Tag: photography

Pfieffer Beach & the never ending drive to Pismo.

Average drive time from San Francisco to Pismo Beach: approx 4-5 hours. Time that it took us yesterday: TEN. We got up yesterday morning at around 8, Chris had a call at 9:30 he needed to do from home which was fine because neither of us had packed & I had clothes in the laundry I wanted to bring. So once we did laundry, packed ourselves, packed Juno, & ate breakfast it was just before noon. We’re both laid back when it comes to road trips & we love driving the Pacific Coast Highway. We knew going on highway 1 rather than 101 would add more time to our journey but it’s honestly so breathtakingly beautiful that it’s worth it. That was part of the appeal of coming to Pismo was driving the PCH to get there. Four years ago Chris proposed on a tiny secluded beach 70 miles north of San Luis Obispo, so needless to say this route has some special memories. Anyway we stopped for a quick lunch at around 2:30 & then realized we were going to get into Pismo & it would be dark & poor Juno hadn’t had any exercise yet. So we looked up a dog friendly beach on our way and plugged it into the GPS. Pfieffer Beach it was. And oh my God is it beautiful. We got there right around 4:30 & hung around for one of the most beautiful sunsets. Afterward we pioed back into the car only to realize we didn’t have any cell service. So we kept heading south. Well portions of highway 1 closed last year due to landslides after wildfires. We had seen some signage saying it would be closed at a town called Gorda. We figured CalTrans would certainly alert us when the detour was & when to turn if you wanted to continue South. Ummmmm nope. We literally drive to the dead end of the highway. So now we are in the dark, with no service on a two lane windy highway. Our saving grace was that because our car is new the GPS is included & we were able to search for our hotel. We had to drive along a tiny one lane road for probably 90 minutes before we got back to any kind of civilization. And the entire time we were trying to decide where the heck we were. Turns out we were on an Army base / training facility!! Finally we were within 15 minutes of Pismo & we got pulled over for speeding 😳 luckily the officer was very nice and Chris was able to blame it on the cruise control and the downhill and we got out of the ticket. We got to the resort with 10 minutes to order room service. We honestly just had to laugh. And we both agreed Pfeiffer Beach was 100% percent worth it! Right now Chris is still sleeping (he deserves it after all the driving yesterday) but we’re gonna go for a hike this morning & get some breakfast. Life can be so funny & ridiculous at times & I’m just so thankful to have someone who doesn’t take it too seriously. Yesterday could have been terrible, we could have gotten mad at each other for our predicament but instead we both knew it wasn’t anyone’s fault & we just thanked our Stars that it we didn’t have a baby with us yet because that drive would have been way less fun!! Haha. Now off to enjoy the remainder of the babymoon.

Hope everyone has a great weekend.

Winter Babymooning

 

Here are some photos from our babymoon this weekend. We rented a little log cabin & stayed outside of Tahoe for two nights. I know most babymoons take place by a pool, with a mocktail in hand but given that we live so close to Tahoe & that my pregnancy is primarily taking place in winter this seemed like a very fun & romantic choice. It was so nice to unplug, be out of cell service & just enjoy each other’s company. I told Chris how happy I was to make once last trip up to the snow before the baby because I know each consequent trip from here on out is going to look a lot different.

The resort we stayed at, Sorenson’s has a little cafe that serves breakfast, lunch, and dinner. They deliver firewood to your porch daily & are dog friendly (pretty much checking all our boxes haha!) We packed some of our own food because our cabin came equipped with a full kitchen. I brought some homemade chili that just needed reheating & I brought some buttermilk pecan sticky buns. The sticky buns turned out SO good, here’s the recipe . Then we grabbed dinner at the cafe our second night.

 Each day we strapped on our snowshoes & went exploring. Even though snow shoeing may sound terribly bland it’s actually a lot of fun. It’s basically snow hiking so you can stay on a trail or off road & climb up the mountain. It’s the perfect, free, activity for people who aren’t into skiing or snowboarding but still want to enjoy the scenery. We had Juno with us so she was off exploring or chasing after her ball & we were able to keep up with her.

We are planning a little warmer of a babymoon next month, but we’ll still be driving there. Chris & I have always loved going on road trips & driving together in the car. We spent a lot of weekends early on in our relationship driving the Pacific Coast Highway, so it seemed appropriate to pick babymoons that we could drive to. Especially since car rides post baby I’m sure will be less leisurely haha.

