Friends Are The Family You Choose

It has been over a month since my last post...wow, time really does fly by. I'm so excited for this one because it's about my recent trip to San Francisco. Ryan and I went there for our friend Ann's big 30th birthday celebration and for a long awaited visit to see Shirley May, who moved there last September.  It was just such a wonderful time.

While I was in San Francisco roaming around with my dearest friends and husband, all I could think was, I am SO lucky. How wonderful is it that I have these girls pictured below in my life and that we can just hang out and have a blast no matter what. Top that off with my husband being there, lots of great food, shopping, and laughter, and it truly was an amazing time. I am only close to a few family members, so I consider my close friends my family. Friends are the family you choose, and I feel like I've chosen well. I'm lucky enough to be surrounded by the best girls out there.

Surprisingly, I didn't take that many pictures during the trip :( Of course I wish I had more, but I must've been having too much fun to remember to take pictures. Sometimes it's just better to just be in the moment anyways :)

Here's my photo diary of the trip, enjoy!

Vista point stop on the way to Sausalito, The Golden Gate Bridge

San Francisco

Shirley May, me, and Karen :)

Fountain in Sausalito

Wine tasting in Sausalito

Anyone wanna buy an itty bitty baby? Or world's smallest duck? Anyone?

Max's Chicken. Yum.

A visit to Auntie Em's bakery

these cupcakes were SO good

I heart these girls so much

Oh, and I heart this man too...can't get enough of him

What can be better than shopping with girls? Shopping here with girls.
How beautiful is this?
I just wish I remembered what it was called. I think it started with a "W"?

Sitting at Cocola about to try some yummy pastries

chocolate pound cake and a chocolate cream eclair...need I say more?

Ann's Vera Bradley luggage -- LOVE!

beautiful girls at M.A.C.

Dinner at The Boiling Crab, probably one of my best memories of the trip

hehehe

time to put on the bibs!

Before

After

dirty bibs...it was a messy, but delicious meal

everyone signed the wall...can't wait to go back!
I thought it was also cute that the word "family" is right next to this.

 

Breakfast/lunch, brunch, whatever you want to call it, at Karilagan.
SOOOO GOOD.

Last day and last picture taken in San Francisco :(

Never Trust a Groundhog

Snowed in. Again. AGAIN.

A few weeks ago, the groundhog did not see his shadow. "They" say that means it will be a shorter winter and that spring is on it's way. Liars!

A few days ago, on a 40 plus degree, sunny, beautiful, jacket-free day, my husband said we were going to get over 8 inches of snow sometime this weekend. "Ha!" I said...no way, it was too nice out already. Well, as usual, my husband was right. And, apparently, I forgot that I live in MN.

This week's lesson: Never trust a groundhog. Trust my husband.

So, here I am, snowed in. Maybe it's a good thing anyways...the house is in dire need of some major cleaning. And, on the positive side, I really do like snow days. They are usually filled with hot chocolate, reading, cuddling, and just plain relaxing to me. BUT I was really hoping for spring to be on it's way. It was just disappointing waking up to lots of snow falling...it seems like we're going back to square one again. Yesterday, I could see my deck. Today, it's covered with snow again. Oh well, spring will be here soon enough. The piled up laundry, on the other hand, needs to disappear today haha.

Hope you're enjoying the weekend :)

Table for Two

Valentine's Day was this past Monday. Sometimes it seems a little over-hyped to me and seems like a day when boyfriends/husbands scramble around to buy cards, chocolate, and flowers for their girlfriends. Other times I feel like, well, why not celebrate love with the one you're in love with? Overall, I think my view on Valentine's Day is this -- No matter what your relationship status, why not take a special day and use it to acknowledge those who you love...be it friend, boyfriend/girlfriend, husband/wife, mom, dad, sibling. Because in the end, it just feels great to be loved, right?

It's a little hard for Ryan and I to stay out of the Valentine's Day hype since our relationship started during the week before Valentine's Day. I think in the first week that we started dating, we went on 3 dates, the 3rd one being on Valentine's Day.

Ryan brought me flowers a couple times the last couple weeks. Once for our 12 year anniversary of our first date/study break (He calls it our first date, I call it a study break and don't count it as our first date, lol) and another time for Valentine's day. He brought home flowers last week for our anniversary, white calla lilies. Side note: on our first date (our real first date, according to me, lol) he brought me white tulips thinking they were white roses, my favorite flower. So this year, he decided to bring me another kind of white flower to mix things up, haha. For Valentine's day, he came home to surprise me with flowers during his lunch break because he knew I wouldn't be expecting them during that time. He brought me white roses. And they were actually white roses :)

And for our Valentine's Day date, we decided to get dressed up and have dinner at the best place in town -- our home. We made dinner (which was SUPER yummy: steak and shrimp) and had a candle lit dinner with some wine and music provided by our satellite network, haha. It was perfect.

