San Francisco - Sunday/Monday

Sunday
We woke up early bus out to Fisherman's Wharf/ Alcatraz. It's a fairly quick ride to Alcatraz where you will be told hundreds of times that it is a National Park and to leave the birds alone.

Alcatraz is a touristy thing to do, but it is seriously awesome. The audio tour they have there totally makes it worth it. You walk around the prison listening to stories/the history from guards who worked there and prisoners who were inmates and people that lived on the island. It's like walking through a movie.

View on the way back to SF:

The dock on Alcatraz:

We got off the ferry back at the wharf and found out that we could see some of the people David taught on his mission (we tried to meet up with them on Saturday but lots of different things complicated it.) We ran to meet Sasa and Eric downtown.

We actually beat them to the meeting place by a few minutes, so we got to walk around this farmer's market with all these crazy stalls. There was a hummus one that looked good, lots of fruit and even a raw meat stall. When Sasa and Eric got here, we walked over to Japanese cherry blossom festival (which had a surprising lack of cherry blossoms!). There was a small parade with a few floats, and groups of people. One group was just lots of  people dressed up as cartoon/anime/videogame characters.

After the parade, we walked back to the downtown area and got some amazing Thai food. I think it was called King of Thai Noodle and it was right near Union Square. I got the lemongrass soup and it came in this HUGE bowl. It was so, so yummy. We had so much fun with Sasa and Eric - despite me knowing about 8 words in Chinese (except all the words to this song - go watch it; it has subtitles), we had a great time. I'm pretty sure we laughed all through lunch.

We met back with Laura and Andrew and their family at fisherman's wharf. We walked around the shops, saw the sea lions, and were the definition of tourists. Then we caught the F train back down to the financial district, and the mall where we bought our pre-dinner snack. (We take our food vacations seriously around here.) It was this HUGE piece of deep-dish pizza. One piece filled the 4 of us up.

Then we tried to walk to Chinatown to get another Quickly. We missed it again - we got there like 2 minutes after they closed. So sad. Then we saw the missionaries at the bus stop and David got to talk to them for awhile, which turned out to be better than getting a Quickly.

We walked to the bottom of Lombard St.

We went to dinner at Drabar Indian (polk and pierce). We got so much food. Lots of roti and naan and rice. It was really good food and it was really cheap. We were impressed. Everything was so good.

Monday
We got up early  to check out. When we went to return our hotel keys, we woke up the desk worker. He looked so out of it haha.  On our way back to Provo, we took a detour to Lake Tahoe.
SO incredibly gorgeous and so much bigger than I imagined. It was completely worth the hour detour.

We hopped back in the car to Reno for lunch. We ate at Grimaldi's. (In case you didn't know, it's my favorite.) Their pizzas are big. And we ate 3 of them. Every worker in the restaurant made a comment to us about how much pizza we ate. (We ordered regular, pepperoni, oven roasted red peppers. All were wonderful.)
On our way back to the freeway, we realized we were at outlet malls. So, of course we pulled back in and went to the adidas/nike stores.

Then back in the car, dinner at Mcdonalds, and home at 11:30 pm. It was a LONG day in the car.

I have a pedometer I wear with "goals" to meet each week. This past week it was 31,500 steps. After we got back from SF, I had 66,400. That's a LOT of walking.

San Francisco - Friday/Saturday

San Francisco was so much fun that it requires 2 blog posts to adequately let me stuff as many pictures in as I can.

Friday
We like to start our road trips by stopping at Winco and filling bags with bulk candy - our favorites? gummi bears/sour gummy worms, yogurt pretzels, and peachies (I've been informed that they are called peach rings.). We also got strawberry and pineapple licorice this time. Definitely a good idea.

We planned to stop in Reno for dinner so that was our mental stopping point. We actually stopped over the border of California in Truckee for dinner in the Donner Pass (ironic, eh?). We went to this awesome place called Burger Me. -- I don't know if it was that we had spent 5 hours building up dinner in our minds or the long car trip, but their burgers are some of the best we've ever had. (The onion rings, too!)

