Andy and Sandra's wedding rehearsal

Right after our beach visit, we drove across the street to the San Francisco Zoo, where the wedding would be held the next day for the rehearsal. Chad was in the wedding as a groomsman and Cecilia was the flower girl. Cecilia was really excited to be a flower girl again after her experience at Eric and Jo's wedding a month before that.

This wedding was not even close to as well-organized as Eric and Jo's wedding. In fact, both Chad and I said that it was probably the least organized wedding that we had ever been to (and it probably didn't help that we were comparing it to Eric and Jo's SUPER organized wedding), but thankfully everything worked out in the end!

During the rehearsal, everyone practiced walking in and out a few times. It was really confusing for Cecilia though, because there were no chairs set up so she didn't understand where the aisle was going to be and where she would need to walk.

As you can see, the wedding took place in the midst of the animals. It was a really interesting setting for a wedding.

As you can see, we were well-prepared with things for the kids to do. We learned our lesson after not having any distractions for the kids at Eric and Jo's wedding rehearsal!

So after the rehearsal, Chad asked Sandra (the bride) when he should be at the zoo the next day to get ready, and her response was "I don't know" with a shrug. The she suggested asking Curtis (the best man) because he was supposed to be getting the guys organized. Unfortunately, Curtis's response was the same as Sandra's though. So ultimately, the decision was made that the guys were going to meet to get ready at 4:00. That was only one of many questions that didn't really have answers though. At one point, Sandra's sister-in-law, who was walking in with Chad, leaned over to Chad and says, "I am an event planner, and I am REALLY trying not to be bossy right now" as there was some confusion or unorganized thing happening.

But, like I said, everything worked out in the end!

After the rehearsal, we all drove across San Francisco to Buca di Beppo for the rehearsal dinner. The food was good and it was nice to get to talk to everyone, but the service was pretty terrible. It took almost 20 minutes for us to flag anyone down to get a high chair for Grant, another 20+ minutes to get glasses of milk for the kids, about 45-50 minutes from the time that we got there to get bread and salads, probably another 30+ minutes to get the pre-arranged food (fettuccine alfredo, cheese ravioli, and chicken marsala), and maybe another 40 minutes for them to bring the desserts! Needless to say, we were all STARVING by the time that any food came! And everything took so long that we had to leave before dessert (although we did get a cannoli to take with us) because the kids were starting to melt down and we knew the next day would be long too. So we were really not impressed with the service that night. 

Beach trip

We got up to San Francisco a lot faster for Andy and Sandra's wedding rehearsal on the 20th than we thought we would. So since we had some extra time, we decided to go to the beach right across from the zoo. We accidentally drove a lot further on the Great Highway up the coast than we meant to, but it was a very scenic route (and we only had to stop every like 1/3 of a mile for crosswalk traffic lights). 

So after spending an extra 15 minutes in the car, we pulled in at the beach. We were really lucky that there was a car pulling out just as we were pulling in, so we got a parking spot right near the end. We only had about 15 minutes to spend at the beach, but the kids enjoyed the time to get out and play. They both were picking up sand and letting it run through their fingers and blow in the wind. We decided after seeing how easy of a trip it was and how much fun that the kids had, we will probably do that again sometime when we don't have somewhere else to be right afterwards.

Serra Park

On June 19th we decided to walk to Serra Park for some park time since we hadn't been there in a while. Since it was a pretty warm day, I told the kids we could take some extra clothes so that they could go into the water sprayers they have running there. We played on the toddler playground and then the big kid playground for about 45 minutes or so. 

Then the kids decided that they wanted to go into the water. So in they went. This was Grant's first time in the water and I wasn't sure how it would go, but he had a blast! Grant's favorite thing to do was to catch water in his bucket and then to dump it out, typically all down his front. Cecilia was running around trying to catch water in her bucket. Then she would come pour it on my feet for me. Both kids ended up soaked, but they had a lot of fun. We will probably try to go back again soon. Maybe Daddy can come with us next time too!