Friend reunion

This last week, Tiffany (one of my best friend's from high school and college and life in general) came in to town from Seattle for a wedding and I was lucky enough to get to hang out with her for a few days! Even though we are both awful at calling/emailing often, when we get together, we revert right back to our high school and college days where we could talk forever, laugh forever, and just be a little crazier than we normally act. :) Oh, and she brought her sweet little Addy, too!

We started out our day by heading up to Gardner Village to walk around the cute shops and enjoy the nice weather. Well that "nice weather" quickly turned into freezing cold, long, hard downpour that forced us to leave after just a couple of shops. At least we got to Sweet Aftons, the candy store, and picked out some good taffy.

I'm not used to having a baby, stroller, extra bags, etc. so no matter how fast we ran to the car, we were soaked to the bone by the time we got everything packed in the car. It was crazy how hard the rain was coming down and it came so fast that the parking lots and streets were totally flooded. I don't think this picture quite does it justice, but it helps prove my point:

We just hung out and talked the rest of the afternoon at my apartment, and then later that evening we were joined by some former college roommates, Laura and Marcelle. The four of us made a scrumptious dinner and then they surprised me with some birthday signs and a cake!

{P.S. We missed Heath at law school in NYC, Ash livin' it up in AZ, Alicia being a new momma in D.C., and SB driving somewhere between AZ and UT!}

The highlight of the night was probably trying to take a picture of ourselves. Not sure why it was so funny but we were in tears by the end because we were laughing so hard. This is so not a flattering picture at all, but since it was a key part of the night, I had to post it.

Today at work...

I really love my job right now and I love working in the field of HR/OB. For the most part, it is pretty normal work on a daily basis.

But then there are some days, like today, where you have to deal with out-of-the-norm issues such as a man using the trash can in his cubicle as a urinal, and a woman who has been pregnant with triplets for 15 months (because they were too small to come out after 9 months-obviously)......

Plan C

Plan A: pool party, but due to lightning and rain we moved to.....

Blan B: inside activity at the church, which thanks to the fire alarm turned into......

Plan C: outside activity at the church......

They never did figure out why the alarm went off, but between drooling over the firemen and climbing all over/in the truck, the girls kept raving about how it was the best activity ever. If I knew this was all it took, I would have started pulling the fire alarm every Wednesday a long time ago! :) It definitely added a little more excitement than normal to mutual this week!

Pro (mini) Golf Tour

My parent's computer is currently in the shop, so they came over to use our computer on Friday night... which ended up turning in a last-minute mini-golf challenge. We jumped in the car and headed over to Boondocks where it was my parents vs. me and Ryan (we combined each couple's scores at the end). Despite my 3 hole-in-ones, we still lost... of course we let them win so they wouldn't feel too old (jk... they won fair and square). It was a fun night and great to be outside and enjoy the little bit of sun that was in the between the big evening thunderstorms.

Cloudy with a chance...

Yesterday I noticed some weird clouds forming outside and I had to take a picture (which I just learned 2 minutes ago on the news that they are called mammatus clouds). These clouds quickly grew bigger and yellowish. Within a matter of minutes, everything was bright orange outside and the sky looked awesome. Here's the transformation (and they are not edited- the sky was that bright orange all on its own!):

Cool, huh? Pretty sure my neighbors were wondering who the crazy lady was who kept running out on her balcony and taking a new picture every of the sky every 20 seconds!

Chocolate Cake Shake

This last week I was in Chicago for work. I LOVE Chicago and every time I go I convince myself that I could live there in a heartbeat. Then again, I've only been there between the months of May through September. I'm sure a good Chicago winter would change my thinking, but until I experience that, I'm still convinced of the greatness of the city and its northern suburbs.

