Rachel's Visit (And MORE family pics!)

We were lucky enough to have my sister Rachel visit us for 3 days in December. We were all headed to Idaho Falls for Abby's wedding, so she was able to make our house a stop on her way there. It's been a long time since we've had visitors (the last time was when Ellie was born!), so it was SO fun to have her here. We love visitors!

We picked her up from the airport in the morning and headed straight into the city for a full day of fun. There was a lot of rain in the forecast and we worried that it would ruin all of our plans. But thankfully the skies dumped all the rain first thing in the morning, and then the clouds parted and left us with a sunny (but chilly) day. What a blessing!

Our first stop was Coit Tower for some family pictures. We had also hoped to explore a little, since none of us have ever been there, but we were running really behind and didn't have much time. I definitely want to go back sometime....there are some gorgeous views!

Most of the pictures in this post are courtesy of Rachel :)
 

 

 

Ellie was cold and tired and wanted nothing to do with pictures! I do love this one though.

 

 

 

 

 

From the tower, we rushed to get lunch at Tony's Pizza, which my friend Erica had highly recommended. It was tasty!

 

When planning out our day we thought we would have tons of time to explore, but life happened and we barely had time to eat our lunch as we walked/ran to the Pier to go to Alcatraz. This was a highlight for us...somewhere we've always wanted to go so I'm glad we finally made it happen. 

On the boat (hello sea sickness!)

 

For a deserted prison island, it really is a beautiful place!  :)

 

Ellie didn't have any patience for the tour. She kept grabbing my headphones and wanted to get down and run. Matthew was interested for awhile and then lost interest and wanted to go play outside. Emma was really into it. She just got really impatient with us when we wanted to stop and take pictures. She didn't realize you could pause the audio tour and was really worried about getting behind.  :)  Lesson learned:  Don't take kids to Alcatraz. I really want to go back now so I can actually hear the recording and take time to see everything.

We rushed through the tour and went outside to explore and Ellie finally gave in and went to sleep!

There was a beautiful rainbow that ended right over the city.

We think Matthew looks like Alfalfa from The Little Rascals here.  Anyone else see it?

See the feather that Matthew's holding? We didn't realize he even had it until we went to get back on the boat and an employee told us it was illegal to take bird feathers and we could get in a lot of trouble. Haha....little trouble maker already!

I love this city!

It was dinnertime when we got back from our tour so we headed over to Pier 39 to try out Boudin's Bakery. Despite the fact that we've lived here 5 years we have never been. It was yummy!

 

 

The next morning, I sent the oldest two kids off to school and preschool, and took Ellie to a friend's house so Rachel and I could go to the temple. Sadly, I think this was the ONLY picture we got of the two of us!

 Thanks to great friends who offered to keep the kids as long as we needed, we were also able to squeeze in lunch at The Cheesecake Factory and a quick shopping trip at Trader Joes. It was so fun to spend time, just the two of us. It's been way too long!

On Friday we finished our packing, visited Dreamworks and had lunch with Jon, and then it was off to the airport. A whirlwind visit, but I'm so glad she came!