My Trip to San Francisco!

Wow! I have been home from my vacation to San Francisco for two weeks, and I have not written about it until now! I am such a slacker! LOL! I guess I have been busy enjoying these summer days and nights, and not focused on keeping up on my blog entries! This summer is flying by, but I am enjoying every minute of it!

My trip to San Francisco was AMAZING! My best friend Katie and her fiance Ben moved there 14 months ago. She is my oldest and closest friend. She was a friend before I even really knew what a friend was. Our brothers are three days apart in age and are also very close friends, as well as our parents. It is so amazing to have that kind of friendship. Someone who has been by your side through it all..... and appreciates the person that you have grown to become. Each friendship is unique and I appreciate each one that I share!

My flight left Dayton at 6 am and arrived in San Francisco at noon, their time. Gotta love the time change! Katie picked me up on her lunch break from the airport and then I took a nap until they got home from work. We went out to dinner at this yummy Thai restaurant in downtown Sunnyvale. It was so much fun eating dinner outside and enjoying a new city. We met some of their friends after dinner for some drinks at a really cool bar in Sunnyvale. I really didn't believe Katie when she told me to pack some warmer clothes, but she was right.

The next day we went into the city. We parked our car and walked around Castro and then took the subway into the city. I got to experience Fisherman's Wharf which is the big tourist section. I had fun at Pier 39 watching and laughing at the California Sea Lions. They are so loud you can hear them blocks away. I could have watched them all day! We went on a Rocketboat ride in the Bay, and had a yummy Caesar salad and clam chowder bread bowl for lunch at a cool restaurant with an amazing view! I could see Alcatraz from our table. We went on a trolley ride, ate ice cream at Ghirardelli, walked through Chinatown, and finished with a glass of red and some yummy pasta in Little Italy. After two glasses of Merlot we were even more sleepy, so we took a cab back to Castro. After stopping to buy a cookie at HOT COOKIE we walked back to the car.

The next day we ate lunch in downtown Sunnyvale and then headed back into the city. We walked around the shops and checked out some of the cool things the street people were doing. One guy was our favorite. He was hillarious! We stopped at Lombard Street the "crookedest", most winding street in the world. The landscaping is gorgeous so we stopped to take some pictures of the street and beautiful hydrangeas! Then we walked down by the bay and had fun jumping off of the rocks into the sand! Great photo ops! We walked around the Palace of Fine Arts, which looks like a Roman ruin. Then we got back into the car and drove across the Golden Gate Bridge to Sausalito to have dinner! We ate outside on the deck at Horizons and enjoyed the BEAUTIFUL view! It was a perfect way to finish off the evening with great friends! I was reading about the restaurant and it is a celeb favorite. I wasn't lucky enough to spot any celebs that night. The rest of my vacation was spent relaxing by the pool with Katie and just sharing some quality time with her. We ate at some really cool and interesting restaurants, made chicken enchiladas for dinner one night, and just enjoyed California. They took me to Palo Alto for dinner one night, which is where facebook is located. I had fun taking some engagement photos for them in downtown Sunnyvale. I had planned on taking their engagement photos in the city, but it is just too windy! I LOVE the ocean, so it was so nice to be close to it again! Someday I will live near the ocean! There is so much to do in San Francisco that there wasn't enough time to do it all in one trip. Katie and Ben did a wonderful job showing me all the really important things. Now I have more to look forward to next time I visit. Enjoy my slideshow! :)

Looks like the California Sea Lions are saying to each other,

Sea Lion 1: "Arrrrf Arrrrf"

Sea Lion 2: "Will you SHUT UP! I am trying to take a NAP!"

Beautiful sunset with the Golden Gate Bridge in the distance