Tuacahn

I took me a little vacation over Father's Day weekend with the girlz in my family. This trip has been planned for several months so to finally be off having some fun in the sun was super great! My sister Amanda ended up not going so her daughter took her place. It was me, my mom, my sister Amber, and my sisters-in-law Xannie and Sam. Amber has a time share so we were able to chill in St. George at the condo which has this awesome pool that is only two feet away from our door:

We spent an afternoon there after arriving and checking into the condo. Then it was time to get ready so we could grab some grub and head to our first show - The Little Mermaid!!

Tuacahn has some beautiful scenery - I really loved that we were surrounded by these ginormous red cliffs. The weather was hot but it wasn't horrible and there was a breeze so it was so nice there:

Bronsynn is super excited, can you tell?

The Little Mermaid has some super fantastic special effects. That's what made it cool for me because other than that, it had a tendency to be off-the-radar corny and mushy...two things I don't do well with. But we had great seats...fifth row up which ended up being perfect because you could see things on the side stage like this picture here...I was only three seats away from them:

This is one of those awesome special effects, where the water comes down and it looks like they are in the ocean. Here Ariel is going to rescue Eric after he was thrown off the ship!:

Under the Sea was my favorite part - super fun song, fun costumes, fun all around:

And Ursula was pretty cool -as you can tell:

Overall it was pretty good! The ending is totally different and I didn't like it but other people did so it's just personal taste, I guess.

Saturday we had a nice lazy morning followed by a looooong time at the pool :) I loved it! We made lunch and then went out shopping to the outlets to see what we could find...one of which happened to be these totally awesome visors that I know you are all jealous of:

And you just can't go wrong with a look like this:

We found some good stuff and I picked up some goodies from Osh Kosh for Baby to wear and we gorged ourselves on Apple Pie Apples from Rocky Mtn Chocolate Factory and I was super excited to find a place that did Bubble Tea!!! Yummmmmmmm. It was quite an exhausting shopping experience, though, given the heat. I did not appreciate the fact that this was the first time I noticed my feet starting to swell. Boo hoo. But they went down! I just had to get unhot.

We went back to get ready for dinner, which we had up at Tuacahn. It was themed after the diner in Grease. We did some browsing and then got seated. This was what the stage looked like for Grease from up top:

I liked Grease a lot cuz of the fun songs and it was truer to the actual movie/play.

We sat on the second row from the stage and while it was a great view, you had to twist around to see things on the side stages, so that's why I liked seating a bit farther up.

If you like musicals, these two are pretty fun. My favorite is still Wicked, though...which I hear is coming to Utah next year?? Anybody else hear that? Fun vacation to take with the girls - we had a lot of fun and it was nice to get out of the city and enjoy something new.

San Francisco - Day #1

Paul and I were up at four in the morning to catch our flight. The dog was at my mom's for the week to play with his new buddy, Ruger. I had my new patch on in hopes that I wouldn't get nausea for once and puke once we landed. I'll spoil the climatic ending to that story right now and say no. No it did not. All you fools who can fly without puking, and fly while reading and watching tv at that, can suck my big toe.

Okay moving forward.

After arriving in San Fran and making our way to all the good stuff, we parked and walked along the Piers. We couldn't check in till four so had lots of time to check out Pier 39 and the Warf

If I had one of these outside my home (free) I would eat fruit a lot more often. It all looks so appetizing...not like fruit in the grocery store...unless of course you shop at Harmons. Which I don't.

Paul at the end of Fisherman's Warf. A few days later we ran the piers, through the warf, along that long dock behind him in the picture and back out, then up a hill to another pier and a park and then back to the hotel. Pretty fun. Except we broke our feet.

Lots of fun things to look at while walking:

We saw this bakery that baked awesome bread that I just knew would be amazing. And not just because they were shaped like Alligators:

And crabs:

And cute turtles riding piggy back:

The street performers were fun. I love this guy and all the shiny 'robotic' dudes, and the pirates. Paul and I saw a circus act on the street by these three siblings that was just amazing but I'll give that one a post of its own. It's seriously fun to watch. At least it was in person:

We ate at the Hard Rock Cafe...a vacation tradition for me. This time I got a Hard Rock martini glass to add to my stash :) We walked tonz and saw tonz and it was after four and we decided to go and check in. We were staying at the Hyatt Regency. It was pretty fancy. These lights were so fun to look at:

And they had old fashioned looking elevators so you could see everything while you were in them, including those lights, that weird sphere thing, and the indoor river. Pretty cool!!!

San Francisco - Day #2

We hit the gym in the morning and worked ourselves sexy! Afterwards we headed to Golden Gate Park...had no idea it was so friggin' gargantuous. To be honest, we kinda gave up after a whole lot of walking and finding nothing but highly expensive museums to attend. Although I am sure they could have been interesting, we weren't in the mood and I don't feel bad that I missed them. I did want to go see the Japanese Tea Gardens...but guess who only accepts cash and guess who was two dollars short?? Such crap.

Anyhoo, there were pretty sites like this one all over:

And it was okay but it definately wasn't the highlight of our trip.

