Virgin America

So one of the many airlines that fly into the San Francisco airport (SFO) is Virgin America.  They're a pretty young airline so their airplanes are super high tech and flashy and basically awesome.  For me, they're one of those airlines I always heard about but never lived even remotely close to a city they fly into (they only service 16 cities).  We flew Virgin both to and from Christmas via Chicago (coach on the way there and First Class home!) and will DEFINITELY be flying them again whenever possible!

They're also surprisingly affordable! I don't totally understand how they remain profitable with this cost structure, but you can fly from Dallas to SFO for $99 (ahem, Nancy), Chicago to SFO for $99 (ahem, Harter fam), Fort Lauderdale to SFO for $149 (ahem, Slaton fam), and New York City to SFO for $149 (ahem, James & Jessica).  So come visit.  Please.

Excitement!

The seats recline AND massage!

All you can drink AND free DirecTV

p.s. they also fly SFO to Puerto Vallarta, Mexico for $141 (ahem, Shane take me here :-) )

A very belated Christmas post

Christmas has come and gone. Shane and I are done with our holiday travels and we're both back at work today.  We had a wonderful time in Ohio and we're both a little homesick, but we spent a lot of our time there preaching about how great California is, so hopefully we'll have a few visitors before too long (HINT, HINT!!).

I think I can sum up most of our holiday season with photos...

Archie and Traveller slept while visions of sugarplums danced in their heads
Our PHENOMENAL friends Kennedy & Dan dogsat for us
Photo credit: Dan and/or Kennedy

Shane and I had OUR Christmas the night before we flew to Toledo
Note the glasses of Cider -- our new Christmas tradition!

Shane got me an iPhone! Woo hooooo!

Flew to Chicago where we spent the afternoon and early evening

Amtraked to Toledo where we were greeted with a TON of Christmas cheer

Loved on precious baby Nico (nephew)

Played with Kobe (and missed Archie of course)

Flew home via Virgin America First Class (additional post on this subject coming soon)

Archie declared that next time we travel he's coming with us

We hope everyone had as wonderful a Christmas as we did, and we wish you a very happy new year!

Chi Town

We're on our way to Christmas in Toledo and after an absolutely lovely Virgin America flight (during which I slept approximately 3 hours), we made it safely to Chicago! We spent the afternoon window shopping, visiting Millennium Park, and dining at a delicious Italian restaurant (Rosebud on Rush). After dinner, we headed to Union Station, retrieved our luggage from a locker and and climbed aboard our Amtrak train to Toledo! See you soon, Harters!

NTS: not too shabby ;-)

Animal Cruelty

Rotisserie chicken for dinner! Archie wants to know if he can have a bite...

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas...

Is anyone else shocked that it's actually December? Where the heck did the time go?!  In any case, it's here, and it's officially Christmastime.

As I was attempting to unpack a few more boxes last night, I came across 4 large boxes (yes, truly 4 of them) filled with Christmas stuff! And even though Shane and I only have a few days to enjoy it (since we're leaving for Ohio on Sunday!), I've decided to do a teensy bit of Christmas decorating.  I give you, our Christmas spirit...

Detail: note Mom's Christmas card to Archie :-)

Detail: Shane's presents!

Perhaps just a bit too much Christmas spirit :-)

Rack of Lamb

Lazy post time! Sorry, y'all, but not too much exciting is going on, so I'm taking the easy way out and sharing with you what Shane and I ate for dinner last night. OMG IT WAS SO GOOD!

Lamb chops with roasted carrots and mashed potatoes

Recipe for the lamb can be found here.

BALKing

Shane and I have officially mastered the BART system. Shane takes it to and from work each day; I take it to the grocery store, hairdresser, downtown shopping, etc. Unfortunately, this is the only public transit that we have been brave enough to try.  We hear lots about the MUNI bus system, and of course the famous cable cars (not to mention Caltrain or SamTrans if you're headed south of the city), but so far we're solely BART-riders which unfortunately limits us to certain parts of the city.

Thus, we have coined the term BALK.  BALK is a combination of the words BART and walk. To get to our destination, we take the BART as close as we can and then walk the rest of the way (if it's more than a mile or two we're not going... or we're taking a cab).

Examples:
"I've found a few salons with good Yelp ratings, but I can only BALK to one of them."
"Do you want to try that restaurant they were talking about? I'm pretty sure it's BALKable!"

We're officially lame, and will surely have to get brave at some point, but for now we'll keep BALKing around San Francisco.  Come BALK with us!

Haircuts!

Truthfully, one of the things I was most bummed about leaving in Sarasota was my hairdresser, DeeAnn.  We had been together for 2 full years upon my departure and she and my hair had a very close relationship.  Unfortunately, however, hair grows, and my hair was desperately calling out for a cuttin'!

I did a lot of research (Yelp.com is a fantastic tool when you don't have any personal recommendations/warnings to go off of), found a salon (and found Shane one too because he was also in need of some styling!), and found some bravery to trust my precious hair with a new stylist and voilà!

I give you, the haircuts:

Do we look good or what???

Before & After: The Kitchen/Dining Room

Because inquiring minds want to know, I give you: the kitchen & dining room....

Before:

and After:

Sunday Funday!

We've been talking for the past 2 weeks about how our list of must-see San Francisco landmarks is pretty lengthy and we need to get a jump on making the rounds, so.... we had an outing and checked 3 more sights off the list!

Since Shane decided to use his Saturday to wash his car (one of his favorite pastimes), we took that bad boy out on the road on Sunday to make the drive over the Golden Gate bridge. Aside from the $6.00 toll (are you kidding me?!), it was everything we wanted it to be: beautiful, awe-inspiring, and grand.  Just over the bridge is a place called Vista Point with a great vantage point to view the bridge, the bay, the San Francisco skyline, Alcatraz, Oakland, Treasure Island, etc.  LOVED IT.

Next, we headed to Sausalito.  We were totally convinced that the GPS had us lost because we were driving through the craziest windy streets and amazing residential areas, but fiiiiiinally we ended up on their Main Street.  We walked and window shopped and got a great lunch at a restaurant called The Spinnaker, which had another fantastic view of the bay and the SF Skyline.

We were headed home and decided we hadn't had enough of the city so we made one last trek to Lombard Street, the famous, crazy, zig-zaggy road. It was just as crazy and zig-zaggy as we'd hoped :-)

Then we finally headed home with a quick stop at the grocery store to get dinner fixins for our very first dinner party!  We had our dear friends Kennedy and Dan over for spaghetti and homemade meatballs. Yum!

Our day in photos...

Our first sight of the bridge!

So big!!

Underbelly of one of the towers

San Francisco bay, with Bay Bridge

San Francisco skyline

Stunning

Random Australian woman failed to get the bridge in the background

When all else fails, take the photo yourself!

More of the bay and Alcatraz

Shiny clean Batmobile

Sausalito!

The beginning of Lombard Street

Lombard Street!

We had a fantastic day :-)

Good morning, sunshine!

Am I spoiled or what??

Eggs (sunny side up, my fave!) with tater tots, blueberry pancakes, fresh fruit, fresh sliced tomato, and a glass of OJ!

Before & After: The Balcony

The balcony is the smallest room/area in our house and was therefore the easiest to complete.  Woo hoo! Progress!!

I give you the first of many before & afters....

Ta dahhhhh....