p.s.

it was like a pretty little miracle - rupsha and amethyst happened to be in san francisco the same weekend. i haven't seen these girls since i left wellesley in a flurry of schoolwork, emotion and change three years ago. it was heavenly to be together again.

allow me to brag about how cool my friends are for one sec - rupsha just got back from teaching english in korea, after interning in mircro-finance in india, and now she's working at a restaurant and with clinton health in boston. amethyst took a year leave from her master's in art history program at ut-austin to study mural art in chile as a fulbright scholar. and of course there's josephine who i adore having close by(just across the bay), who has been involved in so many cool projects since graduation it makes my head hurt and will soon be the best elementary school teacher ever.

we had such fun reminiscing and laughing and catching up. we sat at the bar at pizzeria delfina and danced and sang to the 90s music that came on. we thoroughly enjoyed bi-rite ice cream. we drove around the city in my car blasting music and grooving. we slept over at jo's house and talked and talked. it was like no time had passed - yet so much has happened!

it felt so good to be with these friends again. a tiny miracle.

visitors galore

i have so loved having dear ones visit me in san francisco!! in the midst of wonderful weekend-long visitors, i had two shorter visits from my fantastic high school friend mallory and my rad sister-in-law aja.

mal and i have been pals since 7th grade (actually i think we met at girl's camp the summer before 7th grade!) and the last two years of high school had a sleepover together every friday night (shout out to erin anderson, who was in sleepover club too). sheesh we had some good times, watching stupid movies and pigging out. every friday, without fail, in the wee hours my dad would come downstairs in a haze and ask me to ask mallory to talk quieter. mal and i share a natural tendency to talk loud, a love for celebrity gossip, and a million memories.

she was in town for the ucla/cal game (her hubby is a huge bruins fan) and came into the city to spend an evening with me. we explored union square (and made an h&m stop, obviously), walked through chinatown, and had a great meal at a pizza place in north beach.

on the way back to the bart station, we watched the fleet week fireworks explode over the bay bridge. it was really magical!! the entire 5 hours we were together we were talking so fast (and so loud, i'm sure) and it was so, so fun to catch up.

this link showcases how awesome mallory is. woah i love that girl.

aja (along with the baby in her tummy) came through san fran for a day en route to seattle from orange county. we had a yummy lunch topped off by bi-rite ice cream, i showed her my favourite spot in the city overlooking the ggb and then we drove across the bridge to sausalito. we sat by the harbor with our feet in the ocean (it was soooo hot!) and admired the view of the city across the bay and then discovered some uber-cool houseboats. kitschy, like aja.

we stopped at in-n-out burger (seriously, i can't get over how divine that burger is) on our way to my cousins ben and ashley's (love them and am so glad they are close by) in fremont.

have i said that i love showing this place i love to people i love? yep. and i'll say it again! come visit! it is so great here, and i am becoming a seasoned tour guide.

fleet week

seriously blue skies.

stellar friends.

plane stunts that blew my mind.

so so sunny.

roasted corn with cayenne pepper.

happy crowds.

it was fun.

i love san francisco.

playing mom in arizona

a few weeks ago my sister shawni and her husband took my niece lucy to washington, d.c. to participate in a medical study. when they offered to fly me down to arizona to spend five days with their other 4 kids (aka my favourite people on earth), i cleared my schedule and excitedly made the trip.

i've got to play mom with these kids a few times before, but every time i go i am amazed at how good they are. we had so much fun - swim parties, a pizza/root beer float/popcorn/movie party at my brother josh's school, elle's orchestra concert, gracie's soccer game, bike rides in the heat to the grocery store to buy popsicles, a wicked dance party, a frozen yogurt trip, etc. etc. i also got to go to "shadow-a-student day" with elle at the junior high - it was seriously a blast, and a blast from the past.

we were all soooo excited to see lucy when she returned home, the day after her 4th birthday! she loved the surprises we left her in her room. on sunday we enjoyed all watching general conference together and celebrating with cake and ice cream. we love lucy so very, very much.

