Ugly Sweater Cal Train Pub Crawl

After finals, Matt drove up to Sunnyvale to hang out with me for a few days before going home to Reno for Christmas. Let's just say we squeezed in as much as possible during our few days together (even though we may have missed a few events...aka horseback riding because we wanted to cuddle). But we did plan and partake in a crazzzyy ugly sweater cal train pub crawl. I know it's a lot to say. We met up with my coworkers, Courtney and Tyler, in Palo Alto and grabbed a few drinks in downtown PA (slider bar and madam Tam's). Slider bar had good food, but terrible service (at one point, matt and tyler had to walk up to bar to get drinks, and our waitress tried to seat them again because she forgot what they looked like). Madam Tam's had cheap pictures, plus awesome giants pints :) We had to rush to catch our 4:30 train to burlingame.

Did I mention the focus on ugly sweaters?

Tyler and Courtney!

Courtney, being prepared as always, handed out mimosas on the train...we are classy. In burlingame, we met up with more of my coworkers (Maddie and her bf, Brian, and Caroline and Mike) at Paddy Flynn's. This bar is irish beyond belief, but super fun. I think Matt really hit it off with all of my coworkers (which I'm thrilled about because they are all awesome. We left the bar at 7 to catch our train, but at the train station, we found out there was a 30 minute delay. Well....what better to do than hit up another bar and a donut shop? Which is exactly what we did. When we made it to SF finally (and much later than anticipated), we were all starving, so of course, we went to my favorite bar/restaurant, 21st Amendment for our final stop. This place has the world famous watermelon beer I love! Overall, this was one of the best bar crawls I have ever been on. Thanks to my wonderful friends for coming out and being a blast!

Merry Christmas!!!

We hope you and your loved ones have a wonderful day celebrating Jesus, and one of my favorite days of the year. We know we are blessed with everything we have and we are grateful for all the wonderful and amazing people in our lives. Hopefully you are surrounded by as much love as we are.

merrychristmas

These are not our real Christmas cards (we don't do Christmas cards yet...) but it's fun to pretend!! 

"I gave my kids a terrible Christmas present."

Thanks Jimmy Kimmel.

"I like when you cook dinner...like hot pockets."

4 days!

4 days and I will be in the loving arms of my girlfriend!  I just have to get through this extremelyyyyyyy long day that is playing out to being 12 straight hours of intense work.  I hope to find some breaks in there to keep my sanity, but this will be the final push for a majority of my school work so Im excited for it to be Wednesday already!!

I will be in Sunnyvale in...

5 days!!!!!

Matt will be here in one week!

I'm already counting down the days: 7!

Halloween in San Diego

Disclaimer: I know this post is over a month old, but I never got around to posting it.

It's practically tradition now for me to spend Halloween in San Diego (I mean I have spent the last 6 years there...and I only went to school for 4). But with Matt in San Diego, it's hard not to feel the pull of Southern California. I took a few days off of work to maximize my time with Matt (great idea!!). I flew in late on Thursday night and got to spend four glorious days with my favorite people (Matt + my sorority sistas!) on one of my favorite holidays. Who could complain?

On Friday, we hung out with our friend Brad, who works at Matt's favorite place ever, Stone Brewery. We grabbed some lunch at the restaurant and then Matt refilled his growler. It was a beautiful day in San Diego, maybe the best I've seen in a while. Perfect for a lunch outdoor with some great beer (his favorite, but not mine). Later that night, we had purchased tickets for the Jason Aldean concert at Cricket Ampitheater. I've been to country concerts before, but let me tell you, you don't know country til you've been to a Jason Aldean concert. I saw enough lifted trucks for the rest of my life (not to mention we followed truck waving a full-sized American flag to the concert). I love America, so do Jason Aldean fans. We made friends with a nice couple and played a game called washers. It's like corn hole, except you use washers. Fun game...too bad I lost one of the washers 5 minutes into the game. Luckily Matt found it :) Unfortunately, due to traffic, poor reception, and numerous other factors, most of our friends never found us. But the concert was still one of the best concerts I've ever been to. Chris Young, of course, looked incredible and sexy (even though he had yucky sweat stains). The concert was incredible. O fun story, I tried to sneak into the guys' bathroom because the line for the girls' bathroom was too long and I was going to pee myself, but they wouldn't let me in, so then I cut in line with a random woman. The wonders of making friends!

