Day 16 – 18: a San Francisco weekend

Ok, so I had little (planned) hiccup in my strict SIBO protocol, but let’s not freak out!  [Mostly talking to myself here]

Since a family vacay isn’t in the cards this summer, Kyle and I decided it would be cool to divide and enjoy some much needed solo bonding time with each of the kids.

I figured an overnight in the city (SF) would be the perfect staycation that would provide us with some unique things to do and see (and eat) while not costing too much.  This trip was also a way of celebrating OIT graduation with P.  I did a lot of planning with him at our appointments, so we were both eager for the trip.

Don’t worry, I only took 200 photos while there.

About a month ago I found this hotel and booked a night.  By paying in advance I got such a good rate that I actually decided to stay an extra night! My search criteria was mainly by price and location.  I wanted to be within walking distance of the Ferry Building and the Exploratorium, where I anticipated spending most of our time.  It wasn’t a long trip so I didn’t want to waste a bunch of it trying to conquer too much stuff.  It is hard to stay focused because there is SO MUCH TO DO in this wonderful city, but I managed to narrow done my list.

For the past month+ I’ve been looking forward to this weekend in a major way.

Kyle was out of town on Thursday but got home Friday in time to take V to library so I could pack and get ready while P was at camp.

I had finished off all my prepped breakfast breads and baked goods but I wanted something sweet with nut butter so I quickly whipped up an egg/coconut flour batter to make a tortilla/crepe thing…which I then added heaps of cashew butter to.

YES!  I will try to recreate this at some point and write down the exact amounts because it was awesome. Hopefully it wasn’t beginners luck and I can figure it out again!

I made lunch for the kids and then picked up P.

Kyle and V got home and once they were fed I made myself food.

My lunch salad had butter lettuce (the smaller pieces from all the lettuce cups I had the week before), bacon, avocado, salted roasted almonds, and a home-made balsamic vinaigrette with carrots.

As soon as we were fed we hit the road!

First stop, Pier 39/Fisherman’s Wharf.

There was a bubble machine and he and another kid were chasing them together and having a blast. Kid laughing is so infectious.

After a while exploring, we drove to our hotel and parked the car in a lot for the weekend.  The lobby had a basket of unlimited apples which thrilled P.  He ate this one whole down to the very core as we made our way across the street to the Embarcadero.

And then perused the Ferry Building…

MARIPOSA!!!!

If this place existed (or distributed) closer to Davis I’d drain our entire bank account there on a daily basis. Kyle got our anniversary cake there a few years ago.  It’s when I first fell for the place.  I brought a few items home with me back then too…which I definitely planned to do on this trip as well.

We got a chocolate chocolate chip cookie for dessert later that night – Pacman’s choice. 🙂

G. L. Alfieri is another staple.  I got two kinds of bark – also for later.  We’ll see if I can wait til the SIBO diet is done…

P enjoyed all the sights, too.

The crab and lobster were favorites.

I had my eye on more chocolate. Duh. I snagged a couple of TCHO bars that I’d never seen before including the coconut chip and the hazelnut chunk.  I’m already regretting not getting the triple berry too.

There were soooo many options, but I couldn’t sleep knowing I spent more than $8 on a tiny bite of chocolate, no matter how good, so I kept it to a reasonable amount (while still treating myself).

After dropping our goodies off at the hotel, we set off for dinner.  Little Gem was the furthest place from the hotel that we ventured that weekend and since MUNI was taking forever we popped down on BART to Civic Center instead.  This may have been Pattycakes’ first time on BART?

My little gem.  <3

I got the spiced hanger steak with 5 Dot Ranch beef, charred early girl tomato, baby spinach, sweet onions, red wine jus.  The portion was pretty small, so that was a bummer.

P got the steak tacos, with 5 Dot Ranch hanger, cranberry bean puree, white rice, vinegared vegetables, roasted tomato salsa, cilantro, and NON.  The “NON” is the restaurant’s own GF tortilla creation.

The restaurant is dairy and gluten free…so all I said when ordering was he has a peanut allergy.  They seemed more than capable at handling that.  Things are getting so easy dining out with this guy!!!!

He devoured the tacos and didn’t even share a single bite with me.  Can’t blame him, I’m the same way with my food.  😉

We took a bus home at his request, which he loved.  It’s the little things…

Back at our hotel, I got us bathed before we had some treats (and then he got his dose).

I couldn’t decide which to open so I opened both.