of course the trip included several batches of chocolate chews, a rousing game of yatzee, and a long sister talk until late into the night. i am so impressed and inspired by each of the pothiers - shawni's extreme blogging abilities and absolute goodness, dave's endurance in the st. george marathon, max's teenage coolness, elle's mad skills at tennis, gracie's wonderful sassiness, claire's wicked dance moves, and lucy's sheer adorableness.

love you guys!

wanderlust

my roommate emily (this girl is the epitome of cool) had some friends from australia staying at our house this week. this recently married couple has been traveling around the world for the past 14 months, and california is their last stop. they have been to 28 countries! they are so great and i got so excited talking to them about their adventures. it made me add a qualification to my husband list, which now looks like this -

1. huge earning power
2. huge muscles
3. last name that sounds good with charity
4. willing and excited to take a year+ long trip with me around the world in our first 2 years

(that's not really the list - but #4 is legit)

so, because tonight i feel especially wanderlusty, i decided to choose the 28 countries my future husband and i will visit. starting from california and heading west around the globe (leaving out where i've already been), they are:
tonga - new zealand - australia
china
vietnam - burma
nepal
saudi arabia
south africa
russia
turkey - croatia
austria - czech republic
sweden - norwary - denmark
germany - switzerland
scotland
portugal
ghana - morocco
brazil - argentina - ecuador
costa rica - guatemala

i think it's do-able! the world is great. i want to see the whole of it.

update on the hunt

late one frigid december night three years ago i finished the last paper of my college career, submitted it to my professor via email, and then put on my cap and gown over my pajamas and had a jubilant dance party in my dorm room.

this was my version of college graduation. three weeks later i left to serve a mission. a year and a half later i came home and found my diploma framed on my bed. not much career training or preparation. i instantly became a little lost lamb in the big real world.

i am sure i am in the right place, and deep, deep in me i am sure that at the right time i will find a good job that will help me to figure out what i want to do and develop my career. because of this assurance, the job hunt so far has been optimistic and not entirely encompassing in my new life. but, after two and half months, i'm starting to feel the twinges of desperation.

so many people have been so gracious to offer tips, leads, connections and advice. i have learned a lot from exploring down lots of alleys that have turned into dead ends. i have felt so small and insecure and so empowered and excellent. it has been quite a journey, and i have enjoyed its vicissitudes, but the past week or so i have felt so ready to be done and on my way down a career path. i feel that this is only natural, but i refuse to be discouraged and decide each day that i can only continue to be hopeful and optimistic.

my real problem is that i love everything. and i feel that i am generally pretty capable. i think i could be a good nurse or a good social worker, and really enjoy that job. i think if i wanted to, i could chose to be trained in more technical fields, and i would excel if i put my mind to it. i maybe could be an awesome teacher or curator or therapist. i could enter the corporate or financial world and decide to be the world's best administrative assistant. i perhaps could even harness my creative tendencies and figure out how to become a designer or a photographer or a art critic. in any of these capacities i could chose to really love my job. because i just like life and people in general. so what am i to do? sometimes i think i need to just choose. thus, i am overwhelmed.

anyway - the job hunt is frustrating and demoralizing and challenging - but that's the point, and that's the adventure i chose for this time in my life. i have been working part time for my brothers' company (imagine learning) and for an older couple who have asked me to help organize the paperwork in their offices and i still occasionally pick up a babysitting job here and there. i admittedly haven't been working too hard on finding a job as i've stayed busy with all of that and since i've been traveling a bit and enjoying an almost constant flow of visitors. but i'm diving back into it tomorrow morning.

cross your fingers or send some good karma out to the universe for me!

p.s. i hate blog posts without pictures, so here is one of the view from the plane as i headed out to arizona a few weeks ago (more on that to come!). i love this city. at first i thought it must be mostly novelty that was making me soooooo excruciatingly excited about san francisco, but i honestly have come to adore this place more and more every day.

who would've thought? ...

