Cali Part Dos

Lots of pictures ahead; It was hard to decide!

After we left twin peaks, we headed over to the Golden Gate bridge. We drove through a beautiful neighborhood with amazing homes overlooking the bay.                                                  The huge cables that are on the bridge!                        This guy was painting part of the bridge. He was not hooked up to any safety cable either! Crazy.                                                                                                We drove down the famous Lombard Street                                            After the bridge, we went to Fisherman’s Wharf and had a delicious lunch! Steph is a picky-face and had a corn dog. Are you kidding me? Dan and I enjoyed a crab sandwich, calamari, and clam chowder. We had to battle the sea gulls and we almost lost that fight.                                            Steph took this cute picture. It was about this time that she started to feel a little sick…                         These guys were break dancing on the streets and it was pretty awesome to watch.

After this, we strolled the wharf and checked out the sea lions. My sister got sick and lost her lunch in the bathroom there. We were almost done for the day, so we hit up some shops and had delicious ice cream at Ghiradelli Square.

At this point, Steph was really feeling sick so we headed to the car and battled a 3 hour drive back to Lodi (should have been closer to 1 hour). We made a pit stop and Steph lost her guts again. She was deathly ill the entire way home and threw up numerous times (thank goodness for ziploc bags). Dan was a gem and didn’t say a word while she did her thing and I tried to comfort her. It was a long ride and luckily my aunt and uncle had a nice comfortable room for her to stay in.

She threw up a total of 12 times in the next few hours and asked me many times if she was going to die. :) She talked about wishing she had jumped off the bridge in San Fran and other nonsense that sick people say when they’re sick. She must have gotten what my mom had the day before.

But I took care of her and everyone else in the family stayed far away. Luckily I didn’t get sick and she had recovered by the next morning!                       Yummy family dinner.

                                           Steph and cutie pie Riley.                      Loving spending time with the grandparents.                                                 Riley and big brother Jacob.                              Gramps and Steph                          This was so stinkin’ precious. My grandpa needs help walking and little Riley (great-grandson) held his hand and “helped” him get to the family room from the kitchen. Love it.                                                 Whew. That was picture overload, but oh well! We had a great time and I’m so grateful that we had the opportunity to go out there and get a break and visit family we don’t get to see a lot. It was a wonderful break.

Cali part 1

We went to California two weeks ago and we had a GREAT time! My mom is from Northern California so we were able to fly out there and visit my grandparents and aunts, uncles, cousins, and cousins kids (2nd cousins??).

Dan and I flew out Wednesday night, and my mom and sister were supposed to come Thursday but my mom got deathly ill with the flu so just my sister came (my mom is going this week).

                            We went to San Francisco for the day and it was GORGEOUS! I have never been there in the spring and it was about 80 degrees and sunny! If at all possible, I recommend San Fran in the Spring!                                    The streets of San Francisco.  

We drove to this place overlooking the city called Twin Peaks and it was amazing. The day was so clear and we could see the whole city and the Golden Gate Bridge.

Steph and I were really excited to be there. Dan may or may not have already been annoyed with us at this point (first stop of the day).

Dan just enjoying the view…

Steph is getting a great shot here I’m sure :)

After Twin Peaks, we drove to the beach and oh my goodness we were in heaven! It was gorgeous and we would have stayed all day but we weren’t prepared for such grand weather.

Steph liked this Graffiti wall :)

I’ll post the rest of the trip in a separate post later today or tomorrow!

Birthday Girl

I still haven’t edited all our pics from California yet but I’m working on it! I forgot I had these cute pics from Steph’s birthday last week. We went to Texas Roadhouse and she got to ride on the saddle while they sang to her. My little sis is 21!

Isn’t my husband so cute??

Dan looks a little tired or drunk here…

Happy Birthday Stephie! I love you! (Remember when we sorta hated each other and fought every day when we were little? Hahahahahaa!)

Awesome.

I love to read. I always have. I started reading when I was really young and I went through all the Baby Sitter’s Club, Goosebumps, Boxcar Children, Chronicles of Narnia, Little House on the Prairie and much more. I’m so happy that I gained a love for reading from a young age because I think it has taught me a lot and I still love it!

I can sit down and read for hours and not even notice the time passing because I’m so engrossed in my book. It takes over my life and I think about the story and I have to keep reading!

I hope I don’t offend anyone here, but I’ve always felt like the Harry Potter and Twilight books are a bit overrated. They’re good books and I read them and enjoyed them a whole bunch, but I’ve read TONS of books that I absolutely love. A lot of people think that those are about the only good books out there and that drives me nuts!            Anyway, I have read just about all the James Patterson, John Grisham, Nicholas Sparks, and Patricia Cornwell books and I’ve enjoyed them, but this book was much different. It was so amazing and definitely one of the very best books I’ve ever read. I dare say it is a life changing book (for me at least). My sister recommended it to me and it was a pretty long read considering that I usually finish books in a few days. But wow, it was a beautiful, moving and inspirational story. Good enough that I had to post about it!

I’m sure that some people think I’m exaggerating or don’t think it’s as good as I did, but that’s okay; hopefully you can find a book that moved you like this book did me. I wanted to share one passage that I couldn’t stop thinking about after I read it:

“Funny things, roses. Folks tend to think they’re delicate, fragile. But some of them are right tough little [things]. Give them bad soil, bad conditions, they still grow. Insects, spot, drought-doesn’t stop them. Prune them down and they’ll come back at you twice as hard. Some roses are real fighters. Roses like that ought to be encouraged, I’d say.”

This passage defines the book for me and especially the main character, Fiona Finnegan. I highly recommend reading The Tea Rose by Jennifer Donnelly. I hope you are touched by it as much as I was. If you have any other great reads, let me know!

**Disclaimer: This book has some swearing and a few heated love scenes. Just FYI**