San Francisco

Wow! What a whirlwind these last few months have been. Jon and I were in the process of buying a home and in the final days, the deal fell apart. It was very hard for both of us, but we've learned that things happen for a reason! The tough part is living amongst boxes in our little place... but also a good lesson in how much we don't need to survive!

In March, Jon and I had the opportunity to visit San Francisco with Sarah and Jason Nichols, Sarah's friend Morgan and her boyfriend, Steven. It was so much fun and a much needed break from all that was going on. Jon had been to San Fran before a few times, but I never had so I was really excited to see all the sites. We were lucky to have great weather and did so much in the 4 days that we were there.

We arrived on Friday afternoon and after we got settled in the hotel, we went out sightseeing. We rode the bus to the Haight-Ashbury district and it was so interesting! A great place for people watching...

The architecture was really awesome and Jon got really great photos. That night, we went down to Pier 39 to see if there were any good restaurants open. It was nice to see it at night, without all the people there! We woke up early on Saturday morning to head over to tour the famous Alcatraz. That was fun and a great lesson in history. We were blessed with really nice weather, so the views were amazing!

After we spent the morning at Alcatraz, we decided to drive north to wine country. The drive was really beautiful and I couldn't help but think that it looked a little like Oregon wine country! *Smile*

We stopped at a little winery, Buena Vista, and did some wine tasting. Then we drove into the cutest little town, Sonoma. I decided that it was definitely a place that I want to go back to... maybe with a few friends for a wine tasting trip!

On Sunday, we had the opportunity to meet up for lunch with my Uncle Jim who lives down there. He lives in Palo Alto, which is another little town that I wish we had more time in. It's the home of Stanford University and it is sooo pretty. Uncle Jim worked at Stanford for a loooong time, so after lunch, he took us over there and gave us a grand tour of the campus. I have to say, had I known what an amazing campus it is, I would have thought about going there for school! The campus is really beautiful and the architecture is very cool. It was very windy there and you can tell in our windblown photos, but it was still nice weather, so we didn't complain!

After we left Stanford, we went and spent some time at Coit Tower in downtown San Francisco, where you can see some amazing views. For dinner, we went to Little Italy, which was probably one of my favorite places in San Francisco. Jason and Sarah visited Italy recently and told us that Little Italy in San Fran was pretty authentic. I can't wait to go to Italy, so I was soaking it all in. Too bad that most of the little shops were closed by the time we got there, but the food was really good!

Monday was our last day there and we wanted to see a few more sites. We went to Twin Peaks for more great views of the city... then we drove through Chinatown, which was eerily like going to China.... then we went down to Fisherman's Wharf again to kill some time before we had to leave. We got to see Ghirardelli Square and eat some chocolate... and then went down to Union Square for some last minute shopping!

I have to say that San Francisco is one of my favorite cities now. There is so much to see and do there - I feel like we only saw part of the city even though we squeezed so much in! I definitely can't wait to go back!

Our photos are on our Flickr page and Jason & Sarah's photos are on their Picasa page.