Oliver's SF Birthday

The weekend was intended to be a celebration of Oliver's 7th birthday, which he turned way back in March. Schedules being what they are and all, the end of May was the soonest we could make it happen. (Yes, procrastination is no small part of the equation.) But it is also true that SF is one of our favorite destinations so it was a family vacation as much as a birthday party for one. The centerpiece of the trip was a day at the California Academy of Sciences in Golden Gate Park. We had another theme or series of adventures that revolved around public transportation.I have taken Amtrak a number of times to the Bay Area for research trips and I figured the kids would get a kick out of taking the train as well. From the Amtrak it became: Light Rail to Amtrak to BART to Muni bus (38 Geary). We dropped our bags off at the apartment in the Richmond district we AirBnB'd, back on the 38 Geary to the Ferry building, onto the F Line trolley car to Pier 39 (blech) to the ferry boat, around the Golden Gate Bridge, a walk to North Beach for dinner, and finally an Uber back to the apartment. Whew! And that was just the first day. (Oliver is writing up the trip in his own journal and pointed out that the trip from our house to the apartment took four hours.) The next day was a bit more traditional, a short walk to the Academy and dinner at Burma Star in our neighborhood.Oliver and Lola were incrementally better than I maybe expected. But we kept things moving and interesting and changes of scenery helped. They still can get on my nerves with just a flick of their wrist and love to antagonize each other to the point of annoying me. Lola has perfected the brood. Oliver is good at being good old fashioned defiant. But, I'm sure it could be much worse and I could do with taking a chill pill more often. We are all trying.Here are the pictures that tell a more interesting story.