Hope everyone had a great weekend ❤

Christmas Time & 22 Weeks

I can’t believe Christmas is upon us! We are leaving today to spend Christmas in Austin with Chris’ family. Even though we won’t be spending Christmas day at home we decided to get a tree anyway. I love how festive it makes the house look. I feel like I blinked & autumn disappeared. This Christmas feels extra special since it’s our last one before baby arrives. This week I hit the 22 week mark & I feel like each morning I wake up & my bump is bigger than the night before. I told Chris I definitely wanted to get some bump pictures in front of our gorgeous tree & I’m so glad we did. I feel like I’ll always look back on these & remember this in-between time of life, waiting for our new family member. We started feeling baby from the outside now & it’s so crazy! I’m excited for a getaway to Austin. It’ll be nice to just have some downtime with family. I’ve already compiled my list of places I want to eat while we’re there. Once we’re back in San Francisco I know it’ll be go go go. I’ll be working a bunch in January & we have a few trips planned & some serious nursery work to do!

Hope everyone has a safe and happy holiday!

Xoxo

Plaza de España & Royal Alcazar

Seville     Time Spent: 2 nights  Favorite Food: Duas Tapas  Favorite Attractions: Plaza de Espana & Royal Alcazar

^The Bathes at the Royal Alcazar – a good 15-20 degrees cooler than outside!!img_2385-1

These photos are from our time in Seville. We spent our second day there exploring the Royal Alcazar & Plaza de Espana. I highly recommend purchasing tickets for the Alcazar in advance that way you aren’t wasting time waiting in line. It was so fun to walk around, there’s so much Moorish detail throughout all the buildings & then you head outside & you can explore the gardens. Something we really like was that it didn’t seem overly crowded like some of the other attractions we’d been to in Spain. After the Alcazar we found some lunch in a little square & then we decided to walk around & explore Seville. We ended up at the Plaza de Espana, it wasn’t necessarily on our list to go visit that day, but I’m SO happy we ended up there! The Plaza was built in 1928, held the Worlds Fair & now is used mostly for government buildings. It’s so cool that people actually go to work each day in this incredible place! The Plaza backs up to another beautiful park you can explore. We had a great time in Seville, it was definitely one of my favorite places we visited!

20 Hours in Granada

Time Spent: 20 hours

Favorite Food / Drink: Jardines de Zoraya & El Huerto de Juan Ranas 

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Granada was perhaps one of the best twenty hours of the trip; between taking in all the sights at the Ahlambra & the delicious meals we kept talking about how this was one our favorite stops on our trip! We traveled early in the morning from Seville, (I’ll be posting our whole two week itinerary in a separate post so stay tuned for that). We arrived in Granada mid morning & couldn’t check into our Airbnb so we found a cafe & enjoyed some breakfast.  After we checked in, dropped our bags & changed clothes we headed out to catch the shuttle up the hill to the Ahlambra. We spent the whole afternoon exploring the grounds. There’s so much to see, we both agreed the gardens & the guest quarters were by far our favorite. As you can see from the photos the amount of Moorish details throughout is incredible.

After a full afternoon of sightseeing we headed out for some cocktails & dinner. We grabbed a drink & appetizer at El Huerto de Juan Ranas, they have a great outdoor patio with an incredible view looking right at the Ahlambra. It’s a little on the pricey side but definitely well worth it, especially if you’re able to time it at sunset! We walked to dinner at Jardines de Zoraya, which Chris had eaten at years ago when he first visited Granada. They also have an outdoor patio, with delicious food that is reasonably priced. After dinner we walked back to our Airbnb along the Passeo de los Tristes.

We only spent 20 hours in Granada, it was our busiest day with travel & walking, my fitbit counted us at nearly 30,000 steps that day but we had SO much fun!

Hope you enjoy these photos! I’m off to Scottsdale this weekend for a bachelorette, but I’ll be posting more photos from our Europe trip in the following weeks, along with our detailed itinerary.

Hello Spring 

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No Matter How Long The Winter, Spring Is Sure to Follow

It seems like the rain in California has just been relentless; albeit great for the drought I find myself rejoicing when the sun’s out & it’s a beautiful spring day. These photos were taken two days ago in Golden Gate Park, but even now as I write this, there’s rain drizzling down my window. I don’t religiously check the weather here in San Francisco because on the whole it’s so mild that usually a look out the window & a few light layers will be enough. However with all this rain it’s been really nice when I wake up & there isn’t a cloud in the sky! The unpredictability of the weather the last couple months have just brought me more gratitude for when it’s a beautiful day outside. I feel like it’s too nice to sit inside & let it go to waste. So rather just walking my dog around our neighborhood we’ll stroll through the park & take advantage of some sunshine because we could wake up to rain tomorrow. This “seize the day” mentality can be so motivating. It’s easy to be focused in on the day to day tasks & think, ugh I have to get the dog out for a big walk otherwise she’ll be a madwoman.  But this season change has allowed me to zoom out & actually see the beautiful day & enjoy just being outside soaking up some much needed vitamin D! As a nurse I feel like already have a pretty good appreciation for how precious & unpredictable life can be but it always feels good to find new appreciation even in the day to day things.

