San Francisco

Well, we are home from our wonderful extended weekend trip to the Bay area. It was very cold and rainy for most of the trip but we had a great time anyway!

When we arrived on Thursday the hotel informed us that they were out of King rooms which we had booked, so they upgraded us. We ended up with a lovely view of the Berkeley Marina. I've never stayed at a Doubletree Hotel before but I loved the fresh baked chocolate chip cookies we got at check-in!

Thursday night we headed into Berkeley and celebrated Jeff's birthday at Henry's in the Hotel DuPont. I definitely recommend it if you're in the area. We ordered a pommes frites (french fries) appetizer and they were the best fries we'd ever had! They were served with garlic mayonnaise. For dinner I had mahi mahi in a balsamic glaze and Jeff had steak.

Friday we hopped on BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit) and headed into San Francisco. We ate lunch in the food court of the mall where the BART station is. It was the fanciest food court I'd ever seen....all the food was served on glass plates, with real silverware and glasses. All the food locations served wine by the glass and beer! We ended up at the Buckhorn Grill and had tri-tip sandwiches with crumbled bleu cheese, ranch dressing and onion straws.

While we were in the city we were able to take advantage of all the great public transportation to see the sights. We rode the cable cars, muni and the bus. It was so easy to get around! We visited Ghirardelli Square for some coffee and the BEST MOCHA EVER. We also stopped into a little tea shop to get some loose leaf tea for our moms.

Saturday we drove down into Emeryville and drove by the Pixar Studios. Then we drove up to Sonoma wine country. We definitely prefer Napa but Sonoma was nice and had some good wineries. We also decided to see if we could find the HGTV Dream House and sure enough, it was pretty easy to find.

Sunday was David and Alisa's engagement party which is why we were up North. Alisa's parents really know how to entertain! There was so much food and champagne and everything was delicious! We're so glad we were able to celebrate with them. After the party we went out with David and Alisa and some of their friends to a bar in Berkeley called the Mallard. It was kind of a dive but pretty fun anyway! Monday morning Alisa's parents invited us to brunch. It was nice to spend some time with David & Alisa, their parents and David's friend (and best man) and his girlfriend.

Overall it was a great trip! And Luna enjoyed her stay at grandma and grandpa's while we were gone =)