San Francisco 2014

It's vacation time again!  This blog has become a place I frequent with my thoughts and pictures less and less.  But, I love looking back and remembering memories of vacations past.  Check out the link for last year's excitment ( 2013 Vacation).  This year is mine and Allen's 10 year anniversary and both of our 30th birthdays!!  So, we're splurging and going on a crazy adventure up the West Coast!  Today we traveled and traveled some more.

Tired of sitting in Dallas Fort Worth airport!  Come on San Fracisco!

Really cool views from the plane.  Fields that are perfect circles.  Plus some clouds.

Beautiful views of Arizona, in our minds, this is Monument Valley.  We even thought we saw Page, AZ and Lake Powell which is one of the most beautiful places we visited on our 2012 vacation.

 Finally, this evening, we made it to our destination.  The time difference is 2 hours here and we didn't really consider how hungry we would be when we landed.  Of course, we were in San Francisco, a food lover's paradise!  We didn't want to eat just anything.  And we definitely did not want to eat in the airport!  So we figured out the public transportation system, rode it 30 minutes to the station nearest our hotel, and then walked up a gigantic hill to check in.  We then wandered around trying to decide where to try out our taste buds first.  By this time it was about 9:30 home time and we were ravenous!  We did some restaurant planning before we got here, but many of the restaurants we want to try are miles away and we needed something fast.  Luckily Underground Ramen popped up as a tiny hidden gem.  We knew we had run onto gold when we saw the line.  You have to write your name on a dry erase board outside and just wait.  The restaurant holds about 15 people at a time...and the wait was long...but SO worth it!!

Spicy Miso Ramen with added corn, soft boiled egg and pork belly

Pot stickers

Spicy Miso Ramen with mushrooms, soft boiled egg, and pork belly.

Totally amazing and so worth the long long wait!

Next door to the ramen place was a milk tea and tapioca bar.  If you've never eaten tapioca tea, as I hadn't before tonight, it is weird...but good.  Allen had Oolong and I had green.  The tapioca are like jelly beans in bottom of the milky cold tea.  You drink it out of a huge straw that lets the tapioca beads get sucked up with each sip.  They're chewy and yummy.  You'll just have to try it, trust me, you should...

Keep tuned in, its late tonight, but we will be posting more tomorrow.  

The Sullivan Household

I feel like we're finally getting back to normal after all the snow and holidays!  People have been asking me to post pictures of the house, and even though I feel like its FAR from being done, I decided it was time. So forgive the messes and unfinished projects!

So, this is the kitchen.  When we moved in there were no appliances and it was blood red.  We painted the popcorn ceiling, yes messy, and coated the wall a couple times with Kilz and my nice "frosted grape" green before we were satisfied.  Its a relaxing colore that I LOVE!

The dining room met with tragedy as the table fell off the back of the truck and skidded down the road during our move.  But, I rescued it by making my own table cloth! Its a work in progress, as 3 edges of the table cloth still have pins in the hem.  Haven't quite had the time to finish that off.  You may want to be careful sitting at our table!  We also plan to get some blinds for the windows soon.  Finally, notice the plants, you can't really see much of our split leafed philedandrum.  We've had it since we got married, and it came from Allen's mom who has had it as long as he can remember.  The other two are also family heirlooms, the geranium recently given to be by my aunt, was my great grandmothers.  And, the aloe vera was a gift from Allen's great Aunt Elle.  

Transition from kitchen/dining room to living room.  This is a piece of art Allen made in college.  Its the Lord's Prayer in Latin.

Living room with fireplace! Our newest edition!  I LOVE IT!  We are just waiting on the mantle.  It should be installed sometime this week.  Also, Allen took some mahogany he had collected (or rather found in my parent's attic ;) to a furniture shop and they are making us a beautiful TV/stereo cabinet.  That's supposed to be done sometime this month.  Finally, you can see that the carpet is kind of flipped up by the stove.  We basically just need to have a carpet guy come in and do a bunch of finishing and detail work.  

Living room with our NEW rug!  Which we love.  The couch is old, and a little small for the room.  We plan on getting a big comfy sectional.  The large piece of art we have hauled around with us since college. A friend of Allen's who still makes and sells art traded him for some canvas frames.  The one on the left is of the Colloseum.  Allen made it after we went to Rome.

Living room from the opposite dirrection.  I love my window from the kitchen into the living room.

Hallway!  I'm slowly working on painting it.  You can't really tell, but I've painted the left wall.  It was kind of gross when we moved in, with handprints and dirt. :P  Looking much better now!  And again, we love our art!

Bathroom, with new shower curtain and rug.  Its small, but the larger master bath is unusable at the moment.  Its definitely one of our bigger projects.  So, we like that we have this one.  

Guest bedroom, this is where you'll stay if you come.  So come visit!  I just painting the walls "almost aqua."  You can tell I'm not quite done if you look closely in the upper left hand corner of the picture.  Also, you can see the picture that Rachel just painted us the other day. <3
 

Bedroom.  I love our bedspread.  And yes, those are dinosaurs in the window.  They are Allen's favorite toys from childhood and we found them the other day while we were decorating for Christmas.  I tied a red bow on one and put it there, so its been there ever since.

View out my back window.  I love it.  We are high up on a hill and I sometimes feel like we're in a treehouse.  

We are happy home owners!  I'll try to post updates as we do more work.  There are several other rooms that I didn't post...there's a lot of work left to be done!  

Moving on

Today I can relate to Edward FitzGerald's translation of the Rubáiyát of Omar.  This is a Persian poem written over a thousand years ago, but still so poignaant about how quickly life moves.  It's here, it's gone, and nothing can change that.  

"The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ,

Moves on: nor all thy Piety nor Wit

Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line,

Nor all thy Tears wash out a Word of it."

We are moving out of our apartment tand I am so infinitely happy to be moving with Allen instead of away from him.  Soon we will be in our new home...life keeps moving on.

18 Autumn Photos

 

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