Back to Sunny San Diego

I got really good sleep again last night.  Apparently, I need to be on vacation and not at my house more often, LOL.  We woke up around 8:30am and ate the complimentary hotel breakfast.  Then we packed up and headed to the San Francisco airport for our flight home.  We were shocked to find the security line EXTREMELY long.  We were worried that we would miss our flight home, but we got through the line in about half an hour.  We quickly grabbed a hot dog and some chips to split, and boarded the plane.  I snoozed on the plane and we were landing before I knew it.  (I love these 70 minute short flights!)

Whenever we fly back to San Diego and I see the city from the air, I'm always so thankful and amazed at the view, and the fact that I live here.  This time was no exception.

View of Mission Bay.


Coronado Island and Point Loma.


After we landed, we felt kind of hungry, so we grabbed a late lunch at Point Loma Seafood. We just love this place, and since it was so close to the airport, we couldn't resist.

We shared a fresh halibut sandwich. So yummy!


The view outside wasn't too bad either. What a nice sunny day!


I did notice it felt about 10 degrees warmer in San Diego than in San Francisco. I almost felt too warm in my sweater.  We had a great time in San Francisco, but it is good to be home again!

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Meeting Madison + The Big Games

After a good night's sleep, we got up and got ourselves ready to go over to Minnie and Mike's house.  I've been friends with Minnie since we met in 7th grade.  Minnie and Mike just had a baby girl, Madison, about six weeks ago.  I'm so excited for them and this trip to the SF Bay Area was the perfect chance to see Minnie and Mike and meet baby Madison.

We got to their house around 9:10am.  Why so early?  Well, the big rivalry game between Ohio State and Michigan was today!  Minnie and Mike understand the significance of this game, because they're Cal Berkeley alums and today was their Big Game against Stanford.  Their game was at 4:30pm and they had tickets to it.

We made breakfast together and watched the Buckeye game.  Minnie made Ebelskiver (pancake balls filled with blueberry/strawberry preserves), topped with maple syrup.  Wow, so yummy!  We also had bacon flavored sausages (how clever!) and eggs.  I fell down on the job and totally forgot to take photos of the yummy food.

The Buckeyes beat the Wolverines 21-10.  We were ahead for the whole game and I didn't really think they would lose.  The best way to end the season is with a win over the Wolverines!  (And this makes six years in a row that we've done that!)

While Minnie and Todd went to pick up some awesome takeout food from Refuge, Mike and I played with Madison.  Mike "assisted" her with the Cal cheer, since both Minnie and Mike are Cal Berkeley grads. Of course, Madison did the cheer perfectly!


After lunch we watched some other football games on tv and just hung out.


We also took a walk around the neighborhood. Minnie and Mike decided that they were going to skip the Cal-Standford game because of the late start. They thought it would get too cold for Madison. So guess who got to go to the game at Stanford Stadium???


Turned out that Stanford is only five miles south of our hotel. So Todd and I left Minnie and Mike's house, dropped by our hotel to pick up some warmer clothes, and headed to Stanford Stadium. We found parking and it was even free! (This would never happen at a Buckeye game in Columbus, LOL.) We were so excited to go because Todd had never been to Stanford before, and they have a new stadium. (I had visited Stanford when I was in high school.) Now we can officially add Stanford Stadium to our list of stadiums that we've been to.  And to be here for The Big Game is just awesome!  (I was never in danger of going to Stanford for college, but I did get into Cal-Berkeley and almost went there.)

We got to the stadium around dusk.








Stanford was already ahead 14-0 when we arrived into the stadium. We thought they would win for sure. But Cal scored in the 2nd and 3rd quarters while holding Stanford to no scoring.






At halftime, they inducted Tiger Woods into the Stanford Hall of Fame. He's the one in the red sweatshirt.


The Stanford band on the field during halftime.

The Stanford band is really strange... there's no other way to describe them. They just wore strange costumes and danced around. There was no marching whatsoever. And their mascot is a cardinal TREE. A dancing one at that.

We left somewhere in the fourth quarter and drove back to Minnie and Mike's house.  Mike was totally engrossed in the end of the game.  It was an exciting finish and Cal won!  Minnie and Mike were excited, and we were happy that both our teams won today.  We had Chinese take out for dinner and everything was delicious.  We left their house around 9:30pm, filled with happy memories with good friends, football, laughter, and smiles from a new baby. 

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Rain in the City

I slept for nine hours last night! That hasn't happened in a long time. I think I just felt so secure with Todd by my side. I had not slept well earlier this week with Todd gone. Woke up to some cloudy views at our big window in downtown San Francisco.



