Crazy Wheeler Par-tay Weekend: San Francisco Style

It's taken me forever to blog about this, but I think that it was an experience well-worth remembering. On May 1st my cousin, Jed, got married in Vallejo, which is up in the Bay area. So, my parents, Daniel, and I planned on driving up there for the weekend and then coming home...no biggie. As it got closer to the date, Nancy, and David, Wiss, Joey, Aaron, and Cy decided to go too. We were way excited that SO many family members would be there. Then, Diane decided to fly in to be with the rest of the family too. Awesome! It was amazing that the whole family got to be there. Lots of cousins were there too, which made it even cooler! We all stayed in the Beverly Heritage hotel, which was...interesting and it was an overall great weekend!

The wedding was Saturday afternoon outside of the Vallejo Community Center... followed by lots of family pictures:Awwww! I love my family! It's ALL of us together!
My nephews with my cousin, Kristi's kids
And then there was the reception...Here's a shot of my siblings and me

And here's what happens when a bunch of Wheelers try to take a cousin picture:

HAHA!!! We may be crazy, but I wouldn't have it any other way! : )

Another amazing aspect of this wedding? THE KILTS!!!This is the groom in his kilt with my brother and nephew. When it was time to exchange rings during the ceremony, my cousin opened up that pouch and dug 'em out. It was awesome!
This is my cousin, Brad, and Uncle Richard (in our very own Campbell plaid) having a duel...

Then there were THE DAGGERS:
I would also like to add that you haven't truly seen a wedding cake (or in this case a tiered wedding brownie...yum!)be cut until you have seen the groom pull a sheathed dagger out of his sock to cut it with. True story.

After the reception, we drove around Vallejo a little bit to see the neighborhood that my dad lived in when he was a little kid, which was cool, and then we headed to San Francisco. We got to drive across the Golden Gate Bridge (my 1st time ever!) and it was way more impressive that I thought it was on my last trip to San Fran.
Look closely at this next picture. Notice the crisis counseling phone on the left side of the picture:...and for the record, there WAS a jumper holding on to the side of the bridge as we drove across. Fortunately, a nice policeman was helping him out.

Next we went to Golden Gate Park, where we saw some cool stuff, a seagull tried to kill me, and where we used the world's grossest bathroom...good times! hahaHere I am hiding from said seagull
The family chillin'
The bison...we actually saw 3 of them
This is where we ate dinner. I refer to it as "7 raviolis for $15". Afterward, we went to Boudin's Bistro and got some delish fresh sourdough bread. Then, we called it a night and went back to the hotel, since we would have to wake up super early the next morning to come back and go to Alcatraz.
Aaron said he was too tired to walk and asked me to give him a ride, so I did. Here we're waiting in line to get on the boat.
The ferry ride over to the island was pretty cool and we got an awesome view of the city an the island, both, from out in the water. 3 of my favorite little men and me
Finally on Alcatraz
Behind bars...I look like like a thug, right?

My family together on AlcatrazThis was truly an amazing vacation. Short, but awesome! I love my family so much and could not have asked for a better one!

Teach a Girl to Fish...

I have been wanting to learn how to fish for quite a while now, but just haven't had the opportunity. Bummer. However, next week, my brother's family will be moving to a place in Victorville that is just across the street from a huge lake, which is stocked with fish! So, tonight was the night and I went to Bass Pro Shop with my sister, Nancy, and I bought my very own fishing pole!

It was on sale, which was awesome, and it's super cute! I also got a little tackle box and some hooks. I'll get bait later.




I was amazingly excited and my giddiness seemed to be quite amusing to the guys working there, but in the end I got my pole and was one happy girl!

So...

I decided that yesterday and today were going to "sick" days, so I called in sick. In reality, my plans were to do pretty much whatever I wanted and just take a couple of me days. Then, I actually got sick! What the heck is up with that!?!?!

On a lighter note, my family will be making the trek up to the Bay area for my cousin's wedding next weekend and I must say that I am WAY excited about that. There's always room for our own family brand of crazy, which I do, honestly, love! HA! Our whole entire family will be there...all 5 "original Musketeers" PLUS my parents and the more recent additions (Joey, Aaron, and Cy), and of course, our Wiss, who is a Wheeler, though not genetically predisposed to be so (just to be clear). ; ) I love my family!