And had a very respectable serving of each too!  I think I reset my sweet tooth you guys!!!  I sometimes don’t even want dessert at night!  Or at the very least, I don’t feel like I NEED it (the way I used to).

We started to watch a movie (!!!!) but it was too scary.  For the record, we were approximately 2 minutes into Moana.  Instead we chose Finding Dory and since I had already seen it, I could warn him about parts that may alarm him and talk through things the whole time.  We stopped it a few times for those reasons but ended up watching THE WHOLE THING!  He hasn’t ever seen a full movie, so this was a big treat.  And oh man were we up late!  I was so tired I have no idea how he was faring.  Well, I guess he did sleep on the drive into the city, so there’s that.

The next morning wasn’t as leisurely as I envisioned, but the silver lining is at least we didn’t sleep the whole day away.

I squeezed in a quick work out in the room while P read books on cd, ate a bar, and took his dose.

Then it was off to the Ferry Building!  It was farmer’s market AND marathon weekend AND the weather was gorgeous so the vibe was unbelievable.  It was perfection.

Back to Mariposa for a cinnamon roll and avocado bacon toast (on GF DF bread, naturally). It’s the same cinnamon roll I got here.  It’s nice to have a breakfast buddy when you can’t decide what to get.  Sweet or savory…hmmm…both!  I got the full order of toast (two slices of bread) so I could have one in addition to the cinnamon roll.

He ate all the bacon off the toast first, though, including all but one of mine. Thief.

And then he got down to business.  Mariposa gets two thumbs up for the amount of avocado on the toast, byt the way.  Very generous portions.

Mmmmm.

After staring out at the water and digesting, we wandered a few piers up to the Exploratorium.

Cheeeeese.

Tickets are pricey but there’s SO much to do!  I have at least 50 photos from the day, all of P just trying new things and having a ball.  I was soaking it all in, because it’s rare these days to have my attention undivided.

This was seriously impressive.  I didn’t even help as his brain worked out how to do it.

Everyone else working on it was in a different age range…but he plugged away…and probably would have been there all day if he could.

But there were a million more things to see and do.

Dance your heart out little boy.

We walked a few piers down to Plant Cafe Organic for lunch but they WERN’T TAKING WALK INS!!!  What the what.  Plant is one of my fave restaurants in SF so this was a big time blow.  They had so many open tables, but had no interest in anything but reservations (which they weren’t taking any more of – even for dinner).  The take away across from the restaurant was closed and they weren’t doing to go orders either so we went for plan B – back to the Ferry Building!  Not a bad consolation (but I was still a little miffed at the rudeness of the host at Plant).  Anyway.  P was getting hangry so I hooked him up with some “crispy crunchies” (they’re those little snapea things, but I refuse to call them snap peas, lest my kids confuse processed stuff for actual produce).  I bought a mini packet as a treat especially for this weekend.

Crunch crunch crunch.

Meanwhile I ordered us lunch at Prather Ranch Meat Co.  I found out about the American Eatery at PRMC when I was doing research before the trip and was browsing all the vendors at the Ferry Building.  They are awesome – totally about humane treatment of animals and sustainable ag practices. Their meat is local and they can basically tell you what cow you ate for lunch.

Their buns (acme’s pain de mie) have dairy in them so he got his in lettuce (which he ate all of by the way). He was dead set on a burger, but they had a hot dog that sounded great too.  All their buns had dairy though.

I got the Prathertarian Paleo Bowl with braised PRMC dry aged beef, roasted cauliflower rice, braised greens, and pickled red onions. And since I wanted to be sure I was full I added avocado. It was super yummy. I’d go back in a second.

After lunch he wanted to “enjoy the view” for a while so we just sat and stared off at the Bay.

We walked back up to the Exploratorium though, and spent the rest of the afternoon there tackling more of it. Even though we were there for the whole day, we only made it to 1/5th of the attractions! My little drummer boy rocking out to the Beatles.

What. A. Day.

We went back to the hotel before dinner to unload some stuff (more Ferry Building treats) and then took a trolly down the Embarcadero to Hillstone for dinner.

I didn’t make a reservation, which was a huge mistake…after over an hour waiting P fell asleep in my arms.

After that I didn’t really mind the wait because he was clearly pooped and was sleeping through the wait anyway.

Just when it started to get super annoying the hostess hooked me up with some fries.  YES!

I ate them while watching the chefs work magic.  And analyzing every single dish.  Which helped me decide exactly which cut of meat and sides I wanted by the time we did get seated.

Look who woke up just in time to steal the rest of my fries.