Anyway, it was apparently a slow week for Marriott's Springhill Suites because the front desk people were always asking if I wanted them to shuttle me somewhere... the mall, a restaurant, whatever. I contemplated the mall for about .2 seconds and instead had them take me to Portillo's for a chocolate cake shake. Priorities, people! If you ever go to Chicago, a Portillo's chocolate cake shake is a must (they're famous for their chocolate cake, and the shake has chunks of the actual cake in it. I guess they're also famous for their hot dogs, but of course I care more about the cake)!

San Francisco, California

After Monterey, we drove a few more hours north and toured San Francisco for a few days. Ryan has been there many times but I had never been and I've always wanted to go! We stayed in a Marriott right on Fisherman's Wharf (honestly, it was the cheapest hotel that was semi-close. Why? I don't know, but I'm not complaining!). We had a great view out of our window at the bay, some little shops, In-N-Out, the wharf, and street performers. We were smack dab in between Ghirardelli square and Pier 39, which allowed us to have a quick, easy walk anywhere we wanted to go! The only thing that wasn't so fun was the FREEZING cold temperatures. It was in the mid-50's at the hottest point of the day and I wore two sweatshirts the entire time (the same two sweatshirts, as you'll see). All in all, it was a blast and I'm glad I can now check this city off of my list of places I still need to visit.

Our great hotel. They even upgraded us to a suite. You can't even see the other half of the room behind me.

We didn't waste any time when we got there. After throwing our stuff in our room, we headed out to sightsee. Here's one of our first stops- the Palace of Fine Arts.

Hopefully everyone knows what this is:

About 4 days before we went, I learned that San Fran is known for their sourdough bread. Once I found that out, the need to get some suddenly became something that I've been waiting for my whole life. This was at Boudin's-- they had all sorts of animals and things made out of bread. Pretty cool.

For {my} viewing pleasure, here's Ryan on the cable car, looking hot... and I don't mean temperature-wise because it was only approximately 51 degrees at this point. Or at any point.

We drove down Lombard Street, a.k.a. the "crookedest road" in the nation...besides Wall Street (ba-dum-ching... thanks to our cheesy tour guide for that lame joke).

It's normal to park like this here. I would hate to drive a clutch around this hilly city.

Is it pathetic that the only reason I knew about the Coit Tower was from the Bachelor? Thanks Jake and Tenley.

Our boat ride out to Alcatraz. We did the "night tour" which was voted their best tour. We got a walking tour of the outside, an audio tour inside, and then they opened up special areas (like the hospital and the bomb shelter basement) for us at the end and told extra stories and such. Totally worth the few extra dollars.

The camera bag with maps hanging out the side... hello tourist.

The city hall was so extravagant that I kept thinking it was the capitol. It's the nation's most expensive city hall. Of course I took pictures of the cool trees out front instead of all the real gold on top of the beautiful dome. I guess I'm just easy to please and non-materialistic (although I think Ryan still needs to be convinced of that. Just kidding).

"Everywhere you look, everywhere you go, (there's a heart), there's a heart. A hand to hold onto..." We said a quick hello to Danny, Jesse, and Joey. These are the famous "painted ladies" but a painted lady is actually just one of these victorian homes that has 5 or more colors of paint on it and the more colorful, the more expensive it is. The painted lady the farthest to the left was for sale and the asking price was "only $3 million" compared to a normal one that's about $8 million, because tourist buses stop in front of it all day long. I won't even bring up my future home that I found on Sausalito island for $18 million.

China town was cool... for about .2 seconds. We went, we bought fortune cookies, we left.

Ryan requested some good fish 'n chips for his birthday dinner, so we strolled up and down Fisherman's Wharf for a long time with no such luck ($9 for 2 small pieces of fish and a few fries? No thanks). We finally found a good restaurant on Pier 39 (forgot the name of it) where he got his fish 'n chips.

It was such a fun trip, but like many good things, it came to an end and now we're back to regular life again. The good thing about this trip was that we were gone long enough to really enjoy being away from work and responsibilities of that sort, but also long enough to feel ready to be back at home. And that's a good thing.