San Francisco

A couple weeks ago we packed up Holden and traveled to San Francisco for the SARA architecture convention. We left Wednesday and returned Sunday. We always forget until we travel how hard it is to have Holden sleep in the same room with us...We keep him awake and he keeps us awake...or in the case of this trip, he kept us and our neighbors in the hotel awake! Yikes! Good thing I have known the couple in the next room my whole life! I have no idea what happened but the first night we were there he cried almost the whole night...not just cried, screamed! It was pretty rough...luckily the trip was fun and educational, and my mom took Holden almost all day everyday so I think everyone had a good time, even with little sleep. We stayed at the Sir Francis Drake, it was a nice historic hotel.
We got to visit Fong and Chan Architects and David Fong gave us a presentation on their project the new DeYoung museum which was designed by Herzog & de Meuron. We also got to tour the DeYoung museum, it is a fascinating building and the foundation system is crazy.
We also got a tour of the Academy of Sciences building across the street that is not open to the public yet. That building was designed by Renzo Piano and it was awesome too! I know you probably don't care about touring buildings but I love it! They both were very inspirational.
We took Holden on a tour of the city...he was quite happy to be outside of course...
Here he is enjoying the Xanadu Gallery which was designed by Frank Lloyd Wright, not really, he was really enjoying the artwork on the street OUTSIDE the gallery...
During one of the dinners we attended, the table (a table of architects and spouses/significant others) was given a bunch of Wikki Stix to play with and create a masterpiece. The students from Cal Poly who were being honored that night were the judges...these are my (with Tom's help) artwork...they did not win, but one of the works from our table did win...Tom also helped with that one...but I did not capture it...sorry

This is the ring I made...its probably a zillion carats...hehe...
The rest of these pics were taken by my mom or dad as they hung out with Holden...I think they had a lot of fun and he was pretty worn out from the trip so I bet he had fun too! Since this trip he has been saying his name, "Olden", and telling us when he needs a new diaper...I tell you he is so much fun right now! Especially when he sleeps through the night! LOL
Hmm water and sand could it get any better than this?

Holden also attended his first black tie function and I think he was a hit! He was VERY well behaved and he had on this great Kenneth Cole number (thank you consignment store!). I can't believe he made it through dinner! And again my mom took him upstairs to bed and I got to stay and enjoy the evening. Ricardo Legorreta spoke...he was very eloquent and inspiring as well, we really got to hear from some great architects and see some great architecture on this trip! We are blessed!