If You're Going to San Francisco (With a Toddler)...

Be forewarned that you probably won't have the "typical" tourist pictures...

Golden Gate? Wine Country? Chinatown?

Let's see what we came away with...

Yerba Buena Center for the Arts is a renowned tourist spot in San Fran - here is our best take-away from Yerba Buena:


(Note: This is the "costume" section of the children's creativity center at Yerba Buena)

:)

California Redwoods are a big attraction, and we did take a day excursion to Muir Woods...and this was the best picture of Shaan that I have (note there are no redwoods in the picture at all - ha!!! This is one of the few pictures I have where you can even see his face!!!)

Napa (wine country) - how can you come to San Francisco without visiting Napa or Sonoma? We made the trip to Sterling Vineyards, but alas, here is our best picture in Napa...ice cream in Calistoga!!! (no gorgeous vineyard pics)

Chinatown - we did actually get an adorable picture of Shaan in Chinatown ("see no evil, speak no evil!") although you can't even tell by the picture that Chinatown was where we were...

ALAS!!! One decent picture of a historic tourist spot - the Cable Cars (can you tell we are saying "cheese" in the picture)?












By the way, we did make a trip to the Marina to get some Golden Gate shots (and they were no good on my phone/camera). We even drove over the Golden Gate and I tried to get some pictures of Shaan riding in the backseat with the bridge in the background (no good!)

BUT, after we went to the Marina, Manu and I hiked uphill and probably walked 1,000 steps up Lombard (I think it was Lombard?) and made it to a children's playground for Shaan in Presidio. He was happy as a lark.

All in all, a wonderful trip - so glad to have our little toddler right there with us, although it was a "unique" type of vacation. My most memorable moment was at Sterling Vineyards - we had just been seated for the "tasting" after the tour when Shaan decided he needed to take care of business and started SCREAMING "I need to poop!!! I need to poop!" in front of everyone there. Absolutely hilarious and mortifying at the same time.

Wouldn't trade it for the world! :)

~ Cammie