The Kofford Guide to Survival: 2014

Saturday, October 25, 2014

San Francisco Part 2: Golden Gate and Ghirardelli Sqaure

After Muir Woods we went on a drive to see the coast and the Golden Gate Bridge. The coast was amazing. We then went to Ghirardelli Square to have dinner and some ice cream. The ice cream was vile (I know how can you mess up ice cream). We wish someone had warned us to not go there. It was an experience that is for sure.

Oh and I saw this sweet car and needed a picture

Coast

Water!

Enjoying the view

The bridge

A bird enjoying the view

An Irish woman took this picture for us

Ghirardelli Square... don't recommend it

We ate dinner at "The Pub"

Mini sliders

Eating ice cream at the Ghirardelli shop... we do not recommend it, it was gross and expensive

The ice cream looks better than it is!

San Francisco Part 1: Muir Woods

Simon and I headed to San Francisco last Friday. It was a trip to celebrate our 2nd wedding anniversary. October 19, 2014 marked 2 years! It is crazy how fast time goes. We headed out of the Provo airport on an Allegiant flight. We loved not having to go to SLC and we hope Allegiant gets more stops to other cities... Boise, Seattle, and Las Vegas would be nice, just saying.

Getting on the plane in P-town

In two years Simon and I have had a crazy amount of stuff going on. I am hoping life will get a little more chill... but I doubt it and don't get my hopes up. I finished my master's degree and he finished his bachelor's. We moved almost 5,000 miles to England and then came back. We looked for and found new jobs. We have been to 12 countries and 5 states. We have had a brother-in-law join the family, a new mom (Simon's dad got remarried a month after us), and 3 nieces be born. Life has certainly had its fair share of ups and downs, but I couldn't imagine a better person I would want to share those ups and downs with. I love my English crumpet! :)

Anyway, back to San Francisco.... we flew in, ate lunch, and walked a mile to get a rental car. If you ever need a rental car and need to drop it off late... this is literally the only place that allows late drop off. They have pretty good prices and we highly recommend them: http://www.cityrentacar.com/. After getting the car we headed to Muir Woods. It is a National Park that has tons of Redwoods and Giant Sequoias! One of my life long bucket list items was to hug a redwood tree... and guess what... crossed it off my list! Ok so maybe I wasn't legally allowed to touch the tree, but I couldn't help myself. We didn't realize they had so many hiking trails there. When we come back we will definitely be spending more time here. Some pictures from the visit:

Different bird wingspans

Oh look... this is where we are

Muir Woods

Koff and I

Check out that tree!

So old!

Our little friends

Beautiful

Bucket list item done!

A hole that goes all the way through

See the red!?!?

How old is this tree?

I thought this was awesome!

The burnt tree with the others that grew around it... nature is so cool!

Anyway, more to come on other San Francisco adventures... Golden Gate Bridge, beautiful views, Alcatraz, great food, and much more!

Monday, September 22, 2014

Simon's Birthday Celebrations: Day 3

Ok the last post about Simon's birthday... I promise :). Yesterday we had my family that lives near here over for dinner along with some friends. It was a salad party... so everyone brought a salad of some kind. I also made rolls and we had pumpkin pie for dessert.

Simon told me before everyone got there that he didn't want people to sing him Happy Birthday... so I said ok... we will chant instead! I wish we had gotten it on video, it was so fun and way worse then being sung to.

Here are a few photos:

The salad spread... I made a chicken caesar

Simon's birthday pie from Costco

Jeffrey

L to R: Carson, Nikki, Jeff, and Kira (being a freak in the photo as always)

L to R: Liz, Bryan, Kate, Dalt, Simon, and Baby Eve

He blew out the candles before Dalt had a chance to get a good picture... the chant!

Saturday, September 20, 2014

Simon's Birthday Celebrations: Day 2

Today we headed to the BYU football game to enjoy Simon's birthday gift. It was a crazy hot day with the highest reaching 91 degrees. The sun was bright and shining all during the game. We met my sister and her husband, baby, and his brother and Dad at about 12:45pm to walk to the stadium together. They had tickets, but not in the same section as us. It was baby Brielle's first college football game (same as her Uncle Simon). It took us about 30 minutes to walk to the stadium for their apartment. We got there about 5 minutes into the game and Virginia had already scored a touch down.

The game was a great one and Simon and I enjoyed ourselves even with the heat. We had bought a drink cup from the stadium that had unlimited refills... by 1/2 time the stadium had run out of poweraid... it was that hot. Taysom Hill (BYU's QB) definitely made it a fun game to watch. I loved the touchdown on a 99 yard kick off return. It was awesome. Here is a short clip highlighting it in case you missed it.

I actually got burned on my face pretty badly (well badly for me... you whities out there would think I am weak). I even had to take some excedrin tonight. Ha. Anyway, here are a few picts from the day.

On our way to the game

Baby B showing her BYU pride

Mama bear with baby B

Game

See that sun!?!?!

1/2 time

On our way home... passing by Y mountain

Simon's Birthday Celebrations: Day 1

Simon's birthday was yesterday so we did a little celebrating. He isn't really a huge birthday person, but I like celebrating people's birthdays so we just did some small stuff. We started with a Jamba Juice and then went to the outlet mall up in Lehi because Simon has been wanting a blue pair of pants. We found some at H&M. Then we went out to dinner at Malawis and walked around the Riverwoods shopping center and then came home and hung out. Today we are going to the BYU football game and tomorrow we are having some friends and family over for dinner.

Here are some pictures from yesterday: