Happy Halloween!

I hope everyone had fun celebrating this weekend! My girlfriend had a dinner party, complete with pumpkin carving and her spiked apple cider recipe, along with a last minute decision to rage the closets and head to the nearest dive bar. Tonight we may attend a block party or stay at my family's house to hand out candy. Whatever you decide to do, enjoy it and be safe! Here are a couple festive things we had around the apartment to roll in Fall. (although it's way too hot here at the moment for that cute scarf and sweater combo. But I'm not complaining ;)

World Market is one of my absolute favorite stores because it's affordable and I get weekly coupons on top of the smokin' deals. Pumpkin potpourri, pumpkin candle, and Ed Hardy Sangria.

keep young

This past weekend, my girlfriend of 22 years tied the knot. My parents, sister and brother all attended which made for such a special time with family and close friends. I'll touch more on weddings later, but I wanted to make this post about my gorgeous little brother, Brian. He's almost 12 and just started middle school. But he's unlike most pre-teens, still so innocent and loves his sisters without being embarrassed about it. (I wonder how long this will last?!) He also loves my SLR camera and is taking better pictures with it than I ever could. I wanted to share these because it's neat to look at the world from a 6th grade point of view, and as I was flipping through these I thought, "I never would have taken that, this is so cool." This kid keeps me young and keeps me laughing hysterically every time I'm with him. I forget that I'm 26 and for a minute I get to see the simplicity of life. So, with that said, what keeps you young? I feel like this is such an important question that is often ignored, or rarely thought about. But what a liberating feeling it is to be young again... even for a minute. :)

a toast to Pittsburgh

I've been told that if you were to eat breakfast, lunch and dinner out, every single night for 5 years in San Francisco, you wouldn't even be able to put a dent into the good food and restaurants that this city is littered with. That being said, we are trying to eat out a couple times a week, but it's hard to choose with all the recommendations we continuously get! It makes it even more hard to choose when you are "foodies" like us. So, to make it easy, we spent a Saturday here at a Pittsburgh Bar in North Beach. It's called Giordano Bros, and if you've been to Pittsburgh, you're familiar with the oh so popular, Primanti Bros. Well this bar is a clone of that, with the owners being from Pittsburgh. They recreate the Primanti sandwhich, have heaps of PA beer on tap (although the one below is a local SF brew), and famous photos of Pittsburgh athletes just to prove how legit they are. 

happy here

Trying to hop on the blog wagon and really start doing this much more frequently because people are actually reading!! The stats are getting higher and I got my first email from a stranger, so thank you! Whether this gets any recognition or not, blogging is enjoyable and relaxing for me. :)

After living right smack in the middle of downtown San Francisco for 3 months now, everything as I know it to be, has changed. My southern California lifestyle has been forced to take a turn, although I will always do my best to keep that aspect of my life intact up here. For now, the sounds, the smells, and my view from our 4th floor tiny apartment are all different. In San Diego, we woke up to the smell of salt water, birds making me want to stay in bed awhile longer, and palm trees shading our two private balconies. Now, I smell rain because that's what happens here, the sounds are car horns and ambulances, and I can see a partial city skyline from my bed. Two very different worlds but I love them both. ;)

Our Indian summer usually comes mid September through October. You can bet the first 80 degree weekend we got, Adam and I headed straight for the beach. (Along with every other San Franciscan)

They really do appreciate nice beach weather since there are very few days out of the year where this actually happens. Adam and I then walked up to a couple trails to check out the view. The rugged coast line and pine trees are so different than Southern California.

For now, this is home and I'm happy here.