San Francisco | Day 2

I'm interrupting our normal Five on Friday to bring you the 2nd part of our San Francisco trip! This day, we woke up early and were 2nd in line for breakfast at Honey and Honey Cafe which was delicious! The restaurant definitely got full very quickly so I'm really glad we got over there early - they also had the best fresh-squeezed orange juice that they made right in front of you. After breakfast, we walked over to get our rental car downtown then loaded up our things and headed for the Painted Ladies. This area was so pretty and picturesque San Fran. We had lots of fun utilizing the tripod here lol

Once we were done with the ladies, we headed to the Golden Gate Bridge. We stopped and took pictures in Chrissy Field (that's the name of the sundae we always order at Ghirardelli's lol!) before driving over the bridge to take more pictures at basically every stop along the side of the road. We seriously couldn't have asked for a prettier day or clearer skies!

Thank goodness for the tripod!!

Once we were done with our pictures, we headed over to Sausalito for lunch. We decided on Napa Valley Burger Company which was ah-mazing! After lunch, we continued to walk around the little town, got some ice cream and took some pictures. It was an adorable little town and the perfect stopping place before heading to Napa :)

After Sausalito, we headed to Muir Woods to see the Sequoya's! Stephen was super excited about this part of the trip - we had a great time here and were so amazing with how big the trees were! It was the perfect hiking distance and there were a few trail options. When we first got into the park, there was a new baby fox den and one of them came out to play!!! It was literally the cutest thing ever! I wanted so bad to scoop him up and take him home with me... I told Stephen I could hide him in my sweatshirt on the flight back ;)

Before going to Napa, I did some research on Julia's blog to determine what spots we needed to hit. She highly recommended The Fremont Diner which was on our way to the hotel. It was the cutest little diner and had a delicious sounding menu! Since I'm trying to stay good on my nutrition plan, we split the pimento cheese appetizer and a salad. After dinner, we made it to our hotel and crashed.hard. We were passed out by 8pm and slept 10 hours. It was glorious and the perfect way to help me get on Pacific time. 

I hope everyone has a great weekend! Come back next week for my recap of Napa!

San Francisco | Day 1

Phew, things have been quite busy recently! I'm currently in Nashville for another full conference week - I have a feeling I'll be crashing hard this weekend. But let's go back to last week - I had a week-long conference in Napa so we decided to go a few days early and make a mini-trip out of it! I've never been to California before and Stephen's never seen Northern CA so (thankfully) I was able to convince him to come with me so I wouldn't have to go back out there one day. I'm so glad he was able to come with me (and for cheap too!!) because even though we enjoyed our trip, we don't have any desire to go back out there again.

We flew in Saturday morning - it was super nice the time change worked in our favor! We stayed at Villa Florence which was the perfect location and it was a super cute, boutique hotel. They were actually renovating the lobby when we went so I'm sure it'll be even better once they get that done. The hotel was in the middle of downtown and had a trolley stop right in front as well which made for getting around easier. Since it's so expensive to park a car overnight in the city, we decided to ride the Bart (their subway system) into the city from the airport which worked out really well.

After an early check-in, we went to grab lunch at Sanraku where we stuffed our faces with delicious Japanese food. We rolled ourselves out of the restaurant and decided to get a 1 day pass for the Trolley so we could have the ultimate San Fran experience and have easy access to Lombard Street and Fisherman's Wharf. 

Our first stop was Lombard Street which was riddled with tourists like ourselves and had the most beautiful, lush landscaping. I couldn't get over all of the beautiful hydrangeas! It was quite a workout walking up and down the street but it was so worth it.

I was totally copying the cool kids' poses lol! There was also a ton of old asian ladies that kept getting in our pictures - the millennials were not amused ;)

I have to admit, I'm currently writing this from my hotel room so I don't have access to my pictures but I grabbed the wrong picture and not the best.picture.ever This lady is a scream!

After our time on Lombard Street, we hopped back on the Trolley and headed towards Ghirardelli Square. I really liked this area and thought it was super cute - also, the ice cream wasn't bad either ;) Thankfully for us, the Disney Springs location is the exact same :)

And... here's an awkward picture of me touching the Pacific Ocean for the first time. It needed to be documented lol

We then strolled down to Fisherman's Wharf and Pier 39 for some fun sight-seeing. There were so many people around! We weren't too hungry from the Japanese and ice cream so we did a horrible fun thing and got a sourdough turtle from Boudin which is apparently the sourdough place. The turtle was delicious and kept us going for a few days lol Towards the end of the night, it was freezing and we were tired so we waited in line for the Trolley to head back home. We stopped in Walgreens to get some waters then turned in for the night.

