our first real vacation, part two. (where we stayed and what we did)

last time i talked your ear off (or wrote your eyeballs off? not sure of the appropriate expression here) about how we just went on our very first vacation and how we ended up in san francisco. 

nowhere in that post did i mention where we stayed or what we did or how we felt about it or anything like that. and in case thats what you were looking for (like, i dont know, if you happen to be here because youre planning a trip to san francisco and want to find out some fun not super touristy things to do), thats what im going to talk about today, where we stayed and what we did. 

so lets get going, shall we?

where we stayed: 

honestly, finding a hotel for this trip was a little problematic: we werent going to have a car, so they location needed to be excellent, but we also didnt have a lot of money budgeted for the hotel room, so anything in the immediate vicinity of any of the typical touristy areas were WAY out of the question. so i started looking at maps to see what kind of areas were in the MIDDLE of the things we wanted to see, so that we could get where we wanted to go easily via public transit. 

this sounds really simple in theory, but for someone that doesnt travel, this was a seriously tall order (also, after anything more than 20 minutes or so browsing hotel sites keeping all the details/prices straight was impossible so i kept getting things mixed up). but after lots of advice from a friend thats an expert at travel, and more research than id ever done for anything at school (bear in mind i majored in fine arts so my idea of tons of research is probably way below average), we eventually decided on hotel carlton, which was basically right on the edge of downtown downtown and fancy downtown. 

this turned out to be an excellent decision. this hotel was everything id dreamed of, and more. i joked on twitter about how literally everyone i know would have hated this hotel (small rooms, no pool, no gym, small tv, basic cable, no mini-fridge, no free breakfast, in the middle of the city, valet parking only), but it had everything that *i* look for in a hotel: historical building, convenient location, high end mattress/linens, great customer service, impeccable decor, and most importantly, an appealing restaurant with things that i can actually eat (oh, and their AAA discount is NO JOKE, like, almost 30%). i ADORED this hotel. like, didnt-want-to-ever-leave-ill-just-become-eloise-and-live-here-forever adored it. 


honestly i wasnt even going to give the hotel its own bullet point but i was so heart eyes emojis over it i just had to. if youre looking for a sweet place to crash in san francisco, hotel carlton gets 34526789046 thumbs up from me. 

what we did: 

while we were planning the trip, people kept asking what we were going to do there, i guess expecting some grand agenda of sightseeing and tourist activities. because every time i answered "oh, i dont know, eat? sleep in? enjoy not being at home?", i was generally met with an overwhelming list of suggestions that were either unrealistic for a short, car-free trip, or really expensive and would totally take away from our "only eat awesome food" budget.

really all i cared about was going to the walt disney family museum, golden gate park, and maaaaaybe fishermans wharf. and food. really the primary motivation for this trip (and really everything i do) was food. if youre familiar with the area, you probably know that none of these things are exactly close to each other, BUT the location of our hotel made it seem pretty easy to do at least those three things in the two full days we had for activities. 

i set my usual (very low) bar for trip at "lets go to one place each day, maybe come back to the hotel and chill for a while, then go out to dinner". and boy was i wrong. 

we ended up doing way, way more than i had anticipated. and it was awesome. 

sundays agenda was to go to the walt disney family museum, and then possibly fishermans wharf in the evening (each one was only one short bus ride from the hotel, this seemed totally reasonable). i feel like now is a good time to mention that we had NO intentions of going to see the bridge (wed both seen it, and its just a bridge), or going to alcatraz (because it was really expensive and took most of the day and neither of us was interested in spending half our vacation at an abandoned prison), or walking the trails around/through the presidio (because we didnt think wed have time). 

well, a missed bus stop (because somebody was depending on google maps to tell him when it was time to get off the bus, cough cough) on the way to the museum meant we did  see the bridge (and obviously take the required selfies):

and of course, we *saw* alcatraz (i felt the need to photograph it since it was an unusually bright and clear day):

then we asked the lady at the golden gate bridge information desk exactly how we were supposed to get to the museum. she said "theres a free shuttle coming in about 40 minutes over there". james and i looked at the map at the shuttle stop and were like "yeah, theres NO WAY thats a 40 minute walk, lets just go" and followed the nearest walking trail toward that general direction. 

