California Trip Picture of the Day: Day 12

 
It's so fun to go away, but man it always feels great to be HOME!

California Trip Picture of the Day: Day 11

Today we went down to the Fisherman's Wharf area. We started down at Pier 39 and worked our way down to Ghiradelli Square. The picture above is me at a fountain at the center of Ghiradelli Square, right in front of the chocolate store! We couldn't come to San Francisco without going to here. It's definitely a touristy area but it was fun. We took pictures of the Wharf, the sea lions, Alcatrez, the trolley cars and had lunch at one of the seafood restaurants. We also did some souvenir shopping.

Tomorrow our wonderful California adventure comes to an end.

California Trip Picture of the Day: Day 10

It was too hard to pick one picture today. We got up early and went back to the golden gate bridge to take some pictures from the viewing areas. It was foggy of course, but it was really cool. After the bridge we headed to Lombard Street to drive down the crookedest street. It was very steep and very crooked. We had a lot of fun driving down especially since it wasn't too crowded yet. I got out once we got to the bottom and snapped this picture looking up the street. We are headed to Chinatown this afternoon and the wharf tomorrow.

California Trip Picture of the Day: Day 9

Today we made our way from Monterey up to San Francisco. The first thing we did was drive across the Golden Gate Bridge, it was incredible! Tomorrow we're off to the wharf and to explore the city.

California Trip Picture of the Day: Day 8

Today we left San Diego and Anaheim behind and started the trek towards the next part of our trip in San Francisco. We took Highway 1 along the coast and it was the most beautiful drive. This was our view out of our car windows the whole way. We are spending the night in Monterey and heading for San Francisco tomorrow morning!

California Trip Picture of the Day: Day 7

Tonight was our last night in Anaheim and it went out with a bang, literally. We saw Disneyland's Magical fireworks show. We saw both Tinkerbell and Dumbo fly over the castle and some beautiful fireworks. It was a great way to cap off our Disneyland visit!

Next stop, Monterey!

California Trip Picture of the Day: Day 6

Tonight we saw an amazing new show at Disney's California Adventure called World of Color. It's a show that uses water, color, fire and light into an amazing musical performance.

It was unbelievable!

California Trip Picture of the Day: Day 5

A dizzying day at Disneyland!

California Trip Picture of the Day: Day 4

We did an awesome backstage tour at the San Diego Zoo where we got to take pictures with a lot of our favorite animals!

Happy 1 Year Blogiversary!

1 year

265 posts
Hundreds of pictures
Thousands of memories all captured here

Our blog has come a long way since our very first post a year ago.
I've gone from posting a few times a month to almost everyday.

I'm so glad that I've kept up with it and never thought I would enjoy it as much as I do.
I will be even happier 10 or 20 years from now when I have all of our memories captured.

I only wish I would have started sooner!

California Trip Picture of the Day: Day 3

A couple of Mad Hatters - the Disney Hat tradition continues!

California Trip Picture of the Day: Day 2

Sea World Dolphin Encounter

California Trip Picture of the Day: Day 1

We're here! Main Street USA - Disneyland

California, here we come!

Tomorrow morning we are off to California for almost 2 weeks! We are so excited we can't contain ourselves. It's been a long time since we have gone on an adventure like this. Typically we end up going to places we've been before so this is going to be a totally new experience. With stops in San Diego, Anaheim, Monterey, San Francisco and other places in between, I think we're in for an amazing time!

I will be posting a California trip picture of the day just so my blog isn't lonely for 2 weeks. I also thought it would be a fun way of capturing what we did each day on our vacation. 

I will have more pictures and a full vacation recap when we get back!

Weekend Recap

 Another weekend gone, and for once I'm not sad to see Monday to come. If anything I want Monday to fly by so that Tuesday is here and we are off on our California adventure! We had a nice, quiet weekend. It is crazy hot out so we didn't do much outdoors. It was perfect for getting everything ready for our trip. On Friday, I worked from home and finished up my last project before my vacation. I met Michael for lunch and we went and I bought a bigger suitcase since my old one was not cutting it for this trip.

Too small suitcase

Much better!

On Friday night we just ordered a pizza and stayed in to relax.

On Saturday, we got up and made some breakfast. I took out all of our electronics and cameras that needed to be charged up for our trip and started packing my carry-on bag with magazines, my Kindle, etc. Michael had to meet a customer for work at 11 so we got in the car and headed towards Franklin Park. Michael very conveniently scheduled to meet his customer at Gene and Jude's around lunch time so he could have a couple of dogs. I haven't been to Gene and Jude's in almost 3 years so it had been a while for me. I love their dogs, but I can't eat the fries anymore since I have lost weight and eat healthier.

The hot dog legend: Gene & Jude's

After having some lunch and meeting Michael's customer, we headed home before heading to Rich and Tif's to baby sit our nephew Jacob! We were very excited to get to baby sit him for the first time. He was so good and we loved every minute of it. It's amazing how much he has changed in just 5 weeks time. He was starting to get a little fussy at the end but as soon as Mom and Dad came home and he was back in his Mommy's arms, he was a happy little boy. I made sure I brought my camera so I could take some updated pictures. 

Auntie Sara

Sleeping with Uncle Michael

He is all legs!

Sleeping peacefully

After baby sitting we came home, made some dinner and just relaxed.

Today we got up and went to our favorite breakfast spot and went to the store to pick up just a few things for lunch and dinner today and tomorrow. We wanted to go miniature golfing, but it is just way too hot. We are going to grill some hamburgers for dinner and just enjoy the air conditioning! I have to say I'm definitely looking forward to California's more temperate weather. With temps in the high 70's and low 80's except for when we're in San Francisco, it sounds perfect! I hope everyone had a great weekend and has a great week ahead. I have some pre-planned blog posts while we're gone plus I'm going to do a "California trip picture of the day" while we are gone. So don't think that because we're gone, the blog will go quiet.

