I left (part of my) heart in San Francisco.

My family and I spent this past weekend in one of my very favorite cities this past weekend. We flew down to visit the in-laws in San Francisco and had a great time. San Francisco holds a very special place in my heart. When I had finished nursing school a friend and I decided on a whim to move to San Francisco to live. After a year she moved back, the biggest surprise was driving up to our apartment to see her and her dad loading his truck up and her telling me she was moving back to Seattle. But I loved living there and wasn't ready to move back to Seattle yet. I lived there a total of 2 years.
Anyway, we are now lucky that my husband's brother lives right in San Francisco and we had lots of fun visiting and doing lots of touristy things with our kids.
I couldn't get over how much was blooming there right now. Although the weather wasn't very cooperative, just looking at flowers everywhere you would've never thought it was the middle of January. We saw Azaleas, daisies, Princess flowers (Tibouchina urvilleana), Red hot poker (Kniphofia uvaria), Ceoanthus, Camellias, succulents and many more flowers blooming all over the city. No one else was really all that excited about the flowers as I kept pointing them out, but I knew you all would be!

A view from the living room. We could see from the Golden Gate Bridge to the Bay Bridge and everything in between. I couldn't believe how pretty it was.

Sweet Pea and I had fun using the zoom on my camera to try to figure out the different plants from the house. I loved this tree but have no idea what it is. One of my favorite things to do when visiting a different city is looking at the trees and plants that grow there. Many of the trees in San Francisco have a Dr. Seuss look to them. Update: Norfolk Island Pine - Araucaria heterophylla as identified by Susie of Poppy and Sage and lotus leaf of Garden tropics.

This Anna's hummingbird was quite far down from the house but we could see him sitting there all day with occasional visits to some sort of yellow blooming shrub that was nearby. Hummingbirds were all over the place, even in very busy tourist areas.

Another bird we saw frequently from the house was this blue one. I don't know what type it is.

Probably my favorite new place that we saw was inside the California Academy of Sciences in Golden Gate Park. I loved the indoor rain forest. Inside this four story contained rain forest was an open inner area with a ramp that you followed up to the top. This picture was taken about half way up.

Inside butterflies and birds flew around and landed here and there. These Blue Morpho butterflies were everywhere, huge too! Flash was not permitted inside so some of the pictures are a little dark.

Looking down from the top you could see lots of fish and turtles swimming around.

You had to keep your eyes open, you never knew what frog might be hiding under a leaf nearby. Sweet Pea found this one.

I think this is an Orchid, the flower was much bigger than my hand. Update, this is actually not an Orchid but Aristolochia elegans (Dutchman's Pipe) as identified by Alison and Prospero of Serendipitous Garden.

More Blue Morpho butterflies.

One of the walls filled with lots of different plants.

Another butterfly. A cute little yellow bird was hopping around here, but I couldn't get his picture. All throughout were displays of reptiles and amphibians from the rain forests. An elevator took you from the very top to below the water (seen in a picture above) and you were let out into the Aquarium. There is also a Planetarium and many other things to do inside. Sadly the weather was too rainy to visit the Botanical Gardens or Japanese Tea Garden.

Another day while the other adults and big kids went to see King Tut, the Littlest Gardener and I went for a walk/hike around the neighborhood. We got a good workout as his house is on a very steep hill! We found these purple flowers blooming. Update: This is called Blue Hibiscus, which is actually not a hibiscus but Alyogyne huegelii also identified by Susie.

More flowers, not sure what most of these flowers are. Update: Rosie from Leaves'nBloom id'd this as Leptospermum scoparium/ The New Zealand Tea Tree.

More flowers... Update: Darla from More Family and Flowers id'd this as Mexican Bush Sage.

More purple flowers.

A beautifully landscaped garden. This house is on a corner and was this beautiful all the way around. There were bird feeders and garden art tucked in everywhere. I was hoping someone would be working outside so I could see more of it.

The Littlest Gardener at the top of our hike.

More of our view. Not a surprise that the view is obscured by the fog.

What a beautiful city, so much to see and do! As much as I love the Seattle area, a piece of my heart will always belong to San Francisco.