Paul hanging out in the trees like the monkey he is:

Paul and I gettin' our sexy on:

I laughed when I saw this sign in front of the playground. Really?? That is such crap, too!:

Back tracking a little (because I don't want to rearrange my pictures...I'm lazy like that). On the bus out there, we saw this man smokin' an honest-to-goodness friggin' Sherlock Holmes pipe....Ha!!!

We saw plenty of colorful walls....I love that about San Francisco. Makes me happy that Salt Lake Running Co. just did one of their own. I feel all cool now.

This was my favorite. A pair of giant legs sticking out of someone's window. Classic:

Okay, so we walked and walked, got lost, found our way back, got back on the bus, went back and worked out again, ate, came home and got ready for........

Wicked!!!!!

O.M.G.!! I love love love this musical! I want to see it again...and again...and again!!! I seriously had 'Popular' stuck in my head for an entire week and a half...at least! It was so funny. Like all plays/musicals it had some mushy blah blah that went on a little too long for my comfort and some smushy exchange of words that I could have done without but it was really really funny. And the character that makes this play is Glinda (the Ga is silent!). But most importantly Glinda played by Alli Mauzey. Ho. Ly. Cow!! I looked up a bunch of taped 'Popular' scenes on YouTube...and none of them are as funny as Alli Mauzey. She is great! After seeing Wicked, I wanted to go see Peter Pan and Beauty and the Beast super badly...but we didn't really have the time. I think B&B would have been great though. Definately glad we saw this!

San Francisco - Day #3

Heading to Alcatraz Island for a tour of the prison. Uh-oh!!:

I found the prison incredibly fascinating. I didn't think that I would. I loved that on the audio tour, actual prisoners and guards of this old prison talked you through all the rooms and stories. It was interesting to see the actual bullet holes of one of the escape attempts, and the fake heads that some men made to fool the guards while they escaped, and the prison yard, the library, the kitchen, the solitary confinement. This is me in one of those cells:

I took about one bazillion pictures of the prison inside and out. From the outside you could see this:

Which was apparently the worst form of torture for the inmates. One said that is was unbearable because everyday out in the yard they could look out and see the city and 'see what the hell it is that you were missing.'

The youngest guard ever hired at Alcatraz's name is Frank and he was there to sign his little book about Alcatraz and talk about his time there. Again..totally fascinating to me. I bought the book so I could read about the prisoner's there, like Al Capone!! Oooooh!!

After Alcatraz, our boat took us to Angel Island. It's very pretty there and there's lots of pretty views but I won't take the time to post about it cuz it would be time consuming...just like Alcatraz.

This excursion took alllllll day - about six and half hours by the time we got back. By that time, even though we had had a few snacks, we were starving!! We made a mad dash back to the hotel to shower and change and go in search of food! We took a trolley most of the way to Little Italy and then we walked to sight-see as we searched for the restaurant that called to us the most.

That restaurant ended up being Pellegrini. It had the most fantastic Italian food I have ever had in my life! We came upon this restaurant, with it's pretty decor and outside lights, and waited for a seat. I wanted one out front with the heaters blaring down on us cuz it was freezing cold and the inside was reserved. We almost didn't get a good seat but then...tada...a couple finished up and left and we were seated there. I am magic! I had this amazing Gnocchi dish and Paul had a pesto pasta thing...both so good. And their bread and oil dip was the best thing I have ever tasted. We even stuffed ourselves on dessert - fantastic dessert. It continued to get colder and colder and soon that heater was doing nothing for us so we bailed as fast as possible, took a bus to Union Square and then took the trolley back home!

San Francisco - Day #4

We woke up and hit the pavement together. It's always great to run in a new place with new things to see to break up the monotony that is there at times. We ended up going three miles or so and were starving by the time we were done! We grabbed some grub at Subway just outside our hotel and then went and got ready for more sightseeing.

First on the agenda today was China Town! When we were heading other places at night, it was such a pretty sight to look down to this street and see it all lit up and the lanterns going back and forth over the street. It doesn't look quite the same in the day but I would rather shoot myself in the foot than take my chances on that street at night. Anway, there was so much to see in those shops. I wanted to buy several things but I also didn't want to go broke so I controlled myself. I stopped inside this Eastern Bakery and it literally took my ten minutes to decide what I wanted because I wanted to try everything!! It all looked so interesting! I settled on a Chinese doughnut, which is a doughy ball and has a black and red bean filling, and Tapioca Bubble Tea, which is just a flavored drink that has big tapioca 'bubbles' in it that you suck up through a big straw. They both probably sound super weird but I loved them. I wanted a couple more doughnuts!

And we finally found some hoodies that we actually liked enough to buy so we bought those so we wouldn't freeze our butts off for one more night!! We left China Town, and really we could have stayed there so much longer cuz there is tonz to see...but how many China stores do you really need to see??, and we headed toward Lombard Street. Paul was really excited to see this street. He had heard it was pretty cool and I, of course, tagged along for the ride. The walk turned into a hike, as this street literally goes nearly straight up and down. And when we got to the wacky street, I couldn't believe how many people stand around and camp out to take pictures. I mean, hellooooo, people live here!! How weird would it be to walk out of your house and have tourists crawling all over like you were some sort of celebrity?? I would go nuts!