Beer lover

following the American flag
to a country concert....

we <3 flannel

On Saturday (at this point, I can't even remember...) I am pretty sure we didn't do anything. We hung out with his roommate and ran errands (I know, how exciting is it that I spent my Saturday running errands....) Anyways, later that night, we went to my favorite BBQ restaurant in San Diego, Bubba's Smokehouse BBQ (no, not Phil's). Let me just tell you how awesome this place is...they have the best BBQ sauce ever. Plus the owner of the place remembers us and told us it had been awhile since he'd seen us (great customer service). What a way to start our night. Later that night, we met up with our friends in downtown for our Halloween adventure!! I have to admit, bar hopping in downtown San Diego is wayyy more fun than going to a club down there. Plus I got to hang out with some of my favorite people!

On Sunday, we bummed around the house and strolled around pacific beach. We got some pizza slices at our favorite bar/pizza place Ciro's, which we love because they have over 10 beers on tap, and at least another 20 in bottles. You can't deny that I'm Matt's girlfriend right? Then we walked along the pier a little bit and took some pictures at the beach. Pretty standard. Later that night, we hit up Ocean Beach to see our good friends Laszlo and Feeney. I am so excited to see them for New Year's! They are part of the reason I miss SD so much (other than Matt....and good breakfast burritos).

Monday was my last day, and that went by pretty quickly (and of course, we went to Lucha Libre, because no san diego trip is complete without it). It's incredible how fast four days can go by, especially when you want them to last forever. 

Happy Thanksgiving!

This year (like last year) we are spending Thanksgiving with Matt's family. His family makes five turkeys...two for leftovers, three for Thanksgiving dinner, so clearly this was an easy decision. We are about to get tryptophan-ed out, so wish us luck! We just wanted to wish everyone a happy thanksgiving! Nothing makes for a better day than family, friends, turkey, food, drinking, football, Macy's Thanksgiving Parade (Congratulations to the Homestead cheer team and marching band...I saw you guys on TV. You make me so proud!!), and being together. Hope you guys are enjoying time with your loved ones and being as gluttonous as possible.

We are ready!!!!

hello pumpkin!

Did you know halloween is definitely on my list of....top 3 holidays? I mean what better way to celebrate life than by dressing up in a ridiculous costume and gutting out a pumpkin :)

Can you guess what my pumpkin is supposed to be? I hope Matt and I carve pumpkins this weekend when I see him (hint hint hint hint hint). Because I just love halloweeeen :)

Beach Date with my best friend!

My best friend Amber came to visit Matt and I a few weeks ago (or at this rate, maybe a few months ago). I think it was sometime in early September. She has been living in Irvine and working as a scribe while studying for the MCATs (she is pretty incredible). Anyways, she only had a few hours (since she was only home for a few days and usually spends all that time with her family) so we decided to take her to our favorite brewery, Social. We absolutely love this place. It has great food, and even better beer. For a penny, you can do a sampling of all their beers (usually there are like 6 beers). They were having a special for the weekend, $12 bucks for a cheeseburger, fries, and a large beer...so of course, we each ordered a special. The cheeseburgers were super delicious, and I picked the Big Lebowski beer because it tasted like coffee. If you live in SF, you have to try this Brewery (the Davidsons actually introduced it to us, which only makes us love it more!).

beer sampling

twins

cheers!

After we ate, we were struggling with ideas about what we should do. We were too full to eat dessert, so that was out of the question. But Matt came up with a great idea to go to the beach. For once, it was not foggy and cold, but it was actually like 70-75 degrees out. Best idea ever. It was beautiful out. Surfers catching waves, babies playing in the sand, couples jogging with their dogs...typical wonderful sunset at the beach (if we were in San Diego). Literally this was only the second time we've been to the beach (and the first time we didn't even touch the water because it was freezing). It makes me miss San Diego so much. We ran into the water fully clothed, in jeans/shorts/pants etc. and it was totally worth it getting soaked. This was probably one of our best nights in San Francisco.

 

sneak attack: he jumped in our picture.

the water was still pretty cold though...

Thanks for bringing the sunshine from So Cal with you, Bamber!

See you in five days, honey.