Can you see Guy Fieri in the picture behind Andrew?

We got to San Francisco late and David gave us a little driving tour of the city. We got to our dumpy-looking hotel on Lombard St. wondering if it was a bad idea to stay here. We were pleasantly surprised. Everything in the rooms themselves was actually pretty nice. 

Saturday

We woke up the next morning and ate at a little cafe/diner called Home Plate. Everything we had was delicious - they had really good scones and carrot-potato pancakes. Then we went for a walk down to the Marina. 

The trees they have in the streets.

The Palace of Fine Arts. I want a house right next to this park.

At the Marina.
I'm not sure what Andrew is doing, but I thought these were funny pictures.

Our Golden Gate pictures.

Laura and Andrew had to ditch us to go a wedding, so we headed off to downtown SF.
We took the bus down to Chinatown and went in and out of tons of shops. It was cleaner than NY's Chinatown. also, they don't sell handbags the same way. NY has a lot of people coming up to you and asking "handbag, handbag, you want a handbag?" There was no one on the streets saying stuff like that in SF. Instead, when you are in the stores looking at bags, someone will come up to you  and ask you if you want to see more. SAY YES. They will take you to the back of the store and pull back a magic curtain and show you the secret hideout of shelves covered in bags.

We tried to go to a Quickly to get our fix of boba drinks but we were 15 minutes too early before it opened. So we decided to keep going and we would get one later.

We went down to the shopping area downtown - with the BIG mall. It is pretty fancy schmancy. David told me about this little chocolate place he and his companion went to on his mission, so we set off to find it. I've never spent $10 on 5 chocolates before in my life. But it was worth it. These were so delicious.

So I don't forget what we had: Anise truffle (black licorice), Caramel cup, Branchli (hazelnut), Lavendal (lavender)

We got some pizza from Blondie's and ate in Union Square.
Then we got this brilliant idea to walk over to Nob Hill and get ice cream from Swenson's and eat it while watching people drive down Lombard.  The ice cream was delicious. The walk was not. But I'm glad we did it. It was fun to see the city that way.

Lombard from the top.

At this point we were so tired, we walked the 10 blocks down the street to take a nap.
After we woke up, we caught the bus out to the west side of the city. We stopped by the church David spent lots of time at.

Then we hiked up this hill on Maraga. It is officially called Grand View Park. It had so. many. stairs.

The first half of the stairs.

You get half way up and you can see this bench:

The view was pretty amazing and worth it though.

We went to dinner at this little hole in the wall place called The Lime Tree. It had really good Indonesian food - nothing like we've eaten before. They had this roti bread with a little curry to dip into. So good.

We caught the bus out to Ocean Beach to watch the sunset.  It was the perfect day - there was no fog anywhere - and there were tons of people at the beach.

Then we went to Trader Joe's and back to the hotel. Where I pretty much fell asleep right away. After Andrew and Laura came back, the boys went and got us some late night pizza. I'll never say no to pizza. But I'm pretty sure I was only half-awake eating it because we'd walked so much.

The Right Reasons

(image from the post by Meg In Progress)

I went to a baby shower for a friend yesterday, and thought of this post I read earlier that day the whole time.  I'm not a mother yet, so I don't quite fit the bill (yet). But I nodded my head the whole way through, agreeing with the reasons she wrote and loving the picture painted in my head by the imagery of sailors.A tiny breath of fresh air to remind you of the blessings you already have is always good. Really. Go read it already. 

Snapshots (4/23/12)

On our lovely ride home, we each got asked a series of questions. It was kind of fun to see if we could guess each other's answers. We expect that some will change and others won't, but it is a fun glimpse of what we NON-college  students (we graduated!) are like at 24.