Speaking of appreciating small things – this is our last weekend at home before we head to Europe & we’re SO excited! We’re just wrapping things up before we leave, having dinner with some of our favorite people & dogsitting one of Juno’s BFF’s plus it’s supposed to be sunny!

City Rambling

San Francisco in the springtime is so beautiful. I love wandering around the city & taking in all the views. Even though I’ve lived here for nine years San Francisco ceases to amaze me, I feel like I’m still finding new sweet spots in the city. Some of these pictures are from earlier this week when a few friends & I did a little urban hiking around nob hill / pac heights. The rest of the pictures are from this past Saturday when Chris & I took Juno out to Crissy Beach to meet up with some friends for a little dog date! Don’t let the sunshine fool you, it was freezing by the water, barely breaking 50 degrees! Despite the cool weather it was a great weekend hanging out at home & just enjoying this wonderful city. Saturday night we snuck away for dinner at favorite spot of ours in the mission. Hope everyone had a wonderful weekend! We’re just a couple weeks away from trip to Spain & Portugal! Can’t wait!

Scottsdale Spring Training

^^ The face of your husband when he’s hungry but you wanna take a picture of the food

This past weekend we got away & spent some time in Scottsdale Arizona. Chris travels there occasionally for work & this time I tagged along! It worked out that the SF Giants have their spring training stadium in Scottsdale, so we got to enjoy watching them beat the Chicago Cubs in a training game on Saturday. Neither of us had been to spring training before, but it was so fun getting to see our favorite players in a tiny stadium, laid back and practicing. Not to mention with all the non stop rain we’ve been getting in California it was nice to escape and pretend it was summertime. Nothing says summer like baseball right??  We stayed at the amazing Scottsdale McCormick Ranch, it was the perfect place to lounge while Chris was at work during the week. Not only is there a fabulous pool to spend the day by, but they have all of these little courtyards with string lights & at night it’s the cutest scene ever. Saturday night we came back to the hotel after the Giants game & there was a single person in the beautifully lit courtyard so we couldn’t pass up the opportunity for a few photos. It was a relaxing weekend & the perfect start to my birthday. Hope everyone had a great weekend! 

Xoxo 

January Beach Days 


^The best winter beach foot wear – rainboots!
^Running for dear life haha 
^ these two make my heart explode ❤

Lately the weather in San Francisco has been sooo rainy! Which doesn’t seem like it would make for good beach weather, but when you have an 80 pound puppy you gotta find some way to tire them out. For us it’s so much easier to wipe sand off of her than it is to try and get mud off, so the beach it is! I actually love going when the weather is questionable, because it’s almost always just dog people there; aside from a handful of tourists who get out of their cars walk to the beach, touch the water, take a few photos of the Golden Gate, and call it a day. We’ve spent most of January taking Juno to Baker Beach which as you can see from the photos has incredible views of the Golden Gate Bridge. She’s finally trustworthy enough to let her roam off leash & she seriously has the best time. No amount of time is long enough in her opinion. We have some fun trips planned this year so stay tuned for more blog posts! Hope everyone had a great weekend & stayed dry!

Half Moon Bay Monday!

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img_8986^^Pumpkin Patches overlooking the Pacific Ocean?? Pinch me!
img_8988-1img_8991^ A little obsessed with this candle display! 
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^Entrance to the Ritz Carlton – Half Moon Bay! ^^ Had to end our day with a little Rosé

On Monday my girls & I drove down the coast to Half Moon Bay to go pumpkin picking & get in the fall spirit! Half Moon Bay is known for their annual Pumpkin Festival, this year was the 46th year!! So needless to say the whole little town is decked out in fall decor. Our first stop was Pastorino Farms Pumpkin Patch. Along with all the pumpkins they also have the cutest nursery you can walk around in. Right next door is a florist that sells bouquets for SO cheap, I got a bouquet of dahlias for literally $3!!! After we left Pastorino we walked around the downtown of HMB just going into little shops, that’s where we saw the adorable little baby chicks. Our next stop was Bob’s Pumpkin Patch. This one was by far my favorite! You pick the pumpkins exactly where they grow! The patch itself overlooks the Pacific Ocean, it’s unreal. The pumpkins are also wayyyy cheaper than some of the other patches. After wandering around & picking out our pumpkins we determined a happy hour drink was in order. We decided to stop by the Ritz Carlton – Half Moon Bay.  You can sit outside on their lawn overlooking the golf course & the pacific. Even if you aren’t interested in the cocktail portion, I’d recommended going just for the view, it’s phenomenal. I must say I haven’t had a Monday this wonderful or this fancy in a while. Gotta love nursing / shift work where you’re off random days of the week & can enjoy little day trips like this one. This weekend Chris & I are headed back down the coast to Carmel By The Sea to celebrate his Birthday & I can’t wait!