...that two little girls who lived on the same street in the foothills of salt lake would end up sleeping in the same room in a house on a hill in san francisco??

indeed, mccaye and i grew up on opposite ends of augusta way and about a month ago serendipitously became roommates here in san fran. i feel so happy and blessed that in this case, life came full circle!

here we are in mccaye's bakery kiosk downtown. she is a baker and budding businesswoman. she also is wicked good at tennis and hoola hooping, so much fun to be around, gives great advice, and i swear i find out about hidden talents she has everyday. totes one of the coolest girls ever.

with jane living in the city too, that makes three of us from the same home ward now together in san francisco. in a new place it is such a huge blessing to have friends around that i have real history with. we learned primary songs together, had girls' camp adventures together, can reminisce about neighborhood traditions and characters - we know where each other came from and have that sweet, organic kind of friendship that you only find with childhood pals.

last week we went to the oakland temple together and it was divine. we couldn't help but comment that those young women's leaders in the good old mp17th ward would be proud! there was something so awesome about being in the temple with these two - and it seems like we were little girls just yesterday!

tonight jane and blake hosted us, along with mccaye's brother phil, and a few other friends for sunday dinner. it was lovely, familiar, and felt just like home. here's to the cherished friends and all the memories in the 84108!

favity faves

kerianne coined the term "favity fave" - a playful and more emphatic alternative to favourite

(yes, i am using the british spelling - i lost the accent so quick but i'm holding onto the spelling as long as i can!).

 

i think the phrase works well to describe the week i spent with dani - and keri on the first day and the last - in san fran and around. here are some of my favity fave pictures with some of my very most favity fave people in some of my absolute favity fave places.

photos by dani

 

 

after i picked up dani at the airport, we chased a sunset at ocean beach and then drove across the golden gate bridge to this glorious sight - how about that moonlight on the bay?!

 

on wednesday we met up with kerianne at tahoe and it was gorgeous.

 

 

 

 

bike riding along the truckee river, hanging out on the warm rocks at sand harbor, and watching a delicious sunset made for a perfect day - well worth the 4 hour drive there and back!

 

 

 

dani and i explored the city and found some sweet spots walking through chinatown and north beach, then along fisherman's wharf up to the ferry building.

 

we rented bikes (which, after a bit of flirting, turned out to be free) and met jonathan to ride in critical mass. critical mass is an event that happens monthly in cities all over the country - lots of people come together to flood the roads with bikes and enjoy cruising along all together.

 

 

at least 5000 bikers showed up for this sf critical mass and it was one of the coolest experiences of my life. we completely took over the city, traveling in a huge mass and not stopping at any red lights. tourists lined the streets to take our photos. people showed up on bright pink bikes, on double-decker bikes, on bikes equipped with wicked sound systems; people biked in costumes and a few old men biked butt naked (jonathan helped sensor things by covering our eyes at the right time!); people did wheelies on their bikes for minutes at a time. the best part was the girl with the bubble machine on the back of her bike (you can see the bubbles a little in the picture below) we rode all through the city and then into the sunset over the golden gate bridge with bubbles in the air everywhere. magical!

one random stranger looked over at me while we were biking up a hill overlooking the bridge and exclaimed, loudly, "i love living here!!" i exuberantly hollered back "i love being alive!!" awesome.

 

on saturday morning we were delighted by the produce and creativity at two farmer's markets.

then we went to the dragon boat festival at treasure island. it was a really unique, neat event - the streets full of asian vendors selling asian stuff and some hard-core dragon boat paddlers. we saw a couple races (i wish you could see it better in this picture) - it was so cool!

 

then we went to muir woods with my friend kelsey and gazed up at the astoundingly awesome, magnificent redwoods.

 

on sunday, kerianne pulled up to my house after driving from reno and we got right in and chased the sunset to ocean beach. these pictures don't do the majesty of this sunset justice. it was sublime. and the german tourist taking our picture did pretty awesome at getting this jumping shot on the first try!

 

 

keri and i brushed up on some ballet moves in the waves. i was seriously, seriously happy.

 

 

 

on monday we had breakfast on baker beach, took in the clear view from twin peaks, and headed down to palo alto. we loved the church at stanford, meeting our friend amy for lunch and meandering along the cute streets of downtown pa.

 

 

a fantastic week. i love these people. i love this place.

and like i screamed on my bike at critical mass, i love being alive!