gorgeous gardens.

There's a tiger in this garden!

Bee boxes!

There was a statue at the top. I thought it was one of the explorers who discovered the bay Gaspar de Portolà or Juan de Ayala.

But it wasn’t. It was Christopher Columbus. I have no idea why Columbus is up here. It makes no sense to me; the man never even saw this part of the Americas! Why is he up here at Coit Tower???

AND WHY DOES HE LOOKS SO BEEFY? And why is his tunic so sheer?? This whole thing disturbs me.

At least the views from there were amazing. We couldn’t go up the steps because it was closed, but it was at least an adventure getting there!

Family, Birthdays, and Holidays

One of my favorite things about living in San Francisco is being a part of Maddy’s life again. I’m sure that’s her favorite thing, too. This past week was Easter and Mateo’s birthday, so I got to spend a lot of time with Maddy and the boys.

Here are some great photos from Mateo’s birthday party!

Mateo really loved the balloons mommy ordered for his party!

He also had a good time playing with them with daddy!

There was a quite a pile of presents to be opened! 

…and he insisted on completely opening and playing with each one before moving onto the next.

He really loved “Alli’s guck!” :D

And running through the decorations.

G.G. sent him lots of gifts!

But mommy and daddy got him the best gift of all…

A giant firetruck!

With a real working ladder and fire hose!

It goes up so high!

Max and Auntie Malea had a good time celebrating too.

Perfect cake, mom!

The perfect 3^rd birthday!

The Many Adventures of the Bay Area: Part III

Day 3: Muir Woods

Muir Woods is one of the many red woods preserves in California – and it’s just over the Golden Gate Bridge! You just need to have the stomach to drive the hairpin turns on the edges of mountains! It was pretty scary. We also happened to go on a “free day,” so there were a ton of people there. Katy and I parked a mile and a half from the park entrance and decided to take one of the off-shoot trails to avoid the many peoples. All-in-all, we walked about 6 miles. We were whooped when we got home!

There was a long line of traffic to get into the park.

Well worth the long walk.

These trees are massive!

Really big.

We had to walk over this scary bridge over the little river! So cool. Katy was terrified.

There were all kinds of cool natures.

After climbing up the next mountain, we got to see the bridge we crossed.

There's also a trail in the Muir Woods that is named after Matt. hehe.

Just too beautiful.

Banana slug!

Fuzzy trees!

New fern growth.

Red wood bark is very durable and able to survive forest fires a lot. But sometimes the fires cause a rotting inside the tree. This one fell over from the rot.

We saw turkeys! They moved too fast for me to get a good shot. Also, I was standing on a busy road trying to get the picture, soo...

You can see the road we had to drive on to get to the forest.

Anyway, it was a lovely day.