Dave's 50th Birthday in San Fran!

Dave turned 50 and he thought we were going to Vail for a great day of skiing ...

But alas, when I awoke him at 3.30am, it was to fresh coffee, a request to hop in the shower, and a mention that we were headed to the airport instead of the ski slopes. Hmmmm, his curiosity piqued, he was up & adam!

I was able to keep our destination a mystery until we boarded the plane a 5.55am :) .. Only Jules (who took care of the kids that evening) and Julie (who took care of Haley on this post-surgery day) had any idea that this big adventure was going down! They were excellent keepers of the secret :) .. Jules was also so kind as to come over at 7am to check the boys were up for school and to let them know that we had gone to San Francisco for the day ~ I think they enjoyed the surprise, too :)

Heading out of the house about 4am ...
"No Dave, I will not tell you where we are going!"A lovely self-portrait before we headed out ...It was still very dark as we arrived at DIA ...Breakfast at Pour La France on the B Concourse ...
Dave was still in the dark about our plans ;)Boarding the plane, this is when Dave found out where we were headed :)Getting ready to land in San Fran ...
We landed in San Francisco about 8.30am and grabbed a cab
to Fisherman's Wharf for the first part of our adventure that day ...
Renting a Go-Car for 3 hours to tour the city and the parks.
It was a total blast!

Heading into the beautiful city ...Fueling up one last time ...Renting our Go-Car ...We started with the City Tour portion ...
"Will we crash & die in our little car?" Dave wondered!In addition to a GPS guided audio tour, the little car
had a laminated map with the tour routes we would try to follow ...Jumping right into the thick of things with a great view of
the Transamerica Pyramid Building ~ A San Fran landmark ...
The overhead lines are electricity for the city busses -- no fumes!Chinatown ...The shopping district ...The financial district ...Next, we were on to Fisherman's Wharf ~
This is the 8 mile long Oakland Bay Bridge ...This is one of the Embarcadero Center towers facing the bay ~
I had a critical arbitration in this building back in 2002
(which we won, thank you very much :)More wharfside views ...Ghirardelli Square ...After Fisherman's Wharf, we continued on to the Beach Portion of our tour ~
We saw beautiful views of the Golden Gate Bridge,
gorgeous homes, and great expanses of beach ...These homes facing the bay have to be rebuilt after earthquakes
because the fill that was used to create this land liquefies...The classic goofball we know and love!Ahhh ...A lovely couple took these pix for us & we returned the favor.
They were celebrating her 65th birthday with a trip to San Fran :)Continuing on away from the Golden Gate and following the coast south ...We were told this is Robin William's neighborhood ...The golf course and art musuem ...The famous Cliff House and beautiful (cold!) beach ...Then we turned inland for the Park portion of our Go-Car tour ...
Here are some more incredible sites!Back to the city streets and some famous buildings ...The we wrapped up our Go-Car tour with a ride down Lombard ~
The crookedest street in the world!
(all the tourists we saw on our go-car adventure took our pictures - it was so funny :)
A great view of Coit Tower on Telegraph Hill...

Our awesome pilot, fabulous father, loving husband ...

We went to Cioppini's on Fisherman's Wharf
and enjoyed a great seafood lunch on the sidewalk in the sun ...

And then our adventure continued with a cruise around the bay,
to see the Golden Gate Bridge and Alcatraz Island.

Heading out of port ...Time to bundle up ~ it was windy - very windy!
(as you can tell by our sumo wrestler coat look ;)

A seagull joining our tour ...The Golden Gate Bridge from the Water ...

And the beautiful San Francisco skyline ...

Alcatraz Prison ...

Those were my last photos as my battery finally gave up the battle to keep up! So only in our minds do we have our memories of live music on the wharf, a molasses-slow cab for 45 minutes, a dash to BART for a train ride to the airport, a delayed flight, an awesome dinner at San Fran International Airport, and landing back home at 12:12am.

When we walked in the door after 1am, the whole entry and kitchen were decorated in balloons and crepe paper ... Drew, Trey, Sean, Lars, Ingrid, and Freis had a great time with Jules snapping pictures making sure Dave's arrival home would be special, too.

I think Dave was surprised and awed
with this special 50th birthday celebration!
It was a hoot planning and we had such a great, great, great time!
Thank you Lord for your blessings and love!