Happy 250th Birthday America!!!

Caelin's 15th Birthday

Today was all about celebrating Caelin, so she got to make our schedule for the day.  We started with brunch at First Watch before heading to a day of shopping at Target, Guitar Center, Lego store, and Comic store. Throughout the day, she received lots of texts and messages from family and friends that made her smile.  Of course we spoiled her along the way with various purchases before heading home for a quick change and then dinner at  Mimi's Garden with Gamee and Grampee. Dinner was delicious and included dumplings, fried rolls, and bao.  The highlight as always was the strawberry cake made by Gamee/Grampee!  It was a Superhero theme with all the emblems from various Superheroes. We finished the evening with a quick Walmart run for camp on Sunday.  It was a perfect day to celebrate our perfect girl.  

To our beautiful angel, 

You have blessed us since the day you were born.  Your energy is infectious to everyone around you.  You have a caring heart for others and shine for Jesus even when no one is watching.  Keep shining your light and always remember that we love you and will always be here for you.  May this next year bring all the exciting things that High School has to offer and adventures you never dreamed of. 

"3" Mom and Dad

Headed home with full hearts!

Since we didn't go to bed until 2am, we decided to sleep in and do breakfast at the hotel around 9:45am. After this, we loaded the car and headed to the Oakland Airport for our journey home. The travels home went smoothly and we arrived home around 10pm. We are forever grateful for the core memories we will carry as a family. God has blessed us tremendously with love and opportunities. May we never forget where our joy comes from.

Cable Cars and Alcatraz

With another fun day ahead, we grabbed a hearty breakfast before heading out to the Cable Car Museum. We got our first taste at driving and parking on hilly streets while looking for a place to park around the Cable Car Museum. With Charles on crutches, we did our best to keep him from walking too far, but to no avail. The streets are quite the workout themselves when trying to walk the blocks. The Cable Car Museum was interesting to walk through and we learned a lot about the origin of cable cars, how they operate and the staff it takes to still run these in certain parts if the city. We all wanted to ride a cable car for $9 each (one way), but none of the lines went toward Chinatown which was our next destination. We wound up passing on riding a line and started walking toward Chinatown. While in Chinatown, we visited the Fortune Cookie Factory where we were able to watch them make fortune cookies and sample some right off the press. It was so interesting and I never knew this is how they made fortune cookies!  We walked through the streets stopping to shop along the way and taking pictures of all the gorgeous murals.  We bought a set of chopstix that Caelin picked out before heading to the Hang Ah Dim Sum Tea House.  We passed the famous Willy "Woo Woo" Wong Playground and the "card street" where the Elders play next to the restaurant. The food was delicious and we ordered a combo of dumplings, rolls, mongolian beef, and bao. We were stuffed and ready to wobble the next 15 min back to the parking garage. After resting for about an hour at the hotel, we layered up and headed out for the night tour at Alcatraz. Although chilly, we all looked forward to learning and walking on Alcatraz Island. On the boat ride over, I was trying to take a good pic of Alcatraz and lost my souvenir hat from Benziger Winery which was super disappointing, but stepping foot on the island made me quickly forget about the hat. We first went on an hourly guided tour to places closed to the public. This included places where the Warden spent time, Al Capone's cell block on the 2nd floor, the Isolation cells, Warden's garden, the theatre, and more. I was surprised how many stairs were everywhere and the stories of the prisoners here were fascinating.  I did not know that after Alcatraz closed in the 60's that Indian's enacted the law where they could take inhabit any unclaimed land by the state. This meant Indians actually lived on the island for about 19 months...even though the island did not have electricity, phones, or running water supplied by the city of San Francisco. It was very unique. We also got to go inside a few cells to see how small they were, experience a total blackout in isolation cells, read papers in the library, and experience a cell block closing demonstration at 8:40pm. Watching and hearing how all the levers and pulleys work was interesting and I will never forget the sound of all the doors slamming closed at dusk just like the prisoners heard each night.  As we took the boat back to the pier, we realized it was 10pm and we were all starving, so we walked the length of the pier to an In and Out Burgers that was still open. We decided to take the food back to the hotel so that we could pack and start showering. It was a wonderful but long day!