San Francisco

Last weekend Mark & I flew out to San Fran to meet up with my family to celebrate my brother's graduation from law school! While we were there we were the ultimate tourists & I was totally fine with that. We began our trip with a visit to Alcatraz on Friday morning.

 ^^^ it was a bit of a windy day out on the island ;) ^^^

From housing some of America's most wanted felons to being occupied by Native American for over a year, this tiny island has quite a bit of history lurking on it. Not to mention, the grounds of Alcatraz are just beautiful. There were tons of flowers, greenery and wild birds covering the island.

We spent the evening at our little loft where we ate tons of pizza, salad and just hung out as a family...with the most amazing massage chair ever. I will be shocked if my parents don't purchase one after how much we all used it. ;)

The next morning we all woke up bright and early & headed off to University of San Francisco to watch Marcus graduate from law school!

^^^ he did it! ^^^

 ^^^ proud mama ^^^

 ^^^ & me just being me ^^^

Congrats again, Marcus! Law school is quite an accomplishment...now onto preparing for the bar!

Stay tuned for part two of our trip to SF...

eva's bakery & a day in the city

when you live somewhere for long enough you get into routines. you work in the same place, eat at the same restaurants, drive the same routes...it's nice to purposely mix things up every now and then. so in honor of this idea, a few friends & i spent friday afternoon out & about in salt lake!

after a trip to the new & beautiful traverse outlets, maryclaire, madi & i headed up to salt lake to pick up a few things at the city creek mall & visit our friend lauren at work. it was such a nice day out that we sat in the sun next to some fountains & chatted for a few minutes while she was on her break. it really was a treat to see lauren two days in one week! i miss my old roomie.

to end our little outing we stopped by eva's bakery. it was the cutest little french bakery that i probably would have never noticed on my own. i tried an apple croissant & grabbed an almond one to take back for mark. i love finding new treasures like this in the city! getting to know the area you live in can really make a new place feel more like home.

a cozy weekend inside

with the forecast predicting a wet weekend & still feeling a little under the weather, 

i decided it would be cozy few days inside for me.

this was pretty much how i spent my weekend. i was getting over a cold/cough combo from earlier in the week & decided it would be a good weekend to catch up on some business "to do" items while i was stuck on the couch. i composed a "posing guide", researched tips on getting wedding photography published, edited 2 recent weddings i second shot for, posted a new wedding on my website & worked on my photography blog all while enjoying some freshly made cookie dough right out of the bowl. :) 

i guess i wasn't working ALL weekend. on friday night the cook's came over & brought some indian take out. the boys watched the BYU v. SDSU game while maryclaire & i had some much needed girl time. my other grand adventure for the weekend was hitting up costco on saturday. the amount of people that gather at costco on a saturday afternoon amazes me. i am thoroughly convinced that a large portion of them only come for the samples, but can you blame them?

i hope you all had a wonderful weekend!!
& i am so ready for tomorrow night's bachelor finale!! yes, i am one of those girls. ;)