9 ticks for the Taylors

Bus to Union Square, Breakfast at Loris', cable car, Fisherman's Wharf, Duck tour, Pier 39 for bubble gum flavoured icecream and Sea Lions, bus home through China Town and home again for pizza from Dinos (and a beer for Dave and Nick).

What a wonderful start to the week with Helen, Nick, Jemima, Kitty and Oscar. A jam packed Saturday and we had so much fun.

It was decided that we would start the weekend with a proper American breakfast. So when Dave had finished with the Grand National (everything went well apparently) we got the No. 3 bus down to Union Square and on to Lori's Diner for CableCar Pancakes, egg benedict, strawberry milkshake and refill coffee.
Lori's is a typical American Diner from the movies with cars hanging from the ceiling,jukeboxes and red leather booths. A perfect introduction to the holiday for Jemima, Kitty and Oscar.

With full bellies we headed down Powel to the cable car turn-a-round and watched as the cable cars came down the hill and back up again while we were entertained by a very talented tap dancer. We had already discussed how we were going to jostle for prime position and managed an outside seat with fantastic views of the road ahead. Owen and Kitty had the best seats at the front of the car and could see every rise and fall of the road.Rosie squealed with delight as we descended the hills! We alighted at Fisherman's Wharf and joined in the touristy hustle & bustle before boarding 'The Duck'!...... A WW2 military amphibious vehicle.
As part of the tour we were all issued with duck quackers....you can imagine the din! Captain Dan was the man,full of bad jokes and songs that we could quack along to.
After a brief city tour we drove down to the bayside and down a slipway into the water, much to the children's delight.

All the children were allowed to steer the boat, even Isla.  Dan the Man generalised saying that girls tend to go straight until they need to steer the wheel whereas boys turn immediately.  Until Rosie that is, who started steering like crazy from the moment she took the seat.

We do have photographic proof of all of the children driving the boat but they're on Helen's camera and we can't find a way of getting them off.

After the duck we walked to Pier 39 for ice cream. The most unusual one was the blue ice cream with bubble gum in it.  Dave had cotton candy flavour which he looked pretty pleased with.  The children (and Helen) all sat in a line and looked so adorable that a couple of Japanese tourists came up and took it in turns to stand alongside them while the other one photographed the scene!  Not sure you could get away with that in the UK.

We then went to see the sea lions and chatted to a nice man from the Marine Mammal rescue centre who told the children all about the different varieties of Californian sea lions and the whales that we might see in these waters at this time of year.  Then we tried to get a cable car back home but found that the queue was too long and caught a very long, bendy bus for a very long (bendy) journey via Union Square   (because we missed our stop).

Pizza
Bed

Love Jo and Helen x