Saturday is a wonderful Day

I have to say the weekends have such greater value when you have a normal job... well I guess when Nate does seeing as I still don't have a job yet... But just having a day to hang out together and do whatever we please is WONDERFUL. We've been kind of busy the first couple weekends we were here going into SF and what not so Saturday Nate really didn't want to move. SO we wound up hanging around our apt and heading to the pool for a picnic/swim :)

I ate our sandwiches and treats and was content to lay out but...

Nate still likes to play at the pool. He didn't really want to go, but he REALLY didn't want to lay out. So I swam with him for a bit, we did some pool stunting and then I was ready for some sun. Nate wasn't though... so he kept swimming and I sat on my lawn chair and counted how long he could hold his breath etc. etc.... what a little boy I married :)

I made a huge deal about getting this swimsuit in like March... and this was the first occasion I got to wear it... oops...

I love to see the temple

We made our first visit to our new temple. The Oakland temple is gorgeous... but it is a transition not having one 5 minutes away. It has beautiful grounds but since we took a left instead of a right when we got off the freeway there wasn't time for pictures before our session.

My camera sucks at taking pictures at night... it really was so beautiful... its situation on the hill is so stunning. I promise next time we go we'll take pics in the light.

One happy temple goer (the other behind the camera)

Oakland A's

Cass's family was in town for the Yankee's series so one night we decided to go too. Finally I got some real use out of my A's hat (thanks Kennan)

Nate said he was presenting the field ?
Well the game was really fun.... but around 8 ish a cold front came in and I was FREEZING. Instead of buying a $60 sweatshirt, luckily Jon had a jacket around his waste he let me borrow. Needless to say I looked great in it.... but really Jon saved my skin.... THANK YOU.

Garlic Fries.... Ive been hearing about garlic fries from 49er games since we started dating and the A's stadium had them too. So we got some for me to try.... yuck I was sick the rest of the night. Apparently they weren't 'the same' but I don't know if I'm up for trying the originals.

Lamoraeux's in the city

Robyn and her family had planned to come to California months ago for their summer trip. They were going to spend a few days with Bryce and Lisa and then head up to Seaside. Since we moved here, we got to see them! Since Bryce lives a bit of a distance and they were planning on going to to city, that is exactly where we met up.

The first day we tackled Fisherman's Wharf

When Nate and I got there, the Williams and the Lamoraeux's were visiting the maritime museum. So here's Bryce and Gwyn rowing out to sea.

Gwyn manning the boat on her own

After the museum we headed further down the wharf to where the action is. The sourdough bakery's windows were quite entertaining. Although, as Bob would say, "what? I make alligator bread all the time"
Of course visiting the sea lions was a must. They really are hilarious, we watched them for a good 20-30 minutes.
Tucker with the sea lions... apparently he closes his eyes a lot, but I needed some documentation!
And.... the food of course. Nate and I stopped for lunch on the wharf. Yummy clam chowder in bread bowls....
And Calamari!

Day 2

Day two was a Monday and Nate had to work so I took the bart in and Bryce picked me up and then we all visited the Haight, and here is the famous Haight-Ashbury intersection, sigh, love the sixties. However, seeing as most of the Haight is shops we headed to Golden Gate park so the kids had something to do.

The 'gasoff', apparently when Bryce and Lis were living the the city with Miranda that is what she called the carousel (thus gasoff= carousel).

Miranda and Gil

Gwynny

The actual playground and the park was really cool... they had this funky jungle gym thing.

Bryce, Lisa, and Asher... I can't even tell you how cute Lisa is with Asher... he is definitely her little man.

Bryce, Me, and Lisa hanging out at the park with everyone..... I know I sucked at taking pictures but it's a taste.

Miranda's Promotion

Like I said... SO pumped to be close-ish to Bryce and Lisa! My first trek to their house was to attend Miranda's 'promotion' (which is 6th grade graduation). Unfortunately.... I missed the actual ceremony :( (they live further away than I thought) but I did make it in time to take pics!

Lulu (Miranda) and Lisa

Seriously... I cannot believe how old and BEAUTIFUL this girl is.

Miranda and her friends

Dallas and Miranda (bff)

Our new home...

Well, our new home looks something like this.....

Front door to the left

Don't be fooled this is our new apartment... just not much I can change when you have a 13 ft couch that Nate demands I work around.

Oh, you like our new TV? I guess Nate decided we needed a new one :)
It's a miracle our bedroom set fit in here...
Master bath

Guestroom/Office (i didn't take pics of the office part)
2nd bath
See doesn't that guestroom and 2nd bath look soooo inviting?
Yup so your all invited to visit!

The move

As many of you know... we did actually move. It was a horrific experience and I never wish to do it again although I know we will. I don't know if all moves are like this but NOTHING was easy about moving. We barely got a tenant for our town home in time, we had to do everything for our apartment over the phone and fax notarized crap, it was a holiday and it rained the day we loaded up, we didn't get gone until 11 the next day , and our tire blew out on the car tow, and all the other fun things about moving :)

The guy who rented us our truck was an idiot for sure and gave us the wrong car tow and didn't even know how to lift it and about the time we got to Wendover I noticed one of the wheels on the car tow was wobbly. SO we pulled over and had a guy check it out. He said he thought it was just a bent hubcap and it should be fine but we might want to get it checked out. So of course we didn't get it checked out and kept driving. Well we drove all the way to Sacramento the first day, yeah we drove over Donner's pass and when we tried to pull out the next morning this is what our tire looked like....

So for all the great timing we made the day before we had to wait 2 hours for the tire guys to show up and fix it. It really is a miracle we didn't die the night before driving over Donner's pass.... as bugged as I was that our schedule was destroyed I am so thankful we were safe instead... thank you JayDee for the father's blessing before we left where would we be with out it.... and to you too Coleen for the gas money, believe me it helped!

Aside from all the horrific experiences of moving I am so grateful for family! I've been so excited to move to California and finally be close to Bryce and Lisa and their kids but I didn't know how lucky I was till I got here. They dropped everything and loaded up the whole family and came to our rescue to help us move. They were so relaxed about our destroyed schedule and such incredible movers we got everything done in just a couple hours! Seriously, Lisa is like a man when it comes to moving. AND the other part of family I am utterly speechless about it my MOM. She is amazing and just makes everything better. I am sooooo glad she made the drive out here with us and helped settle me in. It made all the difference. AND Mom you are ALWAYS invited to come stay with us, ALWAYS.