James 40th Birthday Surprise

James turned the big 40 on August 1st and in the past we haven't done anything too special for birthdays, so I decided to plan a surprise weekend away. My niece Lauren had been out to help me with the kids in Washington when James had to go to Hawaii to work for a few weeks for Telsource, so she agreed to come out to watch the kids for us for 2 days! I planned a weekend in San Fran since we were only an hour and a half now. I told James Lauren was coming out because she missed the kids and then he thought we were going to get to go out on a date for his birthday, which he was very excited about. When I told him it was for a weekend in the city he was completely stunned! We haven't had a weekend away since we went to Boston before Ian was born, so it was about time :) We got a hotel in Union Square and because there were no non-smoking rooms still available at our reserved rate, they upgraded our room to a corner suite and our view was amazing! Its funny when you haven't been without the kids much, we got to our room and we looked at each other and said "the kids would have loved this, we should have just brought them!" We changed our minds after we got used to the freedom again, walking to our restaurant without having to use a stroller or drag someone was really nice! We found this hole in the wall Indian restaurant that was fantastic! Our dinner was under $25 and it was only a few blocks from our hotel! Thanks to yelp.com!

The next day we enjoyed Chinatown a bit, then we called one of James' long time friends Kirt and his wife Michelle. They came and met us. We got talking so much we practically walked the entire city until we finally settled on a place for dinner. We were so tired! It was a really fun day and we actually got our friends to take some pictures of us so not all of our shots are too close ups!
We got to hear, smell and see the Sea Lions at the pier at Moss Landing too.