We Were Tourists

Since I started working in June, I haven't had a free Saturday unless it was requested. So when I was lucky enough to be scheduled off last Saturday, we took advantage! We decided to visit the Phoenix Botanical Gardens. Right now they're featuring a glass artist, Chihuly. We had an amazing time. The weather was perfect (73 degrees) and it was so nice to spend the day together. Here are some pictures from the gardens; everything was so cool to see, I took way too many pictures!

I never knew there were so many different types of cactus!

So much fun! We can't wait to play tourists again!

After Christmas We Left Our Hearts in San Francisco

Jake and I celebrated Christmas in Arizona this year with just the two of us. We visited the family we have here Christmas Eve and Christmas morning we Skyped with my brother and his family (including my mom) in Colorado. After watching my nephew open gifts we Skyped with Jake's parents for a few minutes with a brief appearance from Jake's sister and her kids. Then it was our turn to open presents together. We really enjoyed spending a nice relaxed morning together and had a good time sharing Christmas day with our families over Skype. One of the gifts we opened was tickets to the BYU bowl game in San Francisco, so two days after Christmas we headed to the airport to spend the weekend in California! Of course we documented our Christmas/trip in pictures, here you go!

Jake let me get a Christmas tree this year, so we got to decorate and bring out all the ornaments!

Christmas Eve we tried to take a picture by the tree (we have horrible lighting in our house).

Christmas morning!

Arriving in San Francisco.

Our hotel was by the airport and we used public transportation to get around. The game was Friday night at AT&T park so we had 6 hours to kill when we got there. We ended up sharing a cab from our hotel into town with some other football fans (Washington). Then we walked from AT&T park up to Chinatown and some other scenic places.

Jake has the same face as this Dragon!

After our walk (which was pretty long) we still had a couple hours so we decided to go bowling at an alley right across the street from the stadium.

I'm a pretty horrible bowler..

Getting to the stadium!

Our second day in SF we found our way up to Fishermen's Wharf and spent the entire day exploring.

We went to Ripley's Believe it or Not and had a great time. Here I am standing next to the world's tallest man (this is what happens when I ask Jake to take a picture when he doesn't really want to take it..).

After Ripley's we headed back to the pier to eat.

When we were done eating we decided to rent some bikes and take a ride to the Golden Gate Bridge.

It's probably 2 and a halfish miles from Fishermen's Wharf and we started close to sunset (plus it was freezing!) so we didn't go all the way to the bridge but stopped a few times to take some pictures and warm up our hands.

The bike ride back was pretty cool because we came down a hill into Ghiradelli square and the wharf and the view was just amazing!

We had ice cream at Ben & Jerry's before heading back to the hotel.

Sunday morning we slept in, packed up, and headed into the city for an early lunch before heading to the airport. We had such an amazing time exploring San Francisco together and going to the football game. We always enjoy traveling together but it's good to be home too! I don't know yet if we'll go out for New Year's and do anything fun but we hope all of you enjoyed your holidays and have a very Happy New Year!