Celebrating in San Fran

Chris had a conference to attend in San Francisco on Thursday. We decided to use it as an excuse to celebrate his birthday. Actually, he was invited to be the keynote speaker for the CALSPRA conference. Chris throws around a lot of acronyms - but I believe this one stands for California School Public Relations Administrators. In case you didn't know, he is in high demand as a conference speaker. He has lots of fans! Since it's his birthday, I'll toot his horn a little by directing you to his firm's website. He started the firm about 2 1/2 years ago with 7 other partners. They are now employing 50 attorneys and have offices in San Marcos, Santa Monica and Oakland. It's pretty impressive to see how far they have come. Of course, I have witnessed (and maybe complained about) the hard work and long hours it has taken to make their vision real. But I am proud of him and all he has accomplished! Check it out!http://fagenfriedman.com/

Anyway, we literally ate our way through San Francisco and had a great time doing it. I forgot to recharge the camera batteries, so unfortunately we have no visual documentation of this trip and all the fun and beautiful sites. We were on the 25th floor of our hotel - so one of the best parts was our amazing view of the city, the bay, Alcatraz island and Coit Tower (the picture isn't quite as good as our view but pretty close). There are so many amazing restaurants in SF. Our first night we ran around the corner to a restaurant recommended by the concierge and found ourselves in this little alleyway filled with tables and people all crammed in together having dinner. It reminded us so much of Europe. We literally sat right next to Jerry Brown who was on a double date. We tried to eavesdrop - and we did hear Prop 8 mentioned but we didn't want to be too obvious! We made some new friends due to our tables actually being the same table - a retired Stanford professor and his wife and a couple from New Zealand who were in the US to run the NY marathon. She had just come from a photo shoot with Harvey Keitel. She asked what I did - "I'm just a mom of three kids from Temecula". It still felt good to say that!

We walked all over creation this weekend! We would just start in a direction and walk and walk. And stop here for a snack and there for a little "pick me up". Our hotel was between the Financial District and Chinatown - perfect place for cheap souveniers. In fact, Lindsay was a little put out when I accidentally left the price tag on her I {heart} SF t-shirt and she saw it was only $2.99. You gotta love that! We had some authentic chinese food at the place where shark fin soup originated - it was $60 a bowl, so we declined that one. We also ate at El Faro - home of the first burrito in California. We're just history buffs I guess. We went up Coit Tower, rode the cable cars - visited the Fungi Festival at the Ferry Building, ate clam chowder in sourdough bread bowls at Fisherman's wharf, visited our favorite restrooms at the St. Francis hotel in Union Square, had dinner with our friends the Hyders, and did a little shopping - how can you avoid that? It was the perfect combination for a weekend - and to celebrate another year of life with the love of my life! Happy Birthday Chris!