So, to the man who brings me flowers for special occasions and for no reason on any other day of the year, I love you. Thank you for making every day feel like Valentine's Day. Thank you for still making me feel like I did 12 years ago when I was a giggly 18 year old, going out with this guy that gave me butterflies.

Teenage Dream

I decided to paint my nails a festive, Valentine's Day color. I normally go for a red or pale pink when I think of Valentine's Day, but I decided to go a different route this time. A couple weeks ago, I bought the miniature versions of OPI's new Katy Perry collection and one of the nail polishes is pink and glittery...very glittery. I LOVE nail polish...all kinds of nail polish, from the beige, neutral colors to the dark, vampy colors. I am definitely not a fan of glitter though, so I was a little reluctant to try this one.

I decided I would step out of my comfort zone :)

This color is called Teenage Dream. I actually have to admit...I love it. I should've known, since I love the song, right? I'm honestly almost regretting just getting the miniature version...but really, I've never even finished a nail polish bottle before, and I change nail polish almost every week. It's just different from the usual "oh, it's Valentine's day, I think I'll paint my nails red" color and I love how it makes me feel -- fun and whimsical.

Adventures in Baking: M&M Cookies

I think that my husband has a special smile reserved for his favorite cookie -- the M&M cookie. That was my inspiration for this week's baked goodies...

I used the same cookie batter that I've used in the past for chocolate chip cookies and replaced the chocolate chips with M&Ms. These cookies were seriously SO easy to make and so good... deserving of a smile from my husband :)

This was a nice treat to have in the middle of the week. Hope you're enjoying your week!

Happy Monday!

I have discovered a new favorite breakfast item...whole grain toast with peanut butter and Nutella!  I don't know why I haven't thought of it before. I've had toast with Nutella, toast with peanut butter, but never both. All I can say is YUM!

This breakfast discovery, along with a day off, equals a Happy Monday, indeed! Here's to the start of a new week :)

I especially love how there's a mix of the PB & Nutella dripping off the side...drool...

A Normal Day

This weekend has been wonderful...

Friday, I had sushi with a couple girlfriends.  The sushi I had was A-MA-ZING! (it's pictured below...I wish I could reach in and eat more of it.)  After sushi, we went to my friend's house for coffee and a visit with her little baby, who is just so adorable.  And, somehow I got hooked on Grey's Anatomy again and will have to start recording it lol.  You can't really beat a great night of conversation with girlfriends :)

...drooool...

Saturday, Ryan and I went to see Shrek the Musical, a Broadway play based on the movie.  He had planned on surprising me and waiting until Saturday to tell me about it, but he couldn't wait and spilled the beans this past Wednesday.  It still amazes me how thoughtful he is.  We saw a commercial for Shrek coming to our area quite a while ago and I got so excited about it and mentioned I'd love to go see it...and then totally forgot about it.  I think Ryan also knew that I was having a really rough few weeks at work and wanted to get me out to do something fun.  What a guy!  

Here I am waiting for the play to start with my Princess Fiona "ears", a souvenir from my hubby :) 

(note: as I was putting them on before this picture, a little girl about the age of 4 walked by with the same ones on.  Also note: later on I saw more people with them on, and some were even older than me lol)

Today, we slept in and lounged in bed for a while.  We were too lazy to make breakfast (and it didn't help that we didn't have any eggs, bacon, or milk in our fridge), so we went out for breakfast.  We went to a diner type place by our house that has pretty good breakfast and it's a nice change from going to Perkins or Denny's.  After breakfast, we ran some errands and did some grocery shopping.  It was when we were grocery shopping that I really took the time to appreciate today.

I guess I'll back up a little bit.  A couple weeks ago, another co-worker of mine found out that her husband has cancer.  Stage 4 lung cancer.  Last year, another co-worker lost her husband to cancer, so this news hit way too close to home for a lot of us.  We are all devastated for her, her husband, her children, her entire family.  It's heartbreaking.  We do what we can, but really, what can you do?  I read his caringbridge site whenever there's an update and the most recent one mentioned that he was hoping that the next day would be a more normal day and that they were slowly getting there.  That reminded me of a conversation I had last year with my other co-worker, who later on ended up losing her husband to cancer.  We initially were talking about how she was doing, how her husband was doing, how her 2 young boys were doing, and when she asked how I was, I said, "not much, same old stuff...". I will never forget her response:  "Be thankful for that. Be thankful for normal, every day things."  

So as Ryan and I rounded the frozen foods section aisle and walked down past the sandwich meats, I took a look at my husband, my kind, thoughtful, loving, always-there-for-me husband, and I thanked, thanked, thanked, God for this normal day. As much as I love events and plans to look forward to, I don't think I will ever take for granted the regular, normal, every day things.