Road Trip to San Francisco

Just before going off track for a couple of weeks, I was talking to my mom and telling her that I wanted to do something fun and out of the ordinary during my break. As mentioned in my last post, I have created a California Bucket List to keep track of all the uniquely CA things I want to see before I potentially move someplace else. Among many other things, I want to do a session in each of the California temples and my mom suggested that I could go to a couple of the temples in Northern CA. So, I decided to go for it! Then, my dad suggested that I might like to have some company on the trip and suggested that my mom go too...and that's how it became a mother-daughter trip! I had never really been to San Francisco before (at least not that I can remember), so I was really excited! We didn't do tons of sightseeing, but we had a nice relaxed trip in which I got to spend some much needed and appreciated quality time with my amazing mom. We had stuff to do on Monday during the day, so we decided to leave around 5 pm and head up to Fresno. It was supposed to be totally clear, but as soon as we got out into the middle of nowhere it started to pour huge drops of rain! Argh! BUT we arrived safely in Fresno about 3 and a half hours later. We checked into our hotel and, to our surprise, we got a huge and very nice room for way cheap because it's off-season. Score! : ) After we put our stuff in the room, we went to see the Fresno temple because I wanted to see it all lit up at night! It was so beautiful!My poor mom was freezing cold!The next morning we went back and got to do a session.
Afterward, we headed up to the Bay Area and stayed in a place called Hayward. We dropped off our stuff and we drove to San Francisco. I was SO excited because I got to drive on the Bay Bridge, which looks super cool! I am way easily amused and made my mom take a picture of me driving across the bridge like a big kid! HA!We went to Fisherman's Wharf and walked around a bit and saw some cool stuff! We also had dinner at Boudin's Bistro and had some delish clam chowder in fresh sourdough bread bowls. Yum!




Then, we drove by the Oakland Temple so we could see it all lit up. I had always thought this was a little bit of an "ugly" temple because I thought the golden spires looked odd, but in person, it is absolutely breathtaking!
The next day, we went back to the temple and got to do a session there!
The Oakland Temple has a terrace that you can go up on and walk around. There are pretty gardens and more amazing views of the San Francisco Bay.Here's the view of the Bay from the temple. Below, is the view of the landscaping in front of the temple, as seen from the terrace.
Next, we went and changed clothes in the visitor's center and then drove back to San Francisco. I wanted to see the Golden Gate Bridge and Alcatraz, since we couldn't really see them in the dark the night before.Here's a picture of the cool Bay Bridge that you take to get into the city.The Golden Gate BridgeI was excited to see it, but I was a little disappointed because it looked WAY cooler on the opening credits of Full House!
Here's Alcatraz Island My mom and me on Pier 39 right next to the ocean
When we were done here, we went to San Jose to tour the Winchester Mystery House. It was pretty cool, but the lady who had it built was crazy for sure!



We decided that before we started on the next leg of our trip, we'd get some dinner, so we found a Denny's and ate there. We thought that our next hotel was just a couple of hours away, but when we put it into the GPS, we discovered it was actually about 5 hours away and nearly 300 miles down the coast. However, I was tired and got us there in about 3 and a half hours instead. We stayed at a Days Inn by Solvang and it had a cool windmill in front of it and the room was super cute! We started out by visiting the Santa Ynez Mission, which is in Solvang. It was pretty, but all-in-all...kind of lame! I'm told that other missions have a little bit more to see.The scenery was really pretty, though!
Then, we walked around Solvang a bit.As my souvenir I bought a cute clock that is almost exactly the same as the one that my parents have. It hung in our living room my entire childhood and when I saw it in the store I knew I had to have it! After Solvang, we drove to Santa Barbara to see the Santa Barbara Mission. We didn't get to tour it because we got there too late, but we did walk around it and take some pictures.

We had a great trip and saw so many cool things! Coolest of all, however, is the time I got to spend with my mom!

My Bucket List

Recently I have really been thinking about life and what, exactly, is next for me. The more I think about it, the more I see myself living outside of California. I am a California native and always thought I would live here forever, but I'm starting to realize that the California I knew and loved has gone by the wayside and left me behind. Don't get me wrong, there are lots of amazing things about this crazy state, but those things have lost out to the more important elements that, I believe, have disappeared. So, I have decided to create a California Bucket List so that I can make sure I get to every landmark and see/do all that I want to do in California before I move to a different state. The list grows everyday, but it's pretty exciting to look at and I'll be posting many of my exploits here on this blog as I go! Honestly, I'm not positive if/when/where I'll be going...nothing is a done deal, yet. I just figure that this is a step in the right direction. We shall see!