Our week in pictures: 7/11 - 7/17

Sunday, July 11: Michael braves the rain to grill our Sunday dinner! 

Monday, July 12: We finally have cucumbers!

Tuesday, July 13:Weekly manicure, it's hot pink this week!

Wednesday, July 14: Birthday boy Porkchop

Thursday, July 15: The woman who is making our curtains sent me a sneak preview; I can't wait to get them and hang them in our bedroom!

Friday, July 16: I got a bigger suitcase, much better!

Saturday, July 17: Baby-sitting our nephew Jacob

TGIF!

I am so happy that this week is coming to a close! I was super productive at work this week and I got almost everything finished. I am working from home today to finish up one last project and then I am officially on vacation!!! I won't be back in the office until August 2. That seems so far away and it sounds wonderful! Once I am done with work today I am going to work on packing and getting things ready so we don't have to spend the weekend on it. Our cleaning lady is coming today so we'll have a nice clean house when we leave and come home from vacation. There's nothing worse then coming home from a trip and having to clean the whole house plus unpack and do laundry.

We don't really have any plans this weekend which is nice. I'm hoping to just relax and finish getting ready for our trip. Hopefully I can get some long walks in as well, and I definitely need to see our nephew Jacob before we leave. We have to go 2 weeks without seeing him, he'll be bigger by then!

I hope everyone has a great weekend! I'll be back on Sunday with a full weekend recap and pictures.

Addicted to Apps!

We've had our iPhones for about a month now and we are totally addicted. I don't know why we stayed with Blackberry so long! One of things we love is obviously all of the apps there are available for it. I love having all of these great programs and games at my fingertips on one device. Here is our list of our favorite apps for the iPhone.

 Angry Birds

This is such a fun game and super addicting! It's the number 1 ranked game on iTunes. They are constantly coming out with new levels which makes it a great buy at $.99!

Lose it!

This is a great app that I use to keep track of my daily calorie intake. You can enter what you've eaten, any exercise you've done and it keeps track of all of it. You can track your nutritional intake, set goals, etc.

 Doodle Jump

 This is another game we both really like. It is extremely addicting and can be really frustrating! You move the phone to get your guy to jump around so I usually look pretty silly playing this on the train to/from work!

FOX Sports

 

 When we had our Blackberry phones we add apps for each individual sports league. With this app we have every sport all in one. When you first open the app you select what league you want and it takes you right to the scores page which is exactly what we were looking for. Can't wait for football season for this one!

IMDB

We love IMDB and use it a lot when deciding what movie we are going to see based on the ratings so it's nice to have it no matter where you are. Also anytime we want to know who was in what movie or need to settle any trivia disagreement, it can difuse it in an instant! You can also find movie showtimes for your local theatre!

Up with a Fish

This is a fun game I saw on one of my blogs. It's kind of like Dr. Seuss tetris but you are stacking things and want your pile to keep getting higher. The more levels you pass the faster the items come down. It's a great way to pass the time and I play it a lot on the train.

Shazam

When I first got my iPhone this was one of the first apps I downloaded because I have heard about it for years. It is an app that you can put up to a speaker while a song is playing and it will tell you the name of the song and the artist. It will even work if you are at a restaurant or store and something is playing over the intercom. It's genius!

Shake it Photo

 This is one of my newest apps and it is so cool. You open the app and it starts up the iPhone camera. You take a picture and it turns it into a polaroid shot. It even comes across the screen like it was coming out of the polaroid camera and sounds like it too. Also, if you shake your iPhone it helps "develop" the photo quicker and will make your picture appear quicker. It's really cool. Here's one I took of Porkchop last night.

Super cool, right?!! It even has the coloring of a Polaroid.

Paper Toss

 This is a game that Rich and Tif got us hooked on. It's a really simple premise of shooting a balled up piece of paper in a trash can but there's a fan blowing at different speeds which effects how it flies through the air. It's really addicting and before you know it, you've been playing for an hour!

Epicurious

I love Epicurious' website so when I found out they had a free app, I immediately downloaded it. I use this app all the time to find new recipes or use the recipe finder based on ingredients I know I have at home. It can also generate a grocery list based on the recipe you select!

Shoplist Free

This is a great shopping list app I use when we are out and talk about things we need which most of the time you end up forgetting! It has really well organized categories. I should use this a lot more than I do!

Where

This is an app that Rich told us about and it rocks! Based on your current GPS location it pulls up news, movie times, businesses, gas prices, restaurants, weather, traffic and more! It's awesome to use when we're out and about and we're not exactly sure where something is or where to eat or looking for a movie.

Happy Birthday Porkchop!

Today is our furbaby Porkchop's 3rd birthday! He will always be our first born no matter how many kids come along! He is spunky, funny, a little crazy and super smart. He was potty trained in just a few weeks and Michael taught him how to sit, stay, roll over and shake in a matter of days. He loves to be around people and other dogs even if they don't want to play with him! He loves to be hot and bake himself in the sun or under the oven when I'm cooking. He makes us laugh so much with all of his crazy antics. I can't imagine our family without him. Here are some of my favorite pictures of our little guy.

Happy Birthday Porkchop!

The day we brought him home and probably my favorite picture of him ever

He was so tiny!

His first Halloween as Captain Jack Porkchop Sparrow!

1st Christmas!

His favorite spot by the oven

Stuck in the cornhole

Bumblebee Porkchop - Halloween 2009

Christmas 2009

Chewing in his new bed

Soooo sleepy....

He is a part of the family