California 2025-San Francisco

Ike chose to visit California for his 6th grade summer vacation. We are all super glad he did, we had such a blast going on this trip!

July 1st

We started out in San Francisco and stayed with Josh's Aunt Amy and Uncle Brad who live about an hour from the city. 

Early morning flight from Chicago.

We hopped in our rental car and headed straight for some sightseeing. Checked out the painted ladies, Lombard Street and then drove over the bridge. We never saw the Golden Gate without clouds, so this ended up being one of the clearer days!

We were of course starving so we stopped at the nearest In N Out-man it was delicious!!

We finished our loop and headed to Amy and Brad's. Ike was so excited to have a couple of dogs to hang out with!

July 2nd

The next morning we hopped on the BART to take us back into the city. We got out on Embarcadero and then walked everywhere from that point.

The last bite of a breakfast empanada from the wharf.

Next we decided that Coit Tower looked super close and reasonable to walk to. Well it was a pretty walk, but not so reasonable!

So many stairs and we weren't even to the tower yet!

Ike and I braved the last bit of stairs to go to the top.

On the way back down to the bay we came across Freddie's Sandwiches so we stopped in for a sub. It was so good!

Next up was walking along the piers. We stopped to see the sea lions-those things were so fascinating to watch!

Then it was finally time for our Alcatraz tour. This was one all of us were super looking forward to and it did not disappoint!

It was super sunny facing away from the Golden Gate and extremely overcast looking towards it!

We hiked down to the Ghiradelli Square for a sundae then decided to take a Waymo to China Town for a snack.

We went to  Hon's Wun-Tun House to try the scallion pancake and get soup dumplings. The dumplings were sooooo spicy but everyone else loved them and the pancake was bomb!

Back on the BART to head home for the night. We got burritos from a local place in Pleasanton for dinner since we didn't have time to stop at the Mission.

July 3rd

The next day I hung out and went around Pleasanton a little with Aunt Amy (and did some much needed grocery shopping to prepare for the rest of the trip!) while the guys all went golfing. They went to Lake Chabot Golf Course-it looked so beautiful!

Josh's cousin Alex came by to hang out and we roasted some s'mores in their backyard that evening.

Friday morning (July 4th) we got going pretty early and drove up to the Redwoods with a couple of stops along the way!