Just wanted to post some more pictures of the beautiful things we have seen here. We have been working very hard this past 10 months and overall, we have enjoyed our time here so far. Despite the challenges of living in a big city, we are thankful every day to be in such a beautiful place and to be doing so well with our financial goals.






Point Reyes National Seashore

Summer '08 #2

At the beginning of August, Rachel's grandma (Gladys Whiting) passed away at 93 years old. Rachel flew to Salt Lake City for the funeral. While there, she was able to spend time with both her extended and immediate family, as well as enjoy the beautiful mountain scenery.

Hiking in Big Cottonwood Canyon with some of our cousins.

Us with our cousins

Rachel and Mel

Jenny and Rachel

Val and Rachel

Silver Lake

Rachel and Angie

Pretty mountains :)

Between all of our visitors, traveling, and working, we have found time to continue to explore the city and surrounding areas. Since Adam loves aviation, we decided one day to check out the Hiller Air Museum. We enjoyed seeing all different types of aircraft at the museum and even got to play in a real 747 cockpit.




747 engine


Adam playing in the cockpit of a 747

Summer '08

It is hard to believe that summer is drawing to a close already (especially because most of the summer was cold and foggy and it is now hot and beautiful)! It has been a busy, but fun, summer for us between working,visitors, and exploring the area. We will have to make this 2 posts because there is just too much to fit into one!

At the end of June, Rachel's brother Brent had leave from the Army and decided to come out for a visit. We had a great time showing him around the city and wished he could have stayed longer!

Rachel and Brent at Twin Peaks

Cable Cars

Arm Wrestling at the Musee Mechanique... we both lost!

Brent and the Golden Gate Bridge

Alamo Square, a familiar view from "Full House"

Ginger... the mattress killer! Poor Brent had to sleep on our couch all week after he woke up on a flat air mattress the first night. The naughty little kitty bit through the air mattress and then made herself comfortable.

In mid-July, Rachel's parents came out to San Francisco for her dad's work. Again, we had a great time showing them around the city for the week. We even got to see some things we hadn't seen yet!

Coit Tower

Pier 39 (view from Coit Tower)

Looking West: Lombard street is seen at the top of the picture.

The Bay Bridge

Downtown: The Bay Bridge and Transamerica Pyramid

Transamerica Pyramid

Redwoods in a park near the Transamerica Pyramid

Fountain at the Transamerica Pyramid

China Town

China Town

Fortune Cookie Factory!

Flowers at Golden Gate Park

Val's Graduation

Rachel found a great deal on plane tickets to MN in late May and thought it would be a great opportunity to go home. It just happened to be the weekend Val was graduating from high school, so it was perfect. Unfortunately, Adam had to stay back in SF to work, but Rachel had a great time hanging out with her family anyway.


Sisters! (Mel, Rachel, Val, Angie, Jenny)


Dad, Val, and Mom


Rachel and Val


Rachel and Val


Mel and Rachel

Moving

After much debate over the pains of moving, we decided to find a new apartment in the city. We were having trouble with the neighbors below us smoking pot and it seeping into our apartment. We were miserable and had to get out of there. Luckily, management let us out of our lease and refunded our deposit. We found an apartment that is SO much better (only about 4 blocks away from our old one) and moved in Friday May 9. Though our new place is a little bit smaller, it is very worth it. We are located at the top of a hill and from the front have a great view of the golden gate bridge, ocean, and city from our apartment. From the back of the apartment, we look into a nice wooded area. Our parking here is much better as well and we are even saving quite a bit of money each month by living here. Overall, we LOVE it at our new place! We have enjoyed watching the sunrise and sunset each day as well as the fog roll in over the bay at times. We are so grateful we had the opportunity to move to such a great place and are so happy that we made the choice to do it.

Our building is the one way at the top of the hill.

The steep curvey hill leading to our apt.

One of many sets of steep stairs leading to the apts... 42 in this section alone!

Living Room

Living Room

Dining room... notice the trees out the window!

Who wouldn't want to do dishes with this view?!

The smallest bathroom I have ever seen with "beautiful blue tile" as the landlady said.

The Bedroom

The apartment may be small and not very fancy, but it is all about the views!

The woods behind our apt.

View of the ocean from our apt.

View of the Golden Gate Bridge from our apt.

Sunset over the ocean... seen from our apt!

Sunset

Sunset

After Sunset

In other news, Adam accepted an offer for a new job at St. Francis Hospital in downtown SF. He will be working in their registration and billing department and will start this coming week. He will be making about double what he was making at Southwest and will not have to commute. We are very happy about this new opportunity as work at the airlines has been miserable lateley.

And, no post woul be complet without a picture of our plump 14 1/2 pound kitty.