play-by-play: birthday

Birthday Tea Party with cupcakes and lemonade with Mom and Emily. Emily's cupcake had candles on it, too, because she also wanted to make a wish. Haha.

Birthday Lunch at String's with Mom, Emily, and Annie. Next weekend is Annie's birthday so we get to do it again!

Back in San Francisco with Ben, a trip to Alcatraz Island.

We rode the ferry over in style with a delicious lunch from Boudine's. Mmmm. A bread bowl of chili and a turkey and avocado sandwich on a croissant. And we saw a dolphin!

The tour was AWESOME! It was totally creepy, informative, and entertaining.

Olive Garden for a delicious birthday dinner.

Ben shot his straw wrapper at me and I caught it between my fingers. Must be because I'm 22. Or because we sat at the handicapped table.

Ben cooked Sunday dinner - a delicious Baked Penne with Chicken, Broccoli, and Mozzarella. He found the recipe by logging in to my Pinterest account and choosing something I'd pinned. How cute is that.

Freshly made no-bake cookies out of bowls while watching Escape From Alcatraz which was totally awesome and creepy having been there!

Here's to a fabulous 22nd birthday with my family and my husband! :)

travels

Last Friday, Mom, Doug, & Emily came over to the city to visit me/see our apartment and to go to the California Academy of Sciences in Golden Gate Park - basically an animal museum. We had a grand old time. My favorite thing to see was the penguins. They are hilarious animals. The Academy also had an albino crocodile. Poor guy.

On Saturday, Ben and I took another City Guides tour - this time of the west end of Golden Gate Park. Beautiful! And a lot more G-rated. Then we drove to Emeryville - our location of choice for residence when we return to the Bay Area in January. It warmer, it's sunnier, it's cheaper, it's suburbanier, and its immediately across the Bay from San Fran so Ben's work commute would actually be shorter than it is now. We checked out several different apartment complexes and we hope to call one of them home in the near future!

Then we went to dinner at Zachary's Chicago Pizza. Ben has been hearing all about this place at work, so we were stoked. Is this slice of pizza seriously not ridiculous?

Ben is in Texas again this week and next week he will be traveling to Orlando for some sort of closing intern conference. (Who chose this traveling career?!) Fortunately, he will be back in town this weekend because I am turning the big 2-2!!

I am home with my family while Ben is away - what a blessing it is - and I am studying for my MCom 320 Independent Study final exam! I have been working on this class for over a year and on Thursday, I will finally be finished! Definitely a cause for celebration! Wahoo! :)

north beach by night

Everyday, a company called City Guides offers free tours of different parts of San Francisco. Last night, I met Ben downtown after work for a tour called "North Beach by Night." We wanted to get the full experience so we headed to North Beach for dinner before our tour - that was probably the best part of our night. We had yummy, yummy pasta at an Italian restaurant called L'Osteria Del Forno - my ravioli was even hand made. Mmmm. Well, then it was time for our tour and we had no idea what we were getting ourselves into. Did you know that North Beach is basically the "red light district" of San Francisco?! Ben said that he hardly enjoyed the tour at all because he had to look at his shoes the whole time! Ha! But, there were a few highlights: 1. Seeing the club where Bill Cosby got his big break, 2. Seeing a mural of the Chinese history in San Francisco, and 3. Seeing the apartment where Robin Williams lived in Mrs. Doubtfire. I didn't even take any pictures because I was too embarrassed, so here is a picture of us waiting for the bus home. :)

As a side note, last Saturday we rode the Cable Cars and went to Lombard Street - fun!

dancing sisters

As many of you know, I love ballet. I love Merced Academy of Dance, Miss Jane, and everything that comes with it . . . except maybe the bloody toes. The third floor studio downtown feels like a second home to me and I love to visit the studio and the girls whenever I am in town. Today was registration day for the next school year of ballet classes and I happen to be in town so, of course, I happily volunteered myself to help out. I loved seeing all of the girls, all of the other teachers, and all of the parents, but my favorite moment of all was when Emily came in with Mom to register! Who knows how long she'll stick with it - she's much more of a tomboy than me and we don't have to have the exact same life to be best sisters - but I absolutely loved helping her pick out her first pink leotard, pink skirt, pink tights, and ballet shoes!! I know that it is probably silly how much ballet and Merced Academy of Dance mean to me - but it was so fun to pass it on to my little sister! Love, love, loved it!

