Union Square Tree Lighting

Our day after Thanksgiving started off with a bus ride to the Iowa bar. I had told Tina all about the bar and their great brunch menu so even though it was an Iowa football game, she could still look forward to a great meal.

We got a seat right before the game started. It wasn't as busy as we thought it would be, but that had to be because of the holiday.

Tina and I both got the french toast sticks. Good thing they were as good as I promised!

Oh and I should mention the special the bar ran that morning. They had bottomless mimosas in fancy glasses! Yum-O!

After the game was over we walked around the corner to Ghirardelli Square. We promised Tina some free chocolate and thought she might want to bring some home to her parents. Craig and Cindy you are welcome for suggesting Tina buy you some!

Our other goal for the day was to show her Lombard Street. The tour bus Joe and Tina took didn't show Lombard very well so we thought why not get a great workout by walking up to the top of the hill and get some great views. You can see Coit Tower in the background where we spent our Thanksgiving at.

After heading home to rest and change our clothes we headed to Union Square for the Macy's Christmas tree lighting. We got there just in time, but the crowed was unbelievable. We tried to weather the storm for a while, but we gave up and decided to head to dinner earlier than planned. We took Tina out for her birthday dinner. Nevermind that it was a week late!

We went to The Stinking Rose, known for their use of garlic. The lights were a bit different inside the restaurant, but pictures make it look even weirder. I know this picture is technically awful, but I still think it's fun.

On our walk back home we stopped by Union Square to actually get a glimpse of the lit tree. I'm so glad we did because we got some great pictures.

Like I mentioned yesterday, we watched the ice skaters for a while and laughed at the wipeouts. The rink was pretty small though, no one seemed to be able to really skate without running into the person in front of them. Oh well, we still enjoyed watching them.

Untraditional Thanksgiving

Like I mentioned yesterday, my cousin Tina flew in Tuesday night to visit Joe and I for Thanksgiving. To say this year was untraditional is an understatement. But, nonetheless, we thoroughly enjoyed it. We had so much fun showing Tina around San Francisco.

Our Thursday started off with a walk to Safeway. Instead of cooking our own feast we opted to buy it all precooked from Safeway. Unfortunately it was misting and we needed an umbrella, but we still stopped to pose for a picture.

We showed Tina the ballpark on the way and made sure to get a picture of her in front.

Aunt Deb suggested we buy the meal from Safeway and I'm so glad she did. It included a precooked turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, gravy, cranberry sauce, dinner rolls and pumpkin pie. Plus it feeds about 6- 8 people so we have lots of leftovers.

We all pitched in and had fun heating up our food. The turkey cooked for about 2 hours so it made the apartment smell amazing.

Everything was delicious and made our Thanksgiving feel like it was home cooked. We all agreed that the pumpkin pie was nothing like grandmas. Although we did miss the family back home in Iowa, we still made the holiday one to remember.

The rain stopped and we had lots of time left in the day so we set off for Coit Tower. Along our way we snapped a picture of Tina in front of the Federal Reserve Building (the occupy protestors are gone from this location, but we knew her mom would appreciate the picture), we showed her the occupy camp out in front of the Ferry Building and went around back and got some views of the Bay Bridge.

We continued with our hike up to Coit Tower. It was no easy hike, it included lots of stairs and steep sidewalks. We stopped a long the way to catch our breath and take some fun pictures.

We made it to the top and admired the murals telling stories of San Francisco.

Surprisingly even with the holiday the tower was open and we thought it would be fun to go to the top. Joe and I have never gone up there and the sky was clearing so we thought it was a perfect opportunity.

I told Tina to demonstrate how steep some of the sidewalks in the city are. The whole day was a pretty good workout. Good thing Tina's in shape, we walk pretty much the whole city.

We stopped for ice cream at Pier 39 even though it was pretty chilly. Our rationale, of course, came from all of the walking we had done already. The very end of Pier 39 has a great view of Alcatraz so we snapped some pictures there.

Our last stop on our way home was on a different pedestrian pier. The skyline was beautiful with the sun going down

Our Thanksgiving turned out perfectly. We are so thankful for Tina visiting us and can't wait to see the rest of the family over Christmas.