San Francisco: Day One

Whew! What a week! Many times I've found myself thinking longingly about last weekend. We took a wonderful trip to San Francisco, and we had a great time. Of course, I took a million pictures, but I've tried to limit those that I share with you. Still, it may take a few posts to show our entire trip. But here goes! Our vacation to San Francisco:

A few weeks ago, I realized that I had a Friday with no school coming up. So we decided to take a short trip. We left after work on Thursday, getting in pretty late. Friday morning, we began our crazy day of seeing a million sights (or so it felt)! We started in Chinatown:

The Chinatown gate.

The real Chinatown.

The streets surrounding Chinatown were the most interesting to us because those were the areas in which the Chinese-American population actually shops and lives. "Chinatown" is just where the tourists go.

On to the next destination. Good thing Matt had his trusty map:


We tried to check out Union Square, but there was a crazy marathon taking place that weekend. They had taken over the square! But I imagine it would have been pretty, were it not for the giant red tent.


We saw the historic trolleys:

Matt, thrilled to be on the trolley!

After our trolley adventure, we exhausted ourselves by climbing Lombard Street to the "Crookedest Street."

It was steep.

"The Crookedest Street." We felt no desire to climb any higher than we had. But it was cool to look at.

We were tired. (We may have been faking this picture...)

Continuing our crazy walk around the city, we headed to North Beach.

St. Peter and Paul Church. Or St. Paul and Peter Church. Regardless, it was pretty.

Lunch. Yum.

Then on to the famous Pier 39. Which was kinda lame.

A lot of stinky seals. Cool?

Tourist traps. Lame.

Boats. On the back side of Pier 39. Not as lame as the touristy other side.

After that waste of time (okay, it wasn't really that bad), we headed to Coit Tower.

Inside the base of the tower, there were murals painted on all the walls. They were really cool, though this one was a little confusing. I believe this is an image of someone getting run over by a car. Weird.

View of the Bay Bridge.

View of downtown. There's the church we saw.

View of Alcatraz. And a statue.

Then we headed back up to the shore to see Ghirardelli Square.

It was basically a bunch of Ghirardelli shops, but it was pretty.

We had a Ghirardelli chocolate shake. Delicious.

Our last stop of the day was Fisherman's Wharf.

There, we saw a couple of cool boats. Yay. Matt really liked the boats.

At the end of the day, we were very tired. Matt figured that we walked about 7 and 1/2 miles throughout the day. It doesn't seem like a lot when you think that we'd hiked 10 miles a couple times this summer, but it sure felt like a lot. But we were able to see a ton of sights in a short amount of time. So, that was cool. And we still had a lot to see!

A Sad Day

Matt's Maama passed away this morning. Please send a kind thought to his family.

10 Things I Know About San Francisco That I Didn't Know a Week Ago

1. Riding the bus through Chinatown means you will be squished in like a sardine.

2. Fisherman's Wharf is a giant tourist trap. But I'm ok with it.

3. Pier 39 is just ridiculous. I'm not really ok with it.

4. The Golden Gate Bridge is big, and long, and very high up from the ground. It's also pretty.

5. The streets are steep. Really. (I suppose I already knew this, but now I know.)

6. M5 Industries is just a building in a boring industrial area. It's nice to see that my beloved Mythbusters have not yet put in a gift shop.

7. Food is expensive.

8. Fog is cold. (This is more of a general statement, but I never really understood this, as we don't have fog in Denver. There's lots of fog in San Francisco, and it's cold.)

9. Ghirardelli chocolate is very expensive in Ghirardelli Square. It is also delicious in any location.

10. Alcatraz is crazy-creepy-cool.

Pictures and more to come!

We need a vacation.

Matt and I decided we needed to get out of Denver for the weekend.

So we did:

On a plane!

I like pretty new things

While I always loved my cute little dining room set, I knew from the moment we moved into our new house that it didn't quite work in our much larger dining room.

So cute, but too small.

I faked it for a while, but this weekend, it was finally time to move on.

So we bought a new table and chairs!

So pretty.

Now I want to make a big dinner.

I'm very excited for Halloween this year, so I pulled out all my decorations to "deck my halls." The only problem is that my "halls" are a lot bigger than they were last Halloween. So I may need to do some shopping to sufficiently fill this space with Halloween cheer. But for now, I have some pumpkin garland to tide me over.

And yummy Halloween candy:

Yay for Halloween!

So now my house is Halloween-y and full of cool new furniture. So, that's neat.

Matt's Working For a New Company!

Matt has worked for Corona Research since we moved to Denver back in January of 2007. The company was started in 1999, so earlier this week they had a very unique celebration for their 10-year anniversary - they put on a play about Corona's history!

Matt and his friend Dave at the pre-show happy hour.

It seems kind of silly, but there is a semi-professional theater here in town called the Curious Theatre that does this type of thing as a fundraiser, and they actually did a great job!

The set of "Yankee Tavern," Curious's current production. They used the same set for Corona's play.

The play itself was really funny and poked fun at a lot of the quirky things about the company. Then, at the end of the play, the real Principals of the company went on stage and announced that, since the company has always been about more than just research, they were changing their name! So as of Tuesday, Matt now works for Corona Insights.

The actors and Corona's principals revealing the new name and logo.

The new logo and tagline.

Matt's pretty new name badge.

Cupcakes. Yum.

Anyway, it was a lot of fun, and hopefully the new look will help the company to grow even faster in the future! Congrats, Corona!

Cold Weather Things

Well, my show just ended last weekend, and I've already been out looking for the next one. This week, I auditioned for You're a Good Man Charlie Brown with these nice people:

The directors of the show I auditioned for. Soo nice; I had to take a picture of their crazy happy faces!

I was called back for a second audition, and I was very surprised that they wanted to see me for Lucy. Not Sally, but Lucy. I'm not a Lucy, but I think I could do Sally pretty well. In fact, I've even played Sally before.

Sally Brown. Frightening, I know.

But I tried my best, and I think I did a pretty good job at reading for Lucy. I didn't get cast, but it was fun! On to the next audition, I guess.

My job has not been a lot of fun for me this year, but it has given me at least one good thing: tickets to a Rockies' game! Somehow, our district was given lots of tickets, so I got two for free. We went on Wednesday night, and it was cold!

Bundled up at the game.

It was a good time, though. And it ended up being an important game in clinching the Rockies' spot in the playoffs. So, that's cool.

We were so cold that we ended up leaving in the eighth inning. But we were really far ahead, and we ended up winning the game!

The score when we left. Final was 10-6. Yay Rockies!

The weather was much colder this week, which I generally don't like at all. But cold weather is good crafting weather! So this week, I worked long and hard on making the invitations for our Halloween party. I'm still new at the whole paper-crafting thing, but I had a lot of fun.

My mess of tools and goodies.

The cards I've made so far.

After our Halloween party, I get to start making Christmas cards. Yay!