Here she is trying on her first pair of ballet shoes! (I had to document this exciting event.)

I was still helping out at registration, but Mom texted me this picture about as soon as they got home! It's perfect in every way.

Emily has been all smiles this evening - and so have I - and I couldn't help but be tickled as she danced around the room while we were watching So You Think You Can Dance tonight. :)

i made something!

In the past month, pinterest.com has become one of my very best friends. I love to create things, but (a) I am not creative, and (b) if I do have a creative idea, my execution of it is almost always a failure. SO, pinterest is a wonderful thing - it provides my creativity with free and flavorful creative juices and it shows me how to do everything! Parfait!

While Ben is in Texas this week (miss him!), I am home with Mom and today, with directions found on pinterest, we made this skirt!! It's lemons. Cute, no?

I also made these two rosettes from the same green fabric to put on clips and wear in my hair!

explorin'

Last night, I met Ben downtown after work so that we could go explore Chinatown. It was awesome. We got dinner at Brandy Ho's and, of course, all of the waiters/waitresses loved that Ben could speak to them in perfect Cantonese!

After dinner we walked around some more and got two of Ben's (and now mine) favorite Chinese pastries - a cocktail bun & pineapple bread. Then we both got a little cranky and it was time to go home. Ha.

Today, we explored beautiful Sausalito! Clearly, we only take pictures when we are eating, but we did more than that - I promise. Sausalito is so cute. We decided that it is where we would like to live for . . . well, forever. The shops are so fun - we especially loved "The Holiday Shoppe" which had nothing but Christmas decorations - it was great. Also, Ben and I, as per usual, got lost looking for a certain street - but we are so glad we did! We got to enjoy a gorgeous neighborhood stroll!

For lunch, we went to a restaurant called "Hamburgers." It really reminded me of "The Soup Nazi" - a Seinfeld favorite. We enjoyed our grub in a delightful little park.

Ben said that this particular happenstance was blog-worthy so I will tell you: When I ordered, I wanted a hot dog so that is what I ordered. But a couple of minutes later, they hollered "Number 5 - We're out of hotdogs!" Well, secretly, I had been wishing that I had ordered a hamburger and I got to change my order - perfect!

After lunch, we shared an ice cream cone and enjoyed the view of the bay. The man who took this picture - his wife goes to Nanjing University - the same place that Ben studied in China when we were dating!

We had a great day! Sitting and enjoying the view and the ice cream, I told Ben that this is one of the moments that I would like to capture and keep forever.

what sunset?

Yesterday I had this great idea to take Ben to the beach (roughly 30 blocks away) to watch the sunset. I even looked up the time of the sunset. 8:34. Well, even though we live in the "Sunset District," there was not an ounce of sun to be seen! If you know anything about this area, then you certainly know that a majority of the time, it is blanketed in fog! No sunset for us. We came home and popped popcorn and watched an episode of The Cosby Show.

The closer we got to the beach, the foggier it got! It was like driving into the mists of darkness.

The beach and the sunset are behind us . . .

Ha! :)

the fourth

Ben had Friday - Monday off this 4th of July weekend and we had a blast in Merced! I am loving living so close to my family! Who knew what I was missing those 4 years in Provo? Ben has to travel to Texas next week, so I get to go home again for a whole week! Except without Ben, which is sad. :(

Anyway, because Ben had to be back to work this morning, we couldn't stay in Merced for fireworks. But, we couldn't leave without lighting just a few off on Sunday night.

Merced is about 30-40 degrees hotter than San Francisco, depending on the weather here in San Fran. The whole time we were home, the temperature was 106, so we basically spent the weekend in the pool . . . which was wonderful!

Emily turned the big S-I-X a couple of days before we went home.

She is learning how to dive. Cute, huh?

On Sunday, Doug (for some unknown-teenage-boy-reason) decided to shoot me in the back of the cabeza with a Nerf gun that shoots about 30 bullets in 15 seconds. (Yes, it hurt.) So, this next series of pictures, I call "Ben giving Doug some PAYBACK."

Everybody loooves Ben at my house (I hardly get to see him), and being "beat up" by Ben looked so fun to Tommy that he wanted in!

And then it just became a family affair.

Happy 4th of July!