You Dont Conform to Traditions

We went to the Woodside Parade today. Woodside is an affluent little hamlet 15 mins south of us (and I really mean affluent), and one of the oldest towns in the area. The town has a church, three restaurants, a liquor store and a state school whose facilities wouldn't compare badly to Eton. There was a real sense of community and occasion with the Parade celebrating its 90th year. With the pine trees, people on horseback and the big Sheriff welcoming everyone I felt like I was in an episode of Murder She Wrote and kept expecting to see Jessica Fletcher at every turn.

Click here to read more about Woodside

Ready for the Parade

What a back end!

This is what the Sheriff scoots around the small town in - and no, this isnt the Sheriff, and no, I'm not kidding.
His office owns half a dozen of them.

Annie playing at the Carnival in 80 degree heat - too hot!

After returning from Woodside I decided to take Annie to dinner at the local 'Cheesecake Factory'. Just us girls. It was great! We sat at the bar on the high stools and shared different dishes. The waitress overheard us talking about Annie's birthday and the fact that we're likely to be in the U.K. to celebrate it this year, but she assumed wrongly that it was in fact Annie's birthday today. So without warning she brought over a big chocolate cheesecake covered in whipped cream with a big candle and the waiting staff huddled around us to sing Happy Birthday to a rather shocked and puzzled Annie. I just smiled and sang along, nudging Annie to join in through gritted 'smiling' teeth, far too embarrassed to tell them that she isnt four until August.

Annie has entered the 'why' phase, and asks 'why' whenever we talk about anything. Tonight she wanted to know why books have endings; "But why Mummy? Why? Why?" And she has also started tying knots, so we're finding knots in everything, from dressing gown belts to shoe laces. She is a big fan of hopscotch - drawing it out every morning with 'sidewalk' chalk in our back yard. Dan is really good at it.

Annie draws out hopscotch

Last weekend we marked our three month anniversary as U.S. residents with a family outing to the city. And we went as real tourists; maps, sunhats, cameras...we really looked the part. Only an hour after waking up on a sunny warm Sunday morning and we were parked at North Beach, the Little Italy in the northeast section of the city. It's a real mix of cultures and ethnic groups as its the city's red light district, adjacent to China Town and is also home to a number of young professionals and families.  We found a parking garage where 'fortunes' (as in fortune cookies) were displayed at every car parking space. I saw a space that said "Today you look a million bucks" and smiled appreciatively at Dan but he grunted, ignored that spot and instead parked the car elsewhere.

Dan - true to form. 

We explored the streets of North Beach, stopping at Sentinel Building and City Lights Book Store. 

Sentinel Building and Transamerica Pyramid  (tallest building in city)
Click for more info on Sentinel Building - a great history!

Bill Weber's Jazz Mural, and one of many 'flying books' hanging over the street containing empty pages.....

..with the words from the books scattered below on the pavement. It's 'art', but Annie got knocked over several times by passers by as she pointed out all of the 'A's that she could find...

Dan in front of the Condor Club, a striptease bar.
You should probably Google it to understand why Dan looks so proud to be standing in front of it.
I cant even bring myself to include the web link for you.

For lunch we headed into Washington Square in North Beach with a selection of Tony's Pizza (the best in SF!) where Annie and Tom played in the children's park, Annie chased pigeons and then stole our camera for a while. It was very warm so we sat out of the sun and shared some of the best pizza we have ever tasted (and we're tasting a lot of it here!!).  Some of the better photographs taken by Annie are below; I didnt include the many photographs of pigeons that she also took but can forward these onto you if anyone has a specific interest.

Daddy Dan carves

Copyright Annie L.Griffin

"OK Annie, Give me back the camera right now!"

At the playground in Washington Park

Washington Park Church where Marilyn Monroe and Joe DiMaggio had their wedding photographs taken

Tom enjoying the playground

We also wandered up to the Coit Tower, a 64 m high tower on Telegraph Hill. Any of you who have made this trip will know that it is exhausting. We certainly wouldn't have planned on taking the buggy had we known about all those steps!

Dan deftly applies the buggy break

"Don't Look Down!"

Annie climbed every step of the way...

The Bay Bridge 

Annie and I getting a worms eye view

The worm's eye view

The View - south

The View - north (Alcatraz)

The View - northwest (GG Bridge)

Washington Park - where we'd just left having eating pizza and terrified pigeons

Our last stop on our city tour was Union Square where we witnessed a rather weird public participatory dance, part of the Bay Area's Dance Festival 2012. We watched from the sidelines rather nervous about being invited to join in...we might be acting like tourists, but we're still British after all.

Dan took a well deserved day off this week, and we spent the day at San Francisco Zoo where Tom laughed and giggled more than we have ever seen before! 

Happy Tom

Smiling Tom 

Annie and I singing and waving, with the gorilla watching in the
background thinking that he had wasted his money on the entrance fee.

Tom laughing...

...and laughing....

Annie - almost as tall as the giraffe

A flamingo

More flamingos

Those two silly girls with the flamingos

Eventually...Annie finds her favourite - the Zebra (pronounced Zeeee-bra of course)

Tom was poorly last week with a sore throat and high fever, which meant another trip to the doctors. I've come down with it this week and Dan is complaining of aches and pains. The whole U.S. medical system is something I'm still trying to fully understand, as we're covered by a good insurance scheme that Dan pays for but is provided by his employer, yet we still pay $20 every time we visit a doctor, and we are registered with a number of different medical specialists around the city, instead of one GP. It's rather a mystery to us both still - I'd better recruit Jessica Fletcher to try and resolve it all for us!

Dan and I have decided to start enjoying our evenings a bit more (this is a result of Tom finally sleeping through most of the night - after 10 months - what joy!) so I went to my first U.S. yoga class on Tuesday, followed by a Zumba dance class on Wednesday with chum Melinda. Really good fun and great to exercise! Dan spent Thursday evening at the Steelhead Brewing Company with buddy Steve. They have a micro brewery on site so the guys enjoyed sampling local produce! And I know some of you will laugh when I tell you that having finally received a cheque book from HSBC I paid all of our utility bills, but wrote 'pounds' instead of 'dollars' in every cheque. Sorry, check. 

And finally, an announcement of sorts. I want to let you all know how proud I am of my brother Mike, who auditioned really hard to secure a place in the dancing line up for the opening ceremony of the London Olympics on 27th July. He is rehearsing every week under the direction of Artistic Director Danny Boyle and claims to be fitter than ever as a result. He is keeping fairly silent on the detail of the routines, but we are  hoping he gets to keep one of the spandex costumes as a souvenir. In particular there is a three year old I know who wants to borrow it to wear whilst hop scotching...