This was his first time having fries!!!!  Thanks to OIT I no longer have to worry about cross contamination of things like battered fried foods (with dairy), etc.  As long as it’s not peanut oil we are good!  [They use canola oil]

There was live music too, so he was way into the whole dining experience.

We were seated at 8 pm, which is basically his bed time, but he was freshly napped so it was all good.  And I’m honestly not sure who enjoyed the steak date more.

I told the waitress about his allergies (I’d already called in advance of the weekend to make sure they could accommodate him) and she left me feeling very reassured that they were taking the level of caution it deserved. And look at the spread we got!!

I got the steak special…oooohhhh buddy.

P got steak too (no interest in a kid’s menu at all) with broccolini (prepared without the parmesan topping).

My sides included their slaw and braised red cabbage with goat cheese.  Both were insanely good.  I would order that braised red cabbage again and again and again.

He nearly finished it all!

After waiting forever at the trolly stop, our ride finally came and was too full that it passed us by completely!  Ugh.  So we walked alllllll the way home (30 piers).  It wasn’t that bad, actually, and since I was carrying him (he had walked so much that day he was done and I didn’t blame him one bit) he didn’t care that we took a while to get home.

Another late night, another attempt at Moana.  And another fail.  He wants to try so badly, but gets really scared.  We watched an episode of Thomas instead.  Then I found Matilda on the hotel tv which we watched 5 seconds of because the headmistress (forget her name) was being a bully and I had no interest in showing him that.  Figures TV would fail me.  Yes, he may be super sheltered, but he’s sensitive and I would rather protect that innocence as long as possible.

I did a Nike plus workout in the room the next morning while listening to the announcers at the marathon finish line.  I was drawn to this workout because Cristiano Ronaldo’s name was on it, but (a) this exercise shown wasn’t even in the workout and (b) Ronaldo wasn’t on the video!  His voice popped in 2-4 times saying things like “10 more seconds” and “keep it up” which was so cheesy and awkward.  Nice try Nike. That said, I was very sore the next day so it’s still a win.

Meanwhile, P was doing his thing with some books on cd.

Rather than trek it to another restaurant (the marathon made everything either impossible to get to or crowded), I ordered our breakfasts via room service.

The hotel is above Perry’s restaurant, which is way popular, so it seemed an easy option.  And it was even easier because I ordered via the bedside media console thing (it turns into a clock at night, but is basically an ipad otherwise).  I wrote in the notes “peanut and dairy allergy!  Please don’t put butter, milk or cheese in or on anything.”  It took no time at all and was exactly what I wanted.

Ta-da!

I can’t believe I ordered food from a restaurant for my little allergy dude without even talking to another human!  My how times have changed.

I got the two egg breakfast for us both (fried), with potatoes, sourdough, and bacon. P ate an obscene amount of bacon and some potatoes, and I ate basically everything else, including all 4 eggs, the potatoes, some bacon, and some of a GF DF cinnamon roll from Mariposa. OOOOOF.  It was like the opposite of a marathon.  I felt a little remorse for a hot second but then I snapped out of it and reminded myself that this is what the trip was all about!  Treating myself.  I don’t get the chance to indulge like this ever so I had better jump on the chance when it presents itself.

We walked to the Creativity Museum after that but P told me he wasn’t feeling well (I think we walked too soon after his dose) so I listened to him and scrapped the museum.  Instead we sat on the steps for a while before walking to St. Patrick’s church.  We had wanted to go to mass at 9:30 but I knew as soon as we woke up we weren’t going to make it, so I didn’t bother rushing for it.  But since we were skipping the museum and it was on the way home…may as well pop in. So we did!  He thought it was too pretty to be a “regular” church and thought it was “only for weddings”.  I can understand the confusion considering our church’s appearance as compared to the cathedral my sister just got married in.

We had no agenda after that so we slowly made our way back to the Pier…

Finish line balloons 🙂

My sister and dad met us at the Ferry Building at noon because they were going to the Giants game so we said a quick hello before going back to the hotel for check out.

I bought everything at urban remedy on my way out…including the “time machine” spicy lemonade I drank on the way home. Good news bad news about urban remedy – they have a rewards card.  Watch out.

He fell asleep 20 minutes from home but transferred onto the couch without more than a wink.  It was definitely the best weekend.

I snacked on these before packing up our swim gear for a friend’s swim birthday party that evening.

Miracle of miracles, I didn’t have dessert that night!!  And now back to the program.  [I took pills the whole time I was gone and felt decent, so I don’t think I did too much damage or got very much off track]