ALCATRAZ

(3/14) We woke up early, ate breakfast, and walked over to Alcatraz Landing so we could board our boat for our tour of Alcatraz.  We were told to expect cold and foggy, but the weather was awesome!  It was sunny, clear, and warm...

On the boat...

There's the Bay bridge...

Almost to the island...

We all really enjoyed looking around the prison.  We started out doing a guided tour but it was crouded so we ended up doing the self-guided tour.  They give you head phones to wear that guide you to different parts of the prison.  The kids really thought it was interesting to hear the stories about the crazy prisoners and some of the guards.  They thought it was cool that kids and their families once lived and played on the island and took boat to school every day.

Carson and Sydni in the slammer!

View of San Francisco from the island...

The Golden Gate Bridge...

Back on the boat...

GARRETT'S 13TH!

(1/30) Garrett turned 13 in January!!  Yikes!  We have TWO TEENAGERS in the house!  This year his birthday was low key.  Garrett has been in a bit of a destructive mood lately so we kept telling him that he will get some of the things he has broken for his birthday.  He didn't think we would do it... but we did :)  He broke the bucket that is used to clean up the dog poop so we got him one of those.  He also broke 2 calculators (he was curious to see how they worked... then of course smashed them when he couldn't get them together!) so we also got him a calculator.  So exciting right?  Don't worry, we also got him some RC things that he has been wanting to put on his RC car :) 

Later that night he wanted Golden Corral for his birthday.  He is a big eater these days and he had always loved all you can eat buffets.  Not my first choice but we went :) It was a normal dinner until...

... the biker-ish family sitting next to us complained to a mom at the buffet that her son was licking spoons at the buffet.  The biker family pretty much freaked out rudely which caused the mom to freak out rudely right back.  Then a minute later the mom's gangster male friend confronted the biker dude, yelling at each other.  This was all going on right next to us!!  They stood up and yelled (and spit) in each others face.  Then it turned even more ugly when the biker turned it into a race thing (what the heck?!).  The gangter dude shoved the old biker dude INTO THE BUFFET.  The biker dudes head shatters the glass that is over the food on the buffet... his head bleeding.  Shoving and punching continued.  Luckily it moved outside pretty quickly.  It was CRAZY!  Poor Sydni was near tears.  I just wanted to leave but of course the guys were at the entrance so there was no way to get out.

 Finally we left and there were about 10 or 15 police cars outside, a firetruck and a few ambulances.  Crazy!  Then to top it off, as we were getting into our car, some random guy came out from behind a building and some bushes and told us that he had just gotten out of prison and had nothing and was wondering if we had something we could give him.  We had some rolls from the restaurant that we gave him and bolted out of that place.  Yeah, we will NEVER go back!! I'm sure Garrett will never forget what was supposed to be his "low-key" 13th birthday dinner :-/