The Beauty of Golden Gate Park!

Enjoy some of the beauty to be found in Golden Gate Park near Stow Lake!

(There is a suprise at the end!)

Look close for some great horned owls!

Isn't it beautiful?!   

And now for the surprise:  Quite a few of these photos were taken by Kathryn! (including this one!)

Golden Gate Park is an urban park consisting of 1,017 acres and is the 5th most visited park in the U.S.  The earthquake that shook San Francisco in the early morning hours of April 18, 1906 left fires blazing for three days, devastating the city.

Tens of thousands fled the city in the aftermath, but an estimated quarter-million residents were left homeless and approximately 40,000 of them flocked to the relative safety of Golden Gate Park where vast refugee camps were established.

We learned some of this from the book we read for our Cousins Book Club!

San Francisco Perspecitve!

Here is a fun perspective of San Francisco!

Heidi was driving a mini van through the city on our way to Golden Gate Park.  She handed Elizabeth her camera and told her to take some pictures!

First, a selfie!

Then she got the people in the back seat!

(I know, it looks like a Party Bus, but it really was just a mini van!)

And then she got a cable car!

There was a great view of Alcatraz down one street and of course in our family we always have to point out Alcatraz!

Then we headed up the hill to go down Lombard Street, the crookedest street in the world!

As we started down, Heidi said: Be sure to get a picture of this street!

 Here's a professional photo of Lombard Street looking up at it:

 And here is another professional picture of what it might look like going down Lombard Street:

And here's the picture Elizabeth took--just following her Mom's directions: Be sure to get a picture of this street!

Coit Tower, a San Francisco landmark, made it most of the way into this picture!

And she had to get a picture of the painting on the side of 

Trader Joe's!  (One thing I know they don't sell at Trader Joes is Rice A Roni, the San Francisco treat!)

Those cable cars do look fun!

And last but not least, when we explained that all of the overhead wires were for some special buses that ran on electricity, she had to get a picture of those!

Who wants Elizabeth to be their tour guide on their next trip to

 San Francisco?!   Me!!!!! Me!!!!!

Kids' Happy Place!

An afternoon at the beach is tons of fun for kids!

The Melanchuks and the McClellans had a great time at Ocean Beach in San Francisco:

 Running from the waves is the best!

There were a lot of smiles that day!

Rocks, Nails and Water!

We had fun going with the Perrys to the American River!

Here we are waiting to get started:

Grandpa tried to teach the kids how to skip rocks.

Camille decided it would be fun to collect rocks,

 the bigger the better!

David tried to help her!

It was a lot to carry up a hill...

\

...so in the end they decided to throw them in the water!

And that was a lot more fun!

It was a very pleasant afternoon with cousins!

Courtney and Elizabeth hosted a "Spa Day."

Painting nails was the main event!

One day the Melanchuks invited us to their community pool.

The high dive was very popular.  That's Amelia!

There were 15 swimmers from our family that day.

Here are some of them!

And this is one reason I will never go off the high dive in public:

Someone will take a photos of every part of your jump...

...at least we were spared seeing the big splash at the end!

Speaking of splashes, another day we went to a Splash Park and that was lots of fun too!

When the water goes off it's fun to "swim" in the pool of water going down the drain...

...and then do some artwork with chalk!

Lots of fun with rocks, nails and water!!