Food Truck Dates

So this summer, God blessed us with two wonderful awesome new friends, Jaleen and Russell Davidson. They are our married friends (we call them that because we really don't have that many married friends) who recently moved from SLO to San Francisco. And we think they are incredible!! I swear Matt and Russell are like the same person. They like to drink (and brew beer), they are both architects (well almost), and they both love to eat. Nothing brings friends together like food and beer. Jaleen and I were talking about how much I love food trucks one day, and I decided that we needed to experience Off the Grid, a food truck meet that travels throughout the city. We chose to go to the one in Haight Ashbury on Thursday nights (I know, whoever decided to wander the Haight at night is not the smartest cookie). Anyways, it was SPECTACULAR. Nothing brings people together like waiting in lines for food from trucks, scrambling to get four chairs together, and eating community food. Jaleen and I waited in line at supposedly the best food truck in SF called Señor Sisig. We got a burrito, because that's what everyone told us to get and it really was pretty amazing. The boys waited in line for "sexy fries" which turned out to be fries covered in indian curry, sounds interesting (and a little scary), but it was the BOMB. We even got these garlic noodles from this place that is supposed to be the best (and they were okay...probably cus they came from a truck). Plus then we got some cupcakes. I swear, this place is like a foodie's heaven. There is literally a little bit of everything. I heard that there was a bacon truck, but it wasn't there that week (did I mention that the trucks alternate? Different trucks come every week). I can't believe we waited until the very last week we lived in SF to go. Regardless I think it was a great way for us to end our summer....food, fun, laughs and good friends :)

There is a little bit of a lack of pictures (since we only had our phones and my iPhone doesn't have a flash), but Matt has a video of us talking about our favorite foods. Hopefully he will put it up.

"Hi I'm Russell and my favorite thing was.....sexy fries!!"

Date Wars: Matt's Date

First, coming up with my date was quite a challenge.  I had so many ideas running through my head and I simply wanted it to be perfect.  Ultimately I decided on a date that I thought was awesome!!  Here's how it went:

I returned from work and presented Margaret with two beautiful Gerber Daisy flowers (her favorite flower, mind you!).

We then proceeded to drive to dinner where I had window seat reservations at Grub.  I picked this place for two reasons:  1)  Margaret LOVES mac 'n' cheese, and 2)  we came here once before and had an amazing experience.  The food really hit the spot and I we were definitely enjoying our time together.  I got the mac 'n' cheese with add-ons of bacon, sun dried tomatoes, and truffle oil.  Let's just say that both of us would do terrible things to get our hands on a dish that good!  Margaret got the chicken breast burger and it was definitely a solid combination for the mac 'n' cheese.  We shared both dishes so we both had a little slice of heaven.

Dinner finally came to an end and we were on route to the main event:  ice skating at the Yerba Buena Ice Skating rink!!  Margaret has been ice skating before and I never have, but we have talked about ice skating for a REALLY long time.  I thought it would be a really fun date to get out and do something that we have never done together before.  We shared a ton of laughs when Margaret screamed every time she almost fell and at the times when I tried doing spins in the air.  Let's just say that both of us had moments of getting on a personal level with the ice.

Great posture!

Triple mctwist with a perfect dismount and landing!

This was only one of two times that

I saw her fall.  Not too shabby!

I win date wars because this picture is now
our blog's profile picture!

Dessert WAS planned but because of a few financial surprises with the date and our exhaustion from skating, we decided to forgo dessert and just get a really large coke instead.  All in all, this was a very fun date and is something that I hope to do again with her!

San Francisco with the Evans

The Sunday before Matt and I had to move out, his fam bam came to visit us in San Francisco. And you know what we love more than visitors in SF....doing tourist-y things with our visitors. Of course, being the awesome parents they are, Matt's parents (and his sister) let us drag them around our favorite parts of San Francisco. They arrived around 11am (they drove 8 hours back and forth just to hang out with us). When they got here, they were starving (just like the two of us waiting for them). We decided to take them to Fisherman's Wharf for bread bowls filled with chowder from Boudin. If you haven't been to Boudin...you're missing out. They practically invented sourdough bread. This place practically defines San Francisco for me. We decided to sit upstairs and it was such a beautiful day out. We had a great view of the ocean and the docks...very typical San Francisco without the fog (for once). We walked around Pier 39 because it is probably my favorite place ever. I know it's tourist-y and overpriced and loud and crazy (but how could you NOT love it?). We meandered through the stores a little bit and watched a magic show.

After walking off our bread bowls (kind of), we decided to go somewhere new. Don't laugh. Matt and I have never been to Ghiradelli Square. Seriously. For a girl who loves chocolate and a guy who loves being a tourist in San Francisco, I swear neither of us have ever been there. So what better way to top off an excellent day but with ooey gooey melting chocolate and creamy ice cream (I know I'm killing myself just thinking about it). Matt's mom was the only one who had ever been there before, so it was a treat for everyone. Matt's parents each finished their own Ghiradelli sundae...I am so incredibly impressed. Abby and I shared a sundae and Matt just got two scoops of cookie dough ice cream in a waffle cone (if this kid ever ordered anything but chocolate chip cookie dough, it might blow my mind). After that day, I am definitely a believer in the Ghiradelli difference. Matt and I will definitely be back. It might now be one of my favorite places in San Francisco :)