Adventuring // Along the San Francisco Waterfront

Saturday morning started out with Steph's first ever ride on Bart and a pretty nice walk from the Embarcadero station to Pier 15. The girl spent most of her time on the train playing Tsum Tsum on her phone and coercing me to attempt a round myself. I was deemed "better than a sixth grader", so you know, life goal met.

Once we made our way to the surface and figured out which direction we wanted to go, we started our trek. And I almost immediately made her detour with me because I saw a couple cable cars just hanging out, a block over, in the middle of the street, begging to be photographed. They were even decked out in holiday gear!

Considering this IS San Francisco in the middle of winter, I think we both expected it to be a little colder on our walk to the Exploratorium. I mean, we were right on the water, it was still pretty early in the morning, and it was the end of December. But it was surprisingly warm, sunny, and comfortable out, which was awesome. Especially considering Steph's idea of NorCal is cold, sunless, and dreary. *eyeballs bestie*

We walked through the art stalls along Market Street on the way to the piers and passed by the mini Farmers Market in front of the Ferry Building. I didn't know tulips were in season in the dead of winter, but they were on sale, so... *shrug*

We reached the Exploratorium pretty quickly, despite our {read: my} constant stopping to take pictures, so Steph and I decided to walk around the outside of the place. If you don't want to pay for admission into the museum, walking along the outside is not a bad idea. Not only are the views fantastic, but there are small exhibits along the railing and large windows into the museum that give you a peek of what's inside.

After making our way down the entire length of the pier, we took an Instagram break {because those are truly a real thing now}, wondered how long it'd take the boys to get there, and watched a seagull take apart a small crab {seriously. it was simultaneously cringe-worthy and fascinating}. When we finally got their call that they were inside getting the tickets, we headed back to meet them.

Not a bad start to an excellent day. (:

Adventuring // Midnight Mini-Golfing

^ The salted caramel ice cream at Knudsen's Ice Creamery. Also, prepare yourself for some blurry night photos below. Heh. ^

This is what happens when you play mini-golf at eleven o'clock at night with only a phone camera. No matter how still you stay, the pictures still come out all blurry. Boo.

However, this was seriously hilarious and super fun. So I'd recommend it for everyone anyways. Especially if you happen to have three friends who have never played mini-golf before and have no idea what they're doing {the boys would probably like me to mention that they have played real golf before (and are assumably decent), but then I would have to retort that mini-golf and regular golf are two veryVERY different games}.

The night started out when I met up with Evelyn and Steph at Knudsen's Ice Creamery for dinner. We all had different sandwiches, but it was unanimously agreed that the fries were the highlight of the meal. E and I contemplated coming back solely for them at a later date. Nom.

For dessert, each of us ordered a flavor of ice cream and split them-- blueberry cheesecake, toffee bar, and, the favorite of the night, salted caramel. Even sharing between the three of us {and with the additional help of Char and Stephen when they arrived a while later}, we couldn't finish all of it. Still. Twas delicious.

After sitting at that table for about three hours {not exaggerating} talking and laughing and teasing Steph and Stephen about each other, Evelyn and Char said it was time for them to go home. Since the rest of us weren't quite ready to call it a night yet {Tommy had arrived at some point after having had dinner with a high school friend}, we hugged them, wished them a safe drive home, and headed over to Golden Tee Golfland for a round of mini-golf.

Now, disclaimer, I've been going here since I was a little kid, so yeah, definitely had a home field advantage. But watching these kids attempt to play was just amazing. Because I got to experience the course through fresh eyes and remember all the other times I've failed and whacked the ball into the bushes/down the wrong hill/onto the next hole like these kids did that night.

It was a night of frozen fingers, frozen toes, and LOTS of laughter. With mini-golf, hitting the ball as hard as you can doesn't necessarily mean it's going to go where you'd like it to go. It's a bit more about precision and skill than power and strength. Add pitch black skies and cold temperatures to an unfamiliar course and you've got a recipe for hilarity.

At one point, we spent five minutes looking for Tommy's golf ball using our phones as flashlights and then Stephen realized Tommy had gotten a hole-in-one. *siiigh*

The poor couple behind us. We took forever at each new hole, but they kept telling us they were fine waiting and kept turning down our offers to let them pass us. I think they were on a date. At the first hole, they waited quietly, a good arms-length from each other. By the seventh hole, they were sitting together on the cold, metal bench and talking comfortably. By the eighteenth hole, they were all giggly and cuddly and huggy. Sooo... yay, upside of us taking so long? Hee.

When we finally completed the entire course, we went inside the arcade area to use the tokens that came with our tickets. It took a while for our fingers to defrost first. Then it was all Skeeball and Harpoon Lagoon {four-person video game thing where you spear fish and every five pounds of fish gives you a ticket}. We ended up with enough tickets for 31 Gummi Hamburgers {620 tickets}. Just what we needed.

Nighttime adventures with these kidlets are always my favorite.