We had an amazing weekend celebrating the wedding of my cousin Amanda and Evan in California over Memorial weekend. Amanda is a second aunt to the kids. Although J&H don't remember, Amanda would help take care of them 2 nights a week when they were babies so Tyler and I could get a little sleep! She was an angel sent from California to OU!
As soon as we landed we headed downtown San Francisco to be tourists for a day! I loved exploring the city with the kids! The seals at Fisherman's Wharf were always my favorite as a kid, and I think they won J,H and M over as well. So entertaining and so smelly! We actually might have appreciated San Francisco's silly mask mandate for a split second!
Next up was a boat ride on the San Francisco Bay. My history loving kids had a blast on this tour!
Just a slight wind out on the bay :)
The Golden Gate Bridge is always so impressive!
After this boat ride, the Alcatraz tour is definitely at the top of our list for next time! Jackson was ready to swim to shore to tour it himself as we were sailing by!
We were pretty pumped to find out that in order to get to the wedding hotel we had to drive across the Golden Gate Bridge!
After a long morning of travel and full afternoon as tourists we hit the lobby bar for a drink and ran into the bride and lots of Winslow family!
The next morning we were off to wine tasting in Healdsburg! My Winslow family loves wine! They say not to visit Napa, Sonoma is good, but Healdsburg is the place to be! And after a day of wine tasting I couldn't agree more!
First stop was wine tasting at Hawks Vineyards! Due to the size of our group and the number of kids, they set up a private wine tasting in the vineyard and it could not have been more perfect!
This beer drinker was able to sip down some wine! Must have been good!
No better way to end a morning of wine tasting than to run up and down the vineyard rows! The boys definitely found this to be way harder than it looked!
After a day of wine tasting and a fun family dinner, it was the perfect evening to sit by the fire at the hotel and catch up with the Winslows! The kids really hit it off with all my cousins, especially my cousins that played baseball!
Finally wedding day! The kids were not invited to the wedding (Covid cutbacks) so we wanted a fun morning/afternoon with them before leaving them behind for the evening! First stop was Muir Woods National Monument for a morning hike! The redwood trees were definitely impressive!
The kids completed the junior ranger program throughout our hike and took the ranger oath at the end!
Next up, Stinson Beach! The beach was only a few miles from Muir Woods but with Memorial Day traffic Highway 101 was at a dead standstill. We got within one mile and our phones were saying that would take over one hour!!!! So we found a small parking lot, pulled off and saw a small trail that took us down to the beach!
We hit the jackpot with this trail! Hiking with a view!
But what we didn't know was that we had to walk through a nudist beach to get to Stinson Beach!!! We were all in shock and walked faster than ever with heads down!
We made it past all the nudies and it was all smiles!
All smiles until we tried heading back and the tide got super high! So high the area we had to cross to get back to our hike was impassable so we had to walk the highway back to our car. It was a LONG walk back and we were short on time with the wedding but we did it! We all worked up an appetite so we grabbed In and Out on the way back to the hotel! Mason was so hungry he ate beef for the first time in years!!! Turning corners!
Matt and Tyler took the first shift staying back with the kids at the hotel during the wedding. So off Steph and I went to see Amanda and Evan get hitched!
Loved seeing so many of my cousins!
After the dinner, speeches, first dances, etc Nana and Grandpa relieved Tyler and Matt for the night! Party time!
Wish I had more pictures from the wedding but dancing took priority! Such a fun weekend with my Winslow family!!
