I often take for granted that our home is located in a pretty awesome area. The Bay Area is centrally located to a lot of options. I love that we can choose to visit the beach, walk around one of the most beautiful cities in the world, drive to wine country or even just ride bikes around our hometown on any given day. For the holiday weekend, we had planned just to stay local–plan lots of day trips. We’re not people to plan our weekend in advance so typically our plans for the day are made at the breakfast table.

Saturday morning, I had the itch to just play tourist in San Francisco. There had been a couple stores and spots I wanted to check out so we quickly gathered our things and headed to the city.

First stop was a fairly new kids boutique in Noe Valley called, Mapamundi. Owned by Lorena Siminovich of Petit Collage, the boutique itself is a very cute and inspiring space complete with bags from France, wooden toys, toy suitcases in every pattern and a book selection that even had me in awe. The kids quickly made themselves at home–Olivia parking herself in a pouf, reading every book she could grab and Miles demonstrating how each dinosaur figurine walks and sounds.

Afterwards, we strolled the neighborhood and on our way back to the car, stumbled into Rare Device–a store I’ve been wanting to visit for some time now and boy, it did not disappoint. I’m still kicking myself that I didn’t buy this beautiful Japanese salt box. You might be laughing at me but you have no idea how adorable this thing was! Ryan quickly made his way outside with Miles which is code for ‘move-it-along-Jen’ so we departed before I had time to circle back around for a second look-around. Next time.

No visit anywhere is complete without the children running around like they’ve never been in public so after jumping off every stoop, running down every driveway and screaming at inanimate objects, we decided to give the neighborhood’s ears a break and get in to the car and grab lunch.

 

 

 

No weekend is complete without beer so we went to the Magnolia Gastropub and Brewery. It’s a cool spot if you find yourself in the Haight and in need of a beer and a good vibe. Fortunately, we got seated in a booth–family jackpot, so while we waited for our food, Ryan and Miles entertained me and Olivia with various poses.

On our way out of SF, we finally visited Philz Coffee after everyone I have spoken to has told me that Blue Bottle is out and Philz is in.  I must admit it was a pretty solid cup of coffee but I don’t really think I’m the right person to judge who has the better cup. I’m happy as long as it’s caffeinated and under $3.

Sunday morning we decided to drive to Alameda to introduce the kids to the Pacific Pinball Museum. Such an awesome place–I really can’t recommend it enough to people. Ryan and I had been there once before for a date night and it’s just a fun place. The museum is separated into various rooms–all pinball machines are grouped together by an era and all the machines are set to free play (you do pay a entrance fee upon entering the museum). You basically walk in and have free reign to play with anything. The kids immediately were in awe of the giant vintage posters and the sounds of the machines and then when they realized they could play any game, FOR FREE, their minds were blown. We were there for almost two hours when we all had reached the point of mental exhaustion. Apparently two hours of overstimulation is enough for both kids and adults.

 

 

After a quick lunch, we decided to visit the Crown Memorial State Beach which was just located a few blocks away. It was extremely cold and overcast but I was determined to make these kids enjoy some fresh air after having been pinball zombies for the better part of the morning. Tide was low so we took the kids out a ways to see what we could find. Olivia found her heart rocks and other various sea paraphernalia and Miles decided to cry and lose his mind over mud that made its way to his leg. While Miles cried hysterically in the distance, I took Olivia to discover more treasures.

Miles eventually calmed down and we decided to walk further up the beach where we could see some activity. As we were walking, we came across these little piles of sand and discovered they are from a lugworm. As they burrow into the sand, they push up the sand creating these strange little piles and I immediately took to higher ground and decided I had no intention of meeting a lugworm.

As we walked further up the beach, we saw that the activity we saw in the distance was in fact a kitesurfing launch area. We stayed for a few minutes watching people attempt to make their way out into the ocean and I confidently declared that I have no interest in attempting kitesurfing. We remained on the beach, hopeful that the sun would come out but sadly, we were wrong. Our bodies froze instead as the cold cruel bay breeze whipped at us in the face and we decided to bid adieu at a chance to soak up some California sunshine.

Monday morning arrived and I realized I’m getting too old for spontaneous travel so we decided to stay home and clean because that’s adulthood.

What did everyone else do? Did you stay home or travel?

Regardless of what you did, hope everyone had a great weekend!