San Francisco!

Mark and I had such a great time in San Francisco and I survived my first time away from the kids with flying colors. In fact it was so much fun, that we vowed to do it every year. I mean the flight is only an hour, we love the city and there are so many great places to eat and walk. 

Here are my favs from our trip!

Of course staying at the St. Regis was AMAZING and you get treated impeccably your whole stay. But part of why we stayed there is because we are Starwood Preferred Guests and we have been involved in their program for years now. We use our Starwood Preferred Guest American Express for any credit card purchases which earns us points towards hotel stays. We also bought a Starwood timeshare years ago, which gave us bonus points from our purchase. So basically our stay at the St. Regis was FREE because we used our points and had earned a free night from previous stays. If you read my blog you know we love staying at the Westin hotels, The W Hotels, and the St. Regis hotels and they are all part of the Starwood network. I highly recommend going this route if you or your husband uses a credit card for work expenses or can earn points by staying at Starwood hotels while traveling for work. We also had free flights we earned from traveling too, so this vacation was almost free!

We found these robots in a candy store in North Beach. We loved them and bought them for "decorations" in Brody's room. But when we got home, Brody was obsessed with them! So he has one as a toy and one for his room. The company that makes them is called Schylling and they specialize in recreating classic toys. Their toys are pretty rad, especially the tin ones like these robots. But they do say that they are for collectors only, ages 14 years and up. So take that into consideration.

We found a version of these slippers in Chinatown in an upscale store called Asian Images. I love the ones I bought for Piper and imagine my surprise when I saw them in the Chasing Fireflies catalog after we got home. They are just so delicate and sweet and will be great for dress up as well. I think I will be purchasing another pair as Piper grows.

Our hotel had a great selection of cool magazines in our room and dwell magazine was one of them. It's a magazine about homes in the modern world and caters to architects and interior designers, but I loved reading it and looking at the houses they have featured. The designs are incredible! 

We loved our dinner at Betelnut Restaurant with friends Dan & Leslie. Apparently it's a hard place to get into and I see why! It's been around for 15+ years and is really cool and had great food. It was packed on a Sunday night. The menu is delicious and at a great price. You should definitely go there, but make reservations first.

After all was said and done, our favorite parts of the trip were just walking all day and getting lost in the city. We walked from one end to the other and enjoyed every blistered step. My feet are still recovering. There is something about visiting a familiar city and ditching the regular tour. For the first time, we toured ourselves and enjoyed every step and cab ride along the way.

Until next year!