NATALIE
favorite food: pizza/breakfast burritos
restaurant: Grimaldi's
drinks: route 44 ice water from Sonic(!)
dessert: cheesecake
tv show: Suits/Downton Abbey
movie: Italian Job
hobby: running
candy: red vines
music: Imagine Dragons/Gotye's "Somebody That I Used to Know"
free time: hanging with the hubs
dream car: currently loving BMW 3 series
dream destination: Maui!


DAVID
favorite food: steak
restaurant: Red Robin
drinks: strawberry snow from Quickly
dessert: ice cream
tv show: Suits
movie: Shawshank Redemption
hobby: golf
candy: snickers
music: Elton John/ The Brocks (and Nat's picks too)
free time: [note: this response was unprompted from me] hanging out with Nat
dream car: Acura TL
dream destination: Rome

LAURA
favorite food: fried chicken
restaurant: Macaroni Grill/ La Jolla Groves
drinks: water
dessert: pudding
tv show: Suits
movie: Captain America
hobby: quilting (and buying fabric)
candy: Reese's
music: The Brocks (and her Spotify)
free time: the internet
dream car: F250/black Escalade with huge rims
dream destination: Australia



ANDREW
favorite food: homemade tacos
restaurant: Cafe Rio
drinks: water with ice
dessert: vanilla ice cream over warm brownie
tv show: Suits
movie: Moneyball/the Batman movies
hobby: twitter
candy: sour patch kids
music: the Brocks
free time: [note: also unprompted - she was asleep when we asked Andrew his questions]  hanging out with Laura
dream car:  (subaru legacy) a Lexus
dream destination: Thailand

Pictures

These are the only two I have on my phone from our trip from my instagram (nataliejbean). The rest are on our camera.
And both, coincidentally, are of water!
One is of Ocean Beach at sunset, the other is from our detour to Tahoe.

San Francisco

Right after the graduation ceremonies on Friday we are taking off on a vacation to San Francisco!
David went there on his mission and I'm so excited to go back with him.
Alcatraz is for sure on our list, and seeing the Golden Gate Bridge.
Also. We plan on eating - a lot. Vacations are always about food in the Bean household. :)

Any other suggestions?

via the black hole that is Pinterest sometimes.

What I've Learned (v2)

Alrighty, folks. I started "consistently" running on February 22 (I signed up for the Provo Half-Marathon January 3rd, started running, and then got sick.) Here's what I've figured out since part one

You still make the time if you really want it.
I've learned to want it for different reasons - not for the "hooray, I exercised! Now I can go eat a cheeseburger and feel justified!!" part, but for the "I'm doing this because this is what I know makes me feel good inside and out."

I absolutely LOVED my run today.
Am I a little embarrassed to admit that? kind of, yes.

I'm one of those people. 

It's not how fast you've run that counts.
I'm better than 12 minute miles now, but not by much.
But, I can go prettttty far with my trusty 12-ish minute miles.
They take me places.

Holy smokes, treadmills are boring after 2 miles.
However! They are really good at getting you to run faster.
If you want to improve pace, just work with a treadmill for a couple days.

Endorphins are still addicting.
Also, I'm happier and I sleep better after I run.

Human bodies are absolutely incredible and a wonderful gift from God.
I have an even stronger testimony of that now than
 I did when I graduated with a degree in Exercise Science. 

I'm achieving a "goal".
It's not just a goal anymore, though.
It's a lifestyle.
And I'm really loving it.

I'll definitely keep going now.

Pictures!

Half the family was here for Easter/baby Charlee's blessing. 

I loved it. And sometimes took pictures to prove it....

This is how Robbie and Christian used to take girls on dates in HS.

Jack and Max in their matching shirts. We never got sick of playing with them!

The whole fam-damily.

After the Easter Bunny came.....

Charlee's blessing day. I hogged her pretty much all morning.
(Who says hogged anymore? Probably just me....)

 

*note to self - start drying your hair. You'd think I would know this, being 24 years old....nope.

 I gave her up right as she started to wake up.

  

We loved it! 

Family, come back!