Todd went to the conclusion of his conference this morning while I leisurely strolled down the street and got some breakfast from Peet's Coffee.



I got a Peppermint Mocha and some banana chocolate cherry bread. Mmmm... Then I went back to the hotel and surfed around on my laptop. When I came out of the shower and looked out the window, it was raining hard! The rain seemed to go sideways and covered the whole window.

I got all our luggage together and checked out. Then Todd and I had lunch inside a nearby busy shopping mall. We didn't have very much time to eat because our shuttle van was scheduled to arrive. We took the shuttle down to the airport with Todd's coworkers. We picked up our rental car and drove down to a different hotel in the south bay, so that we can be near my friend Minnie's house, whom we're visiting tomorrow.

We drove around the Bay Area freeways in the Friday traffic and that wasn't too fun. But what was fun was our dinner at Kingfish Restaurant in downtown San Mateo. Todd had dinner there when he came for some training back in August. It is New Orleans style cajun food.

Todd had the halibut, which he LOVED last time.


I had fried chicken, which is my favorite Southern food!


And then of course we had some bread pudding with ice cream and bananas foster for dessert.


Today was a restful transition day. Can't wait to see my friends tomorrow!

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Planes, Trains, and Automobiles

Todd has been in San Francisco for a work conference this week.  I've missed him!  So I was excited to take today and tomorrow off from work and join him in San Francisco for a long weekend.  :)

I left home around noon and drove half an hour down to the San Diego airport.  I parked in a remote parking lot and took a shuttle bus to the terminal.  Then I waited around at the gate while eating Pizzeria Uno pizza and surfing the free wifi.

View outside my plane window.


An hour and ten minutes later, I landed in San Francisco airport. I walked down to the lower level and got my luggage. Then went up to the 3rd level and took the shuttle train to the BART station.


The I took BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit) for half an hour to downtown San Francisco.


I have really fond memories of taking BART everywhere as a teenager with my friends. I lived in the San Francisco Bay Area for 9 years and took BART everywhere before driving age. My friends and I would take BART to downtown Berkeley and hang out on Telegraph Avenue to watch all the hippies and eat Blondie's Pizza. We also took BART to various Oakland A's baseball games, because BART went straight into the Oakland Coliseum. Ah... GREAT childhood memories!

I came out from the underground train station and guess who was waiting for me at the exit?

Only my favoritist person in the world!

So even though it took me a total of five hours: a 30 minute drive, a shuttle bus ride, a plane ride, a shuttle train, and a 30 minute train ride to get here, seeing my honey's face light up when he found me coming out of the train station was priceless. :) I was so excited to be reunited with Todd!

We rested a while before we had to meet up with Todd's coworkers for dinner.  The views from our room on the 26th floor were awesome.







Then we met up with Todd's coworkers for dinner at Bob's Steakhouse inside the Omni Hotel. I was totally amazed at the big chunks of food at this restaurant. Todd had steak:


I had crab cakes:


Here's Todd and Julie:


The whole group:


Dinner was super-excellent! I had so much fun with everyone. Loved all the stories they told. I was tired from the traveling, but walking in downtown San Francisco is just awesome. I felt like I was in a real bustling city. The views were great and there was a lot to see. San Francisco is colder than San Diego though. Glad I brought my overcoat!

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P365 November Template + Another Freebie + 09 YIR Template

I finally got the November Project 365 template done! 



**Download link no longer available**

I also have another special template freebie in my store for you.  I've been thinking about the holidays and counting it down to Christmas.  Some of you are thinking of giving Project 365 a try next year.  Or maybe you don't want to commit to a whole year of taking a photo a day.  You could do a countdown to Christmas photo-a-day and make your layout easy-peasy with this template from me.  :)

Free download is in my store. No need to register, just click on "FREE DOWNLOAD".

I'm also stoked to announce a new product in my store. In the tradition of my 2008 Year-In-Review layout, I'm excited to present the 2009 Year-In-Review template!

Over 145 layers for your papers and photos! Add your own embellishments and make it your own. I'm excited to use mine, especially since I'll be completing my very first Project 365 this year. :)
The template is on sale for ONE day only, $1.50 in my store on Thursday, Nov. 19th until midnight Pacific time.  If you're a newsletter subscriber, you will receive a 10% off coupon also. 

I went for a brief walk around my work campus at lunch today.  I love the crisp air combined with clear blue skies in San Diego in the fall.

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