Pt. 2: SURPRISE!!!

So we get near San Francisco, and I call our cousin to double check the directions to their house near Golden Gate Park. Our cousin is a major rock star. She’s lived in and traveled to India for years, is raising three boys, and is as mellow as can be, perhaps due to her yoga practice. 

So we read her the directions that mapquest has provided us, and she says, “I would rather fly to India than deal with East Bay traffic.” She then gave us alternate directions that had us coming in over the Golden Gate bridge. This delighted me, as I have a thing for the Golden Gate Bridge.

oh boy oh boy oh boy!

aaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh……….

We arrived at her place pretty quickly, and she and her awesome husband proceeded to ply us with a five-course Burmese take-out spread that yours truly had three – count ‘em – three helpings of. *Burp*. For some reason, I found it hard to sleep that night. I can’t imagine why.

The next day, we took the dogs and the boys out for a stroll in the park. I will not post pictures of the boys, because they are too freakin’ cute to have their likenesses posted all over the internets. If you are related to me, email me and I’ll share ‘em. Suffice it to say, wow.

However, you can see the dogs.

They are Indian street dogs, rescued by our cousin when their mom wasn’t able to take care of them. They are fabulously cool girls.

And, you can see the dahlias on display in Golden Gate Park. Sorry about the … overexposure? of the first two pictures. Bear with me.

 

Can you believe we get to live on the same planet as these flowers?

Oh, lordy lordy lordy.

And, it gets better. We were then taken to Tartine Bakery and Cafe to pick up, uh…boy, a bunch of deliciousness. Almond croissants. Pain au chocolats the size of my head. Assorted goodies for our mom.

We waved bye bye to our family, and proceeded south on I-5, fueled by…

…the ideal road food.

 

Several hours later, NO SPEEDING TICKETS thank you very much, we arrived in Orange County, with just enough time to get all clean and sweet smelling and zip down to the restaurant ahead of my brother, his wife, and the clueless Guest of Honor.

We kept giggling on our way to dinner. Our mom had NO IDEA we were planning anything for her birthday.

hee hee hee hee hee!