which was all fine and dandy for about 20 minutes until we get to the point where all the trails get all tangled with all the roads that go through the presidio and theres a freaking highway that cuts through and we can NOT tell where we are and all signs point to us being totally and hopelessly LOST and i start having a meltdown about being lost in a strange city and tired and too hot to wear a coat but too cold to not wear a coat and hungry and WHY COULDNT WE HAVE JUST GOTTEN OFF AT THE CORRECT BUS STOP and then like five minutes later we found ourselves at the correct park by the museum (chrissy field?) where unbeknownst to us (because im terrible at travel and didnt think to research what kind of free events the city might have) this was happening:

which, if you cant tell, is some kind of farmers market/food truck extravaganza (i believe it was called off the grid?), OF THE UTMOST FANCINESS. seriously, there was a champagne bar at this park (also, you can drink in public in san francisco?). obviously my meltdown subsided and we decided on ice cream for lunch because we are adults. 

and only then (after the bridge and trails through the entire presidio) did we reach our intended destination: 

(i feel like i should add at this point it was like 1:30 pm and HOLY MOLY we can do a lot real fast without a toddler in tow)

now if youre into disney and museums (which are probably my two favorite activities), the walt disney family museum is AWESOME. the museum is HUGE and covers everything from walt disneys family history, personal life, and career all the way from his first experiments in animation all the way to his death. we were there for a good three hours and  learned SO much. one particularly amusing part of the museum is actually the lobby, where they have case after case after case of basically every award walt disney was ever awarded with. 

heres a picture of a case with JUST academy awards: 

obviously my favorite part of the whole museum was the part about disneyland. and obviously my favorite part of that was the teeny-tiny-scale model of the original park plans: 

james and i spent at least half an hour looking at it, pointing out the changes and comparing it to the park today. this was probably my favorite not-food part of the whole trip. 

also, the museum has a separate gallery that has special exhibitions of various disney-related art, and we happened to catch the very last day of the mary blair show. now, until this point i had no idea who mary blair even was, but it turns out shes the artist/conceptual designer behind basically everything disney did in the 50s and 60s. 

meaning there was TONS of concept art from alice in wonderland (among other things, obviously, but the alice in wonderland rooms were my favorite:

im really glad we were able to catch the very last day of the show, it was TOTALLY worth the extra $5. 

oh, and then james drew this cute little picture in the guestbook. i guess thats his thing now:

by time we were finished with the museum it was almost dinner time, and we had to decide if we were going back to the hotel, or wanted to try and find somewhere nice to eat around fishermans wharf. we decided to go straight to finding dinner, which resulted in quite the transportation fiasco as the bus that took us out of the presidio was headed in the opposite direction of where we needed to go, and then a guy at a liquor store gave us some VERY bad directions, and then we ended up taking another bus and a cable car to finally get where we needed to be. 

which (after what had happened that morning) had me REALLY grumpy, but then we went to the penny arcade and to an gluten-free friendly italian place that had THE most amazing baked polenta (id have to say this was my favorite food-related part of the trip) so it was all better. 

since we kind of frequent the ghirardelli ice cream place at california adventure, i thought it would be fun to to to the actual ghirardelli square: 

but in all honesty, the disneyland version is better. it was crowded, ALL the tables were dirty, the service was meh and my strawberry ice cream TOTALLY had chunks of other flavors of ice cream stuck in it. totally overrated. literally my only disappointment the entire trip. 

since we did almost everything on the list (and a whole bunch of stuff that wasnt on the list) on sunday, mondays plans were minimal: we were going to take the bus to golden gate park, see whatever there and then do whatever for the rest of the day (as long as we didnt stay out late because we had to be at the airport at 11 on tuesday). 

so we went to golden gate park. the bus route we took dropped us off near the middle of the park, and it was way too cold/windy to want to walk towards the beach end, so we had a picnic of snacks near a lake and we saw rose gardens and we went to the outside of the super awesome science museum but then we saw the tickets were $35 each (no student discounts) so we passed on that:

then we walked towards the haight street end though the really awesome kids playground but couldnt go on the concrete slides because grown ups arent allowed to play in the park without kids (true story: there were like ten signs that said that). 

we spent the rest of the day leisurely browsing the shops on haight street. obviously we went to amoeba even though thats something we can totally do at home:

(actually, the haight street amoeba is WAY nicer and more pleasant to shop at than the hollywood one). 

we went to quite a few REALLY great shops, including an artisan foods store with FREE SAMPLES of everything, the oddities shop from that tv show about oddities shops, and a vintage shop with actual historical pieces going all the way back to the 1890's, BUT it seemed that the majority of stores (that we went to, at least) had a strict "no cameras/no pictures" policy so i dont have much to show for our shopping day. 