I had to include this one because Stephen got a seagull in mid-flight! He's obsessed with this picture lol

It was so cool to see the Sea Lions in the wild!!

That's Alcatraz in the background!

Let's hope I make it back this week for Day 2!! Linking up with Jessi

Weekending: Memorial Day Style

I don't know about y'all, but this past weekend was so wonderful, it had us questioning why we don't have 3 day weekends on the regular... But seriously, it was the first weekend I didn't have to work on orders all weekend and it was fantastic - we had events and places to go as well as some downtime. Thankfully, it's not an awful week for us because 1. it's a short week and 2. we leave for California on Saturday!!!!!!! AHHHH

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On Friday, we ran to Lowes after work to see if Stephen could swing a deal on some paint for our master bedroom; it didn't work and we left empty handed :( Afterwards we swung by Aldi on the way home and I feel like every time we go in there, we are more and more impressed. I got some things done around the house and then tested out my new hair dryer-brush after my shower. Y'ALL!!! This thing is SO legit! I've literally never seen my hair so shiny and flowy - even hair stylists can't get it this nice with their blow driers and round brushes. Now, it did take a while to dry my hair but my hair is super thick and longer. 100% worth it in my opinion! A huge shout out to April for sharing :)

Ignore my pj's and no makeup face - get the dryer brush here (don't forget, you can return a product to Ulta simply because you didn't like it)

Saturday, we tried to sleep in (well, Stephen did) so I got up, did my workout, finally embroidered a few shirts for myself for work and then we got ready to head over to Orlando. We stopped at Chick-fil-a on the way out and then went to the outlet mall in hopes of some great MDW sales.... we walked away with nothing! We were super bummed there wasn't much. J Crew Factory had some cute items but it was just a smidge out of what I'd spend on a whim. I did find these pants and this shirt which I thought were adorable and perfect for traveling out to CA but it was a little too much for me to spend on a "travel outfit" so I passed. 

This weekend was the last weekend our passes were good at Disney until the end of summer so we ran over to see the new Pandora area in Animal Kingdom. I'm so glad we got there later in the day because it was packed - they had the park shut down earlier in the morning and at one point it was a 3 hour wait just to get into Pandora. Thankfully, we only waited about 30 minutes (I won't even tell you the line times for the 2 rides). The area was neat and well done but it was small and not much to do other than the rides. 

After Animal Kingdom, we headed over to Hollywood Studios because they started a summer Pixar symphony where an orchestra plays along with Pixar movie clips. It was super neat to see but man, when the UP opening sequence started, I was straight struggling - it's SO sad!!

After Hollywood Studios, we went to Magic Kingdom to eat and see the fireworks again. That day was a truly magical day at MK - we saw a newly married couple running through the park in their wedding garb and a professional photographer following them around. She truly looked like a princess and at the end of the night, they danced to the park music above the train station, overlooking Main Street. So romantic and so magical! We also saw a proposal in front of the castle before the fireworks began!

After the fireworks, we were able to ride a few rides and then we headed home. We were pooped after a long, hot day.

Sunday, we headed to church and then to Publix before coming home and cleaning all day. Stephen worked outside all day on the yard as well because we had some friends coming over that night for a cookout. I barely made it with getting the house cleaned up before they arrived but y'all, the house feels sooo amazing clean! With all of the embroidery and my normal job going on, I can't tell you the last time we really cleaned the house - it looks and feels so fantastic! We had a fun cookout and everyone left with us to have enough time to watch the season finale of The Crown and now we can't wait for season 2!!

Monday, we slept in, I read in bed some, made breakfast, got to work on a new hat that I can't wait to share this week (I'm obsessed), made acai bowls and then I ran to the mall. I saw Old Navy had the same type of jogger pants as J Crew but they were a little cheaper. I also found these pants which I loved but apparently they weren't 50% off in the store even though there was a sign and they are 50% off online... thanks ON... After ON, I ran to TJ Maxx to get a neck pillow for our long flight (goober) and I ended up finding a fun gingham shirt while there. Once I got back, we ate lunch and then watched the new Beauty and the Beast which I continued to compare the entire movie to the original and didn't like the new one. My sister also watched it this weekend and didn't like it either - I didn't like they changed some of the plot and the characters. The rest of the day was spent catching up on things and getting ready for the week.

I am so not ready for this weekend to end but hey, at least we now have a 4 day work week (or 3 days if you're Stephen ;)) Linking up with Biana.