san francisco treatin'

our first full day in san francisco had us up bright and early. we got the bean ready, packed her lunch in her tote, and headed out towards the presidio. 

oh, i don't think i've even mentioned why we were there in the first place! well, last year when we visited the walt disney family museum, i'd learned that they do animation camp during the summer for kids ages 8-10. and considering the bean's dream job of becoming a disney animator someday...well, it was a no-brainer. 

i don't actually know who was more excited for this experience, her or me and her sister. 

yes, that IS a hello kitty bag she's carrying there. rookie mistake, i know. we vowed to remedy that, stat. but first, we walked her into the museum through the rear entrance as instructed. she got her photo taken for her official badge:

blew us kisses, and disappeared into the hallway. 

faced with nothing but time on our hands and an entire city to explore, the old lady and i checked yelp to find somewhere good for breakfast. a few minutes later, we ended up here:

because it was a little chilly, we opted to go inside rather than find a table on the outdoor patio.

they had a pretty extensive menu and luckily were not as busy as yelpers had noted in their reviews. i guess being a monday helped. 

we both opted for the fluffy french toast, which was really good. 

and we liked how they served us water, kind of like what we'd gotten used to in europe. 

we decided to walk around a little and check things out. it was pretty early though, and most of the shops were still closed. since we had an errand to run - finding the bean a more appropriate bag for disney camp - we decided to find the nearest disney store. 

as we drove along, we saw a few folks tooling around town in these little cars. looked like fun, but those city drivers are insane. no way would i have my girls in one of these things. 

the disney store was near union square, and because it was so early we found parking fairly easily nearby. it didn't take too long to pick something out, and we even managed to catch a good sale. plus, we figured she'd probably use the backpack and lunch tote we bought for school...which will be here before we know it. 

and with no other plans, we decided to spend our day shopping. sounded like a pretty good idea to us. 

we're both dying to slide our feet into a pair of beautiful red soles christian louboutin one day. so we headed into nearby saks fifth avenue to take a look and drool a little. 

i mean, look at how pretty these shoes are!

i would TOTALLY rock these in the fall/winter months on a regular basis. they'd be my "every day" loubs, you know? HASHTAG SHOE GOALS, people. 

these were a little out there. 

although i think CL nail polish is all i'll ever be able to swing. heh. 

after we'd mopped up the drool, we strolled around till we found somewhere else to browse through - this time, a store we could actually buy stuff in: uniqlo. 

they had these little lockers where you could charge your phone for free:

and some very cute disney tees. 

at urban outfitters, i found these cute necklaces that i would have picked up if not for the $58 price tag. 

downstairs, we had fun looking through their home goods section. how cute is this trailer??

we both liked this accent pillow. 

when i sank into this chair and needed help, all this little shit could do was point and laugh. hmph. 

just down th street from there was the turnaround and end of the line for one of the cable cars. the line to get on was insanely long. 

after wandering around a little more, we ended up stopping for lunch at the nordstrom cafe. 

inside macy's is a little french bakery, where we stopped to pick up some macarons for the bean as a "yay for the first day of animation camp!" treat. too bad we spied flies buzzing inside the bakery case, landing on the pastries and totally grossing us out. 

after picking her up from the museum, we headed towards cousin seven's house to meet up with her for dinner. we drove through the castro district to get there, and admired the plethora of rainbow flags and pretty crosswalks. 

oh, and it was 7-11 day! free slurpees for all!

then it turned out that seven had to work late and we had a couple of hours to kill. we took the bean to see "the secret life of pets" and then finally met up with seven for delicious sushi and ramen. 

it was a lovely way to cap off day one of our SF adventure. so much more to come!