As you might remember, SF is one of our very favorite places to visit.  In fact, we call it "our playground".  I don't think we ever feel quite as alive as when we are there, hence the frequent visits.  Right before Christmas, we got the itch to go again. 

Millie is trying to decide whether she wants to live there when she grows up...it is competition for her New York City dream.  Whichever city she may choose, we will be sure to have a place right down the street from her.  Yeah, we are THOSE parents.  Deal with it.  ;-)

On this trip, we visited my favorite, Chinatown, of course, as well as the ultra touristy but the best area to get a bread-bowl of clam chowder---Fisherman's Wharf.  We also went back to one of Millie's faves, Zeum, at Yerba Buena.  We also had the amazing opportunity to see San Francisco Ballet's The Nutcracker and it straight up knocked our socks off.  Out of all of the places we have ever stayed in SF, this year we crowned a new king...The Palace Hotel.  We will never stay anywhere else again.  It was flawless and helped make this trip just what we needed.

I was in a different place with photography during this visit, in contrast to last year's visit.  Last year I was ferocious about photographing everything, to the point of exhaustion on some of the days.  This go round, I found it incredibly liberating to see an image that I might be interested to take, and choose to walk right by it without even touching my camera.  My choice was to be JUST in that moment with my family instead of doing my typical "be on both sides of the moment to capture it" song and dance.  Sure, I like the images I took from this trip, but mostly the ones of Millie.  That is very telling of where I am in life!

Here are some shots I took on this SF adventure.