It WAS in the water!!!

I am sitting here at Panera bread and drinking a delicious cup of hazelnut coffee (with skim milk and splenda, yum!)and wondering where in the world to start this blog. What a whirlwind adventure this past week was!!! I guess I will just have to start at the beginning...

April 3rd, a Friday in Columbus OH, was the grossest morning. Jon and I left our apartment sometime around 4:30am to head over to Matt and Jamie's. It was completely dark, humid, and raining cats and dogs. We left our car in their driveway, loaded up their car, and hit the airport. No problems checking in (ew, Northwest charges $15 to check your bags, FYI!), and almost no problems through security. I was putting my shoes and jacket back on when the person running the monitors for carry on bags said to Jonathan, "Did you take your ring off?" He answered yes, and the guy told him never to take it off. I kind of wondered about that, because Jonathan always wears my high school class ring around his neck on his dog tag chain. Anyway, moving right along, Jamie and I were so tired and slap-happy that we giggled about this little infant who was wearing a pair of socks that looked like canvas shoes with the laces tied. For some reason at 5-something in the morning, the word "Shoesocks!!!" is HYSTERICAL. We laughed about it all the way through boarding. Jonathan and Matt think we are just nuts. Fast forward through flight one, a layover in Minneapolis, and flight 2. Landing in San Jose, we are greeted with gorgeous sunny skies and about 67 degrees of delicious warm weather.

Thankfully all of our baggage arrived safely, we got a sweet Toyota Sienna minivan for our travels, and we were headed north on the 101 to San Francisco. We parked in a high rise garage and wheeled our stuff to the Spaulding Hotel. Totally cute little place - check out my review on TripAdvisor. We were hungry, so we went up to the Cheesecake Factory on top of Macy's and had a nice little lunch there.

Here's a fun shot of Matt behind my yummy cocktail...


We also had a visit from a seagull. I gave him a voice and he also popped up several times during the rest of our vacation: "hey. What are you guys doin? Can I have some of that?"...


From there we decided to head down to Fisherman's Wharf. We had a great view of the bay, and of Alcatraz. I got to see the sea lions - they are TOO cute...

We kept walking down the edge of the bay and doing more sight seeing. The plan was to head up to Ghirardelli Square (my mom had requested some chocolate). Going that direction, we went out to a pier because it looked like we couldn't go any further. From there we had a good view of the bridge, and the sun was sort of starting to sink into the west. I was shading my eyes and trying to get a good picture when Jonathan walked up beside me and said "Honey, can I ask you a question?". I said, "Sure", and as soon as I turned around he had this grin on his face. "Will you marry me?" he asked. He got down on his knee and pulled out a ring. My heart stopped, I'm pretty sure. I know I asked him if he was serious several times... but I finally got the word "YES" out! It was amazing. Of course there were tears and kisses and hugs, and Jamie and Matt got the whole thing in pictures.

Jonathan and I celebrating our engagement with a bottle of champagne...


The rest of our first day was sort of a blur. We did Lombard St., rode the trolley, bought chocolate, called a few people, basically just had a fantastic time. We met up with Matt and Tracy at a place called Santorini (I also reviewed this on TripAdvisor), and then went back to our hotel and crashed. It was one of the most wonderful days ever.

To be continued...