oh, dont worry though, even though we were totally over it by then, we did make sure to walk as far as ashbury street:

while i did really enjoy shopping in the haight-ashbury area, i was certainly caught off-gaurd by the distinct lack of any actual hippies. sure there were plenty of hobos and drug dealers, but mainly most of the folks we saw around were obnoxious teenagers and hip young people. and while the area near golden gate park seemed to mostly be eclectic, hippy type shops, but closer to ashbury street, there seemed to be a lot of higher end stores. not that i was disappointed by any means, its just, i felt a lot more like i was in like, santa monica rather than a neighborhood widely known for its association with hippy counterculture. just my observation. 

to complete our adventures in accidental sightseeing (seeing as neither the golden gate bridge, presidio, nor haight-ashbury were even on our list of activities for consideration) the bus route we took back to the hotel involved walking through the fancy, historical part of downtown, (you know, like city hall and stuff), right at sunset:

which was, quite frankly, a heck of a lot more impressive than i was able to quickly photograph while trying not to freeze to death. it was a nice end to the touristy portion of the trip. 

seeing as our flight home was at 1:00 all we had time for on tuesday was one last breakfast at flour & co (an AMAZING and surprisingly cheap bakery/breakfasty joint with gluten free options that just so happened to be three blocks from our hotel) before going to the airport,  flying home (seriously, why would anyone drive from la to sf? its cheaper and SO MUCH FASTER to fly), getting picked up and dropped off at home (thanks again, mom!), and then going STRAIGHT TO MY FIVE AND A HALF HOUR SEWING CLASS (not one of my best decisions, but im proud to say that i did survive). 

so yeah, long story short, it was an AMAZING trip to have as our first experience of being on vacation together. we did so much fun stuff, ate so much good food, and it took me a good two weeks to recover enough to get back into somewhat normal routines as far as home and work are concerned. 

so yeah, that was our vacation. i cant wait to do it again. though next time id like to bring alice, cause i think shed get a kick out of it too. 

bat's day at the fun park (a family outfit post)

my outfit details: 

top: h&m

skirt: vintage

boots: hand me down

corset: alice and willow

glasses: zenni optical

alices outfit details: 

top: vintage

leggings: gift 

shoes: gift (but i think they were from kohl's)

jamess outfit details:

shirt: gift 

vest: vintage

pants: h&m

shoes: vintage

pocketwatch: vintage

bow tie: handmade (by me!)

so, two thirds of the way through may, i think ive finally settled on a theme: "out". so far, may has been a great time for out. out with all our old junk (we had our first family yard sale on saturday), time out with friends and family (we were gone something like six of the last seven evenings), and now that my semester is over, lots of time for family outings (like the beach and disneyland). 

which brings us to todays topic: sunday was bats day at the fun park, and, if you know me, theme days at disneyland are my jam (i mean, dapper day, anyone?). now, obviously the three of us arent exactly involved in the goth community, so in order to not be, you know dressing in costume and effectively mocking an entire subculture, we went with a more victorian-influenced theme for our outfits. which was fairly easy for james and i because the vast majority of my clothes are black or some combination of black and white, and jamess typical fancy attire involves a vest and pocket watch anyway. we werent sure what to do with alice though. until we found that PERFECT vintage top in a random bag of orphan hand-me-downs at my moms garage sale. 

now, i had wanted to go to bats day again ever since james and i accidentally went last year (which was also on cinco de mayo, there was an interesting crowd that day), and we have ALL been waiting for my semester to end so we could have a REAL, ALL DAY disneyland day with lunch and treats and souvenirs and all that. 

which we did get, except, it was the crowdedest day ive probably ever seen in all my years of going to disneyland. were talking, going through sections of the upstairs line on the jungle cruise that i didnt even know EXISTED crowded. so there wasnt a lot of ride riding, and a big chunk of the day was spent at big thunder ranch, which i dont mind at all because its NEVER crowded and alice loves the goats and things like this happen:

it was crowded, it was hot, apparently pizza port stopped giving free refills, and my corset almost made me pull an elizabeth swan (its a real, steel boned waist training corset), but i cant say it was a bad day, because we did get the long day at disneyland weve been waiting for all semester, and somebody really needed a break from all the homework and cleaning and furniture moving:

 (obviously, that somebody is alice)

the time we went to an art show

(note: this post does involve the fine arts, so some images may be considered by some to not be entirely safe for work/small children/people who dont appreciate art)

if i were to pick a favorite, favorite part of not working at joanns anymore (i have to say favorite favorite because everything about not working at joanns is my favorite), its that i dont have to spend almost every saturday at work. 

meaning, we can totally do fun family stuff on saturdays. seriously, i just looked at my calendar to confirm that we have, in fact, had a fun family outing EVERY SATURDAY since i quit (thanks jamberry nails!). 

