The Bay Area is my Most Favorite Place in the United States!!

I just spent the last weekend in the San Fransisco Bay Area because my parents were awesome and gave me the happiest graduation present possible (maybe besides a trip to Germany, but San Fransisco is literally only an inch below Germany on the Most Amazing Places on Earth Scale).

My old roommate, Jessica Kenney (now Knudsen), got married in the Oakland temple on Saturday (July 31), so I flew out on the 29th and stayed with her and helped her set things up for the wedding the day before. The fabulous thing about this wedding is that Jessica and her mom handmade everything. All the decorations and the food for both the reception and the luncheon. It was amazazing.

Jessica hand made all the boxes (that look like cake slices) to fill with candy as the favors.

This is how the backyard was decorated. They bought the chair covers and ribbons and tablecloths, but hand steamed and ironed all of them. It paid off, it was beautiful!


The best part about the wedding was that out of the 7 of us who lived in that apartment with Jessica, only one was missing!! And the great thing about that is that this set of roommates was BY FAR the best set of roommates, the closest friend, and the most amazing women I had the privilege of living with. Sorry everyone else I've roommed with. I don't even know how to express how amazing this apartment was besides to say that we'd come home from classes, around 1-3 pm, and once everyone was home, we'd all sit in the living room attempting to do homework, but we'd end up talking until 2-4 am every single night. We went out to Craigo's (pizza) or steak about once a month, and had margarita nights about once a week, sometimes more. Anything we did, we did it all together. We were inseparable. Seriously. Best friends of my life.

From left to right in this picture: Emily Haycock Gatewood, Sandy Depew, Jessica Kenney Knudsen, Diana Hawkes Toronto, Tina Erndt Braegger, and me. Missing: Tara Cottle Martin

This is all of us plus Emileigh Norling, who is like an honorary roommate because she grew up with Diana, Tina, and Jessica in the Bay Area. Also plus Emily and Tina's babies, Hannah and Olivia, respectively.

So now 5/7 of us from that apartment are married. I'm the only one not yet endowed, as Sandy served a mission. The best part about all of this, is that all of us are still righteous, as we were together someone was bearing testimony of something about every five minutes. Alma 17:2 describes perfectly how I felt. It is SOO wonderful to have this sisterhood with people and to feel and know the support will always be there because your sisters are steadfast in the Gospel.

Now for some pictures of the wedding and the couple:

The Oakland temple is one of the most majestic I think. I almost wanted to make sure I marry someone from that area so I have a good excuse to get married there, but I think I'll stick with the Timpanogos temple.

So after the wedding was over, I stayed with Sandy at Diana's house and we went to church there (in the Los Altos ward) and on Monday we went with Diana's mom and sister, Melanie, to Chinatown. It was a blast! Who knew Chinatown would be so amazing? Sorry I didn't feel like verticalizing the picture, but you get the idea. This is the gate to Chinatown.

Sandy had a very old Chinese man try to kiss her at the fortune cookie factory. It was hilarious. :)

On Tuesday I spent the day with my Uncle Robert and his wife, Shon. We went to the Golden Gate Park where we visited the Japanese Tea Garden and the California Academy of Sciences Museum where they had a rainforest, aquarium, and an "extreme mammals" exhibit. We also went to the Golden Gate Bridge and Ghirardelli Square. Perhaps best of all, we met up with my favorite Clay Brown and ate at this hole-in-the-wall French/Southern place called Brenda's (on the corner of Eddy and Polk if you want to know) where "oral climax" (Clay's words, not mine) is achievable. It was pretty amazing, let's be honest.

Robert and Shon in the Japanese garden...again, too lazy to fix the picture.

View of the city from the Golden Gate Bridge.

Clay and I outside of Brenda's

To sum up, I LOVE San Fransisco because it is SO much like a European city, particularly a German one because of the weather. I'm seriously considering moving there. I love everything about it; there are nice suburbs as well as exciting city life, but it's not crazy or scary city life. I love it so much my heart is pretty much still bursting from being there for five days. :) :) :)