Hiking Borrego Springs

Stopping to smell the flowers and hiking to an oasis!

Don’t let us forget to tell you about the commercial we fillmed after the hike.  Wait maybe we don’t want to tell you.

V-Day in the city by the bay!

I planned a surprise V-day for Don in San Francisco and am happy to say that I successfully surprised him.  I didn’t know if I could pull it off, it took so much sneaky planning, making reservations, and figuring out time lines with out him finding out.  So when he got home from work on Friday, I gave him his Valentine’s Day card with a print out inside of his boarding pass for our flight to SF that very night!  We got him packed and headed out.

We got to the airport early, so they put us on an earlier flight, great, however, all flights were delayed so our “earlier” flight left at the time of our original flight!

Once we checked into our hotel, we went back out for water and instead found an Irish pub down an alley beside the hotel.  We walked in, got some beers, found a table and kicked back.  About half way through our beers the place got crazy crowded with standing room only, but we had our own table, perfect timing!

Our hotel was such a funky cool little place in Union Square.  The Hotel Des Arts…  all the rooms are painted by local artists!  SO COOl, the whole place is like an art museum…

Our room…

The next morning, it was Lattes first (as per our usual)… we skipped the starbucks next door for Cafe Amici down the block.  It was a great little place, we had our lattes here both mornings…

Then we headed for the Hyde Powell Cable Car.  This is a huge tourist attraction and we stood in line for about 90 min through on and off rain… and it was worth EVERY minute.  Hanging off the side of this thing while cresting steep hills in SF and passing cars and watching the driver work the cable was just an awesome and classic San Francisco experience.  This is one end of the line where they have to “turn” the car around… it’s so archaic you gotta love it…

And here you can see how much I’m loving hanging on from the side…

Some pics from the cable car as we crested some of the hills in SF… that is Alcatraz that you can see in the middle of the water in this first one!

This is the top of Lombard St.  The car to the far left is starting down the turns!

Once we made it to Fishermans Wharf, we had our clam chowder bread bowls at a place called the Franciscan with this GREAT view!

Then we made our way to Ghirardelli and the place was SLAMMED.  There was a long line just to get in the main door.  We decided we didn’t want a Banana Split THAT bad so we took off… but as we were walking past the back corner of the building we see that there is a side door and area with no wait!  We walked up, ordered our banana split, and sat down happy.

Here is my attempt to get us and the icecream in one shot while holding the camera myself LOL!

Finally, later that night we had our V-day dinner!  We went to Kuletos, an Italian place recommended by our friend Heather   It was divinely good!  We were in heaven!

This is our only shot of it and it cracks me up, my hair is so va-va-voom!

We both ate way too much it was so good, and that did us in.  We were done!

Sunday it rained and rained, but we still made it to Top of the Mark where we got these great pics!

Mary Ann wants to fly!

We spent the rest of Sunday at the SF Center to stay dry and then headed back to the airport.  Ironically, we once again got placed on an earlier flight, and once again all flights were delayed so we made it in to SD at our original time taking an “earlier” flight.  FUNNY!

We flew on Virgin and really liked it!  I would recommend it!  The had shows, games, and movies at every seat and their margarita cocktail isn’t too shabby!

We had the best time and I hope Don loved his surprise!  I know it way my best Valentine’s Day ever with the best Valentine ever!

San Francisco Cable Car

Here we are in San Francisco waiting in line to get on the cable car at Hyde Street to go down to Fishermans Warf.

MAD Surprise Party

Don and I both had birthdays recently… actually our birthdays are only six days apart.  The weekend before either of them, our friends threw us a joint surprise birthday party!… at a winery!… with an amazing picnic to follow!!!  We did a wine tasting at Orphila, then headed out to the grassy knoll for a picnic complete with tons of food, wine, dessert, frisbee, sunbathing, story swapping, and even some bocce ball for the boys!!  We had an amazing time, but more importantly we have amazing friends and we *heart* every one of them!

Some of our sneaky peeps before we showed up.

Right after the big SURPRISE!  Don looks surprised, I look confused! HAHAHA

Part way through our wine tasting – we were very impressed, the Orfila wines were great!

A cutie Chiesha “more wine please”.

We love Alisha!

Don and I with one of our surprise party coordinators PAUL!

Picture taken moments after Paul tripped with the cake sending it on a flip through the air and it landing right side up perfectly fine!  LOL!  A classic Paul moment!

To the left and middle are Sherry and Heather… the real brains behind operation surprise MAD.  Needless to say, they rock!

It was perfect 74 degree sunny weather!  We had so much fun and looking back at the pictures now, I realize we didn’t even get everyone in the pictures.  Allen, where you hiding behind the camera in all these shots?   Let’s not let that happen again.