San Fran

A couple of weeks ago, Chad and I went on a company trip. Eagle View's long time office manager, Barbara, was retiring, and they wanted to say "THANK YOU". So, we planned a really fun weekend, flew to San Francisco, and did lots of fun things. They included; staying at the W, going to see Wicked, hiking in Muir Woods, and going to an aquarium on Fisherman's Warf. My Mother-in-law, Dianne, pointed out that we were haveing a "W" weekend. W hadn't been the goal, just Wonderful. I hope it was. Here are some pictures, and if you want more, Raegan, Barbara's daughter, posted a great entry about the weekend on her blog. Here it is: http://spinwhip.blogspot.com/ see her Monday, May 11th post. She's a lot more punctual than I am. :) And, she knows how to upload collages, so she has TONS of pictures. Here are a few of mine:

We traveled across the Golden Gate Brigde, and up to Muir Woods to see the Redwoods. It was beautiful and peaceful and smelled delicious there.

We were almost halfway through our planned hike, and I realized we hadn't seen any banana slugs yet. Chad offered $100 to the first person to spot one. Then he went and found the first one. After that, we saw them regularly. Racqual amazed us by picking up one of the last little guys. Chad's dad tickeled her ear with a piece of grass while she was looking at it, and I think she would have dropped it if it hadn't been holding on. She told us, "It's sucking my thumb!"

Chad took a nap while the girls (and Paul) visited the four-story fabric store, Britex. (Barbara loves to quilt, although this store went WAY beyond quilting.) He needed to be able to stay up long enough past his bedtime to catch all of "Wicked". Although, I don't think he would have had a problem. Even Paul said he liked it, and he STILL whines that we took him to the movie "Phantom of the Opera." And Paul did sleep through quite a bit of that.


The sea lions at Pier 39. They were quite entertaining.

Smile! We found some shade!

At the aquarium at Pier 39.

I am terrified of jelly fish, but they sure are beautiful. Just keep a big wall of glass between me and the gorgousness, and I'll be just fine.

They had a touch pool, and we could pet, with one finger, baby bat rays, baby skates, and baby leopard sharks. The rays were so playful, and so adorable! Who knew! They would poke their baby-cute noses above the water wanting attention, and flap their "wings" against the sides to splash people. Maybe this was on accident, and maybe they just love hearing the squeels.

I don't know.
Mom showed me "mermaid purses" on the beaches in Venice, Florida when I was a kid, and told me they were sting ray egg cases. Hard to imaging something that shape being an egg, especially as the ones in Florida have spiney black curls on the corners, ( I just wouldn't want to be the creature that laid such and egg.)but here they are, in the actual process of incubating a bunch of tiny rays! At least you get more than one baby per egg!

We had such a nice weekend. There were so many fun things to do, and such great people to do them with. I'm sad that that is the last trip Bob and Barbara will share with us! I sure enjoy them. What a blessing it has been to get to know them these last few years. I'm glad they're just "moving on", and not "moving away," and will still be around to share vegetables and laughs.