this past saturday was no different. well, in the family fun department. it was actually very different because we got to take alice to her very first real-life serious fine art gallery opening (actually, considering that serious fine art gallery openings arent exactly a thing that people who didnt go to art school do, it was probably jamess first opening too). 

and it wasnt just any gallery opening (because really if i payed closer attention we could probably go to an opening every weekend, which i highly recommend because they are always free and usually have free wine), it just so happened that my dad emailed me multiple times that my FAVORITE PAINTER EVER (mark ryden) was opening a show in hollywood. 

obviously, we HAD to go. and the email said dress fancy. so we did:

all of us: 

even alice: 

(in retrospect, a black corduroy dress was NOT a good choice for a 90+ degree day in hollywood, now i know how everyone felt at my wedding) 

and then we looked at some paintings: 

now, probably the best part of seeing a mark ryden show in real life isnt just the paintings (though, like i said, they are my favorite paintings), its the frames:

 goodness gracious those frames:

 i just want to frame everything in our apartment in giant hand-carved surrealist-baroque wood frames. and decorate my living room in a pink-and-gold abraham lincoln motif. ahem, this is exactly why i dont decorate, people. 

anyway, back to the paintings. remember how i briefly attended art school? well, funny story, i cant paint. at all. and especially not in oils. so looking up close at beautifully rendered, intricately detailed oil paintings that are literally huge:

is just, awe inspiring (especially when theyre completely smooth and you cant even get acrylic paint to lay straight). also, can we just talk about those pink walls? i just about died (and then maybe looked to see how much it would cost to buy a house so we could paint it pink and then cried because thats way more money than we have). 

in addition to the oil paintings (which is what mark ryden is mainly known for) there was also a room of graphite/watercolor drawings:

and then there was whats probably my most favorite thing that ive ever seen in my entire life: 

its a coin operated automaton diorama. i could have stood there and watched it all day, but, you know, i have a family to take care of. my photo really doesnt do it justice, but theres a video of it here (again, dont click that link if youre one of those people that hates art). 

obviously, we had a grand old time, and even though i swore UP AND DOWN going into the show that we were NOT, under ANY circumstances going to buy the book, we bought the book (but i justified it because we can totally use it for homeschooling when we do a unit study on surrealism in contemporary art). 

since it was alices first art show, we let her have the honors of signing the guest book:

and considering she behaved herself very nicely, and we only had to tell her not to touch the paintings once, i think there will be a lot more gallery openings in our future. 

bluff cove olive oil company.

wednesday we got to do something really special. we got to go to the grand opening of bluff cove olive oil co. obviously i was super excited about this, because if theres one thing i love more than fancy olive oil stores, its fancy olive oil stores owned by friends (and staffed by my mom!). 

this is the owner, jessica:

shes a church friend of ours, and also the owner of this wondrous place:

which not only features impossibly cute and cozy decor, thats just begging you, "please, stay here forever and taste all of the delicious oils":

but also carries literally dozens of THE most amazing olive oils and balsamic vinegars:

dozens of them. ALL OF THEM EVEN MORE DELICIOUS THAN THE LAST. 

and did i mention that my mom works there? well, she does: 

she taught us how to properly taste olive oil. and life will never be the same. 

now, maybe im a little biased, because generally speaking im really into this kind of fancy foodie stuff, and the store is owned and staffed by good friends (and my mom), but you have NO idea how hard it was to not buy one of everything in the store. and really, one bottle would have taken up our whole "completely frivolous food items" budget for the month. i did NOT want to pick just one. 

thankfully in addition to full bottles, bluff cove does custom mini-bottle gift sets, which allow you you mix and match four (or six!) miniature bottles, so we could pick four flavors instead of just one. 

which, granted, picking four flavors out of what felt like a million (and they were all delicious) wasnt really that much easier, but eventually our dear friend michaela was able to help us pack up our four choices:

(we ended up choosing tuscan herb, garlic, and while mushroom and sage olive oils, and a peach white balsamic vinegar, plus some truffle salt, because, truffles)

so, if youre in the south bay area, and youre into fancy olive oils, you probably already know that the closest olive oil stores are in santa monica and long beach. WELL NOT ANYMORE. bluff cove olive oil co is here for all your oil and vinegar needs. we will be back. at least nine more times (i mean, gotta get that free bottle, right?). 

