Golden Gate Park

Today was spent with the men playing frisbee golf at Golden Gate Park in the early morning hours. Both stated that it was one of the best courses they have ever played, a hard 18 hole course. Dave won both times, I might add!
I took Nick and Carissa to a great little hole in the wall diner for breakfast this morning where we had a diner style breakfast at a counter. The Tewksbury's hung around the apartment until we left to meet Ian & Dave at Golden Gate Park for the rest of the day.
I must admit self pride in my ability to get the four kids and Jean and I to the park independently. Any of you who know me, know my sense of direction is weak and my ability to get lost is strong. Therefore, I do not usually mind taking the "long way" to get places. But today, we made a straight shot and got there even before we were due! The guys met us and we went off to the Conservatory of Flowers. Jean has been looking forward to seeing gardens and the flowers all vacation so today was special. The conservatory at the park was beautiful! The special exhibit was Wicked Vines, about plants that could be poisonous or killer, and Connor couldn't wait to see the Venus Flytrap.
The Conservatory does a fabulous job of laying out their floorplans to keep people of all ages engaged in the variety of plants and flowers. I found the exhibit explanations to be very well written and easy for all of us to understand and enjoy reading.
From there we took our picnic lunch to the park/playground at GGP and ate while watching at least 5 summer camp groups running around and playing. Unfortunately, the weather was less than perfect as it was windy, foggy and steady sprinkles. Once we were all done and the kids had a chance to run around and play with 250 other kids their ages, we took them on the carousel. They all loved it!
From there we used our City Pass to go to the California Academy of Sciences. Tressa and Jean really wanted to see the penguins, but we all honestly enjoyed the other parts of the museum better. There is an amazing rainforest exhibit that goes for at least three floors up the center of the building. It takes you through all the layers of the rainforests - floor, lower, upper and canopy. There were flowers, trees, birds, butterflies and many examples of wildlife that live in the forest. We were all safe though, as they kept the snakes, poisonous frogs and monitor lizards behind glass.
The other most interesting portion of the CAS was the aquarium. You went from the rainforest to underwater. The variety of fish, rays, sharks and jellyfish was outstanding!
The ride back on the bus was long, but easy. Two of the four kids fell asleep, but were amiable upon waking (this in iteself was a miracle!). We had a great day today and tomorrow is looking pretty excellent too! If only the weather would cooperate a little more.