Crazy San Fran and the WIGI Event

Allison and I were lucky enough to go to San Francisco with John Deere Landscapes this past weekend for their Women in the Green Industry (WIGI) event. When we arrived at the airport Thursday morning, we had a driver waiting for us and were amazed by the views as we drove through the city. I mean, there were houses on top of house on top of houses. We also saw a nude man in the middle of a public area within the first two minutes.

After checking into our hotel, we walked through Union Square to get some Nob Hill Chills at Ghirardelli. The area was beautiful, but the people were crazy. I've never seen so many people talking/yelling at themselves as they walked down the street. There were also homeless people all over the place, but the buildings and view were stunning.

This was our view from our hotel room.

I FaceTime'd the girls before heading down to our first event. We had a little booth set up to check out the vendors involved and sign up for our dine around before our group dinner that night.

We had a great speaker, Nancy Friedman, during our welcome dinner, and then we took a group picture with all of the ladies that had arrived that day.

Friday was full of conferences, breakout classes, and group lunches and dinners.

The best afternoon snack!

I FaceTime'd the girls again that night, while they were taking a bath and getting ready for dinner with Auntie Elisha. Yes, Daddy let them eat suckers while taking a bath. He's the most fun ever!

That night, we went to dinner at Tian Sing Chinese with our Las Vegas group. It was so fun, and we hit up Ghirardelli again afterwards.

Saturday was the day we were most looking forward to! It was our free day, and we finally had some time to check out the city. We spent the day with Lynne, Anne, and Tracey in our awesome "Team Vegas" shirts that Tracey had made for us.

Our first stop was the cable car line. It was right next to our hotel, and the street was gorgeous.

While we were waiting, we got to listen to this guy playing the guitar and singing with a homeless man that lived on that corner providing us with some dancing entertainment.

The cable car was crazy. We must have stopped five times to let people on our already packed car. They squished us in there like sardines. It was so cool, though, to ride through the city and see the houses, Chinatown, and the Golden Gate Bridge.

We hopped off the cable car when we reached the Fisherman's Wharf, and, since we were in California, we pitched in together for a Powerball ticket (we didn't win!).

Although it was early, we decided that we had to eat some seafood. We walked through all of the food stands, saw some giant crabs, and ultimately decided on fresh shrimp and calamari. Everything was delicious!

We still had a couple of hours to kill before our Alcatraz tour, so we walked around and saw some more crazy people. You would think that being from Vegas would prepare us for some of the sights, but it was totally different.

We stopped by a memorial for all of the submarines that disappeared in WWII. It's crazy to think that they are sitting somewhere in the ocean.

We also went to an arcade museum that had some creepy wooden models in them that would play for a quarter.

Finally, we went to get on our boat for Alcatraz. We checked out the model and waited (not so) patiently to get going.

The views from the boat were amazing. Especially this one of the greatest mullet ever.

We finally arrived, and everything about Alcatraz fascinated me. From the Indians taking it over after the prison closed down to the Battle of Alcatraz, I was in awe of this place.

I definitely did not expect it to be so beautiful there.

We learned a lot about the prison, how it operated, and events that happened there. I could not imagine being stuck on an island, in a cell.

The "hole" was especially creepy, because there were additional doors to block out the light and keep in the most dangerous, violent criminals.

We saw how the Battle of Alcatraz started. There are even pock marks in the concrete floor from the grenades that were sent in through the roof.

It was so incredible to be in a place where so much history happened just a few decades ago. I highly suggest taking this tour if you are ever in the area. It was awesome.

That night, we had dinner with the WIGI on the rooftop of Neiman Marcus. We sat near a window with views of Vera Wang's studio. It was beautiful, and we had a great time with our new friends enjoying lots of tapas and great conversation.

Thanks so much to John Deere Landscapes (soon-to-be SiteOne) for making this event one to remember. We had such a great time and took away so much from the amazing speakers. I don't know that San Francisco was my favorite place, but the people we were with made the trip fun and exciting.

I couldn't wait to get back to my husband and babies, though. This was my first time leaving them, and it was so hard. Especially since I had to miss Gracie's first soccer game. More on that coming soon...