(and no, i was not paid or compensated in any way for writing this post. i did pay for everything i bought and all thoughts and opinions expressed are my own. i just really love olive oils, ok?)

the time we had an actual weekend (family dates + weekly wishes)

happy monday everyone! 

last week was my first official week of not having a real job, and it certainly had its ups and downs. i mean, not working at joanns (and therefore, not being on edge every monday, wednesday, and friday as i try to figure out if im supposed to be working the next day) is a HUGE relief, but at the same time, im still not sure how to, you know, deal with everything that needs to get done AND keep working consistently on blog/shop/jamberry stuff when most of my time constraints have disappeared. also, my body is NOT handling this inconsistent weather OR having night classes AT ALL and my fibromyalgia is FREAKING OUT so my pain levels been at like a 7/10 non stop for the whole week. 

BUT!!!! 

the great news is, because i NEVER have to spend my saturdays at work anymore, we got to have a normal person weekend chock full of family fun!

and by that i mean, we went to a doctor who craft fair. 

yeah, you read that correctly. doctor who. craft fair. 

it was at whimsic alley. which is basically the most wonderful place ive ever been in my life and im incredibly angry at everyone i know that knew about it and didnt tell me it existed:

its an entire store of nerdy fandom merchandise. mostly harry potter and doctor who, which is great because those are basically the only two fandoms i care about (ok, those and animal crossing, but thats not exactly a well known fandom in the us). 

oh, and they have a "great hall" in the back where they do things like have doctor who craft fairs. 

we mainly went to see my friends shannon and stacie of s & s ink (who you may remember from their sponsor feature a few months ago):

but, as happens at most craft fairs, i found SO MANY new crafters and makers to adore (though, please pardon the iffy photography, the room the fair was in was a little too dark for pictures). here are a few of the highlights:

ok, so im a total stickler for clever cross-fandom references, especially anything harry potter/doctor who (for obvious reasons), these patronus mugs from a bird in the hand? basically my favorite thing ever:

 you can buy them here (rose tyler) and here (amy pond). 

all three of us basically died over this pikachu wearing a fez by crafted cuteness:

have i mentioned that lately alice is OBSESSED with pokemon?  yeah, we had to drag her away from this table kicking and screaming. also, they had amigurumis of ALL THE PONIES from my little pony: friendship is magic. too much cute. im probably going to have to buy this pattern now...

and just when i thought i couldnt die of cuteness anymore, stacie showed me the z'etiquette booth and all of their marvelous bags and corsets made from the most INCREDIBLE custom printed fabrics ever:

i mean really. they even had a star trek toile. not that i have $250 to drop on a bag right now (though $250 seems really low for a handmade bag, ive been looking at camera/bookbags for a while now and holy moly theyre expensive, even the mass produced ones) but if i did, you KNOW it would be star trek toile. or doctor who toile. or something. (id post a link to their site but apparently their website is down but you can buy some of their bags here). 

then when we were done with the fair, we went next door to milk jar cookies:

because shannon said they had great cookies and she thought there was a gluten free option. shannon only undersold this place by a TON. milk jar cookies is by FAR the best (and cutest!) cookie place ive been to, well, ever. (and before you get all, "well how many cookie places could you have possibly even been to?" remember that i live in los angeles. where cookie places have been a thing for YEARS). 

i mean, look at these cookies (and also, the super cute assortment of plates:

yes, they were three dollars each. and before all the non-la people start freaking out, i just want to remind you, gourmet cookies are totally a thing, and $3 is a small, small price to pay for this: 

(also, the cookies are still warm when you get them, and the gluten free cookie was actually good) 

then, of course, we went home for naps and james went out to play dorks and dragons and saturday was over. 

yesterday we continued our celebration of me not working at joanns anymore by going out to dinner (jamess idea, i swear), at a real restaurant. and i didnt get sick. it was awesome (also, thanks stacked for knowing what cross contamination is and taking your gluten free menu seriously). 

and the best part? i dont work at joanns anymore so we can have many, many more weekends together.

so how are we doing on aprils monthly wishes?

well, school is going pretty great! on tuesday we had all had to sketch a suit meeting certain market parameters (store, age group, price point, etc.) and put them up on the wall anonymously to vote for which one best fit the assignment, and mine was voted the best! i know it seems like a really silly accomplishment, but when i was studying fine arts, my work was mediocre at best. i NEVER won the silly little class contests, EVER. so that felt really good. 

as for the smaller goals, ive done some of the remaining jamberry training, and james and i have talked about our house project list, and im pretty sure i know what were doing for his birthday, BUT, i think the main priority for this week is to figure out some kind of "work hours" schedule for me to use on weekdays. 

what did you do over the weekend? what are your plans for the upcoming week?