We snapped our pictures and moved along so we could get back to our hotel and get ready for......

The San Francisco 49ers Game!!!!!!!

We were pretty annoyed because we missed nearly the entire first quarter. Not our fault though. They have buses that line up to take people to the game. It just so happens that one we got on had a driver who didn't even know how to get to Candlestick Park!!! Arggh!! Are you freaking kidding me??? Are you really? How does this happen?? Thankfully there were several locals and one guy went up and helped him find his way, which involved tiny streets and almost taking out a small car. Nice. Goosfraba.

Finally we were at Paul's most anticipated event :) And mine too! Paul loves loves loves the 49ers and I was a big time fan back in High School but not so much anymore. It was fun to be at our first NFL game! They played the Minnesota Vikings, in which Brett Favre made one play - 1 - at the very beginning. And thanks to our clueless driver we missed it. It would have been cool to see but seriously, Brett Favre needs to go away. He should have stayed retired oh I dunno...the fiftieth time that he did it??

Moving on - there was this one dude that was so. freaking. plastered!!! He ended up puking all over the place and then passed out drooling all over himself with his grocery bag full of puke leaking all over the place. Everyone one around him had a really good time giving him crap - and several us took video and pics to post on YouTube :) That's what you get for being a douchebag.

While the game itself was fun, let me tell you eight things that I did not appreciate:

1. Dumb bus driver

2. Being late to a game you pay good money for.

3. The guy that stole someone elses seat in front of us...and then when the rightful owner of that seat showed up, he didn't even have the 'courtesy' to move his ars.

4. The very loud guy sitting behind us who's favorite word starts with an F and rhymes with duck. He was also incredibly sweet to his wife...if sweet means talking down to her and yelling at her. Fun times.

5. Said wife dropping her coke on the ground and having said coke splash all over the back of my brand new WHITE hoodie. They left after that to find a better spot (what is with people?) and I wondered why they couldn't have left before she plastered me with coke.
6. Birds eye view of drunk guy's hot dog dinner all over the ground...in which people didn't pay attention to and walked right through it.

7. The fact that the ground was everyone's trash bin. I know that there is always a huge amount of garbage at things like this, but it realllllllly ticked me off that all these fatties eating peanuts didn't even bother to put the shells in a cup. We could have gone swimming in peanut shells.

8. The drunk guy leaving his freaking grocery bag of puke on the ground when he left the game!!!! It was enough to make me want to puke.

Goosfraba.

On a lighter note, here is our very own Alex Smith :)

And us again...cuz we're so cute!:

San Francisco - Day #5

Monday was our day to go home :( We were both way too sore to get up and run or workout so we slept until we wanted to! We had packed up everything the night before so all we had to do was get ready for the day and head out. But before we checked out and hauled our luggage around, we went across the street to a little diner for breakfast. Yummy yummy. Afterwards, we hopped in our car and headed over to the Golden Gate Bridge. Paul was super excited about this...I thought seeing the bridge over the past five days from everywhere you stood in San Francisco was good enough but what do I know?

Again, the view was pretty of the cityscape and the islands. Much prettier than our camera could capture. Me standing at the 'lookout thing' in front of San Fran:

Paul on the GGB, in matching attire even:

Both of us on the GGB!:

It was soooo hot that day - so retarded that it would be hot on the last day we were there and were already all packed up. After we left the Golden Gate Bridge, we went and parked and walked over to the Ghiradelli Square:

I bought a big pack of Ghiradelli chocolate's...my favorite is Peanut Butter, then Caramel, then Mint...in that order. Paul and I grabbed some ice cream, too. Mine is the Cookie Bottom Sundae...really nummy:

Afterward, we walked through Fisherman's Warf again and headed for Pier 39 to do some last minute souvenirs. We walked upstairs cuz I had to find the ladies room and that's when I head the sea lions. I was super excited cuz I couldn't see them the first day we arrived and went to Pier 39...turns out we were right around the corner. How dumb of me. But it was so cool to watch these guys play with each other and fight and stuff. There were two GINORMOUS sea lions and I kept watching for one, that was right on the edge, to fall over and make a big splash. It didn't happen:

I found a fun magic shop and I bought my nephews some magic tricks and 'poo pens' as a prank gift. Ha ha - Paul thought I was sick but what little boys wouldn't think it's hilarious to write with fake poo? Duuuuuh.

We had spent enough time shopping and seeing and it was time to head back to our car and get to the airport. I still wanted to get my niece something and I decided I would get her a pearl from an oyster. There are these little jewelery shops everywhere that have oysters sitting in water and you get to pick an oyster, and if there is a pearl in it, then you get to buy it. So I picked one out and...tada....it had a pearl in it. On a side note, how anyone eats those slimy disgusting innards is a mystery to me. I found it quite fascinating to watch a pearl come out of that gross stuff though.

And then we were off to the airport, waiting around to board the plane, heading home where it was hopefully warmer than where we were.