San Francisco!

Yes folks, this is not a picture of me at the Great Salt Lake. It is indeed, San Francisco! I was so excited to take a girls' trip to the city, especially because I have never been to California before. I had heard great things about San Francisco, and I was not disappointed! Unfortunately, I developed a bad case of laryngitis shortly after arriving, but that didn't stop me from enjoying every moment of the trip - great people, tons of laughs, and fun places to see! I wish my blog could accurately portray the amazingness of the trip, but I don't think it can. I'll have to settle for showing a few pictures I guess!

We were able to see Broadway's "Wicked" the evening we arrived. For those of you who haven't seen it, I would highly recommend it! It was very entertaining!

Hanging out in solitary confinement at Alcatraz!
My friend April looks pretty happy to be behind bars!

On Sunday we were able to enjoy God's great creation in the Redwood forest. Even though these woods are only a few minutes from the Golden Gate bridge, you would never know it when you are in the middle of them. It is so serene and beautiful!

A whole lot has happened in the past couple of weeks, so I'll post as fast as I can! It's definately the holiday season!
First of all, Thanksgiving. It was a gorgeous day here, and I decided to start off the year with a family-style football game with my church. Figured out I know how to play football even less than I thought, which is really saying something! I'm pretty sure the 8 year old boys were better than me! Ah, well, can't be good at everything! :)

A cute little girl from my church knitted me a hat and scarf - definately worth a picture for her effort!

To kick off the holidays, I invited several people to my house for christmas tree decorating, cookie-making, and homemade pizza. We also celebrated my friend Rachelle's birthday (yes, we have the same name, the same (obscure) job, and our birthdays are 3 days apart. Not to mention a wide variety of very random facts. Sometimes people think I am joking when I talk about her).



Notice the extra puffy pizza dough! It was a little larger than expected, but still very yummy!

My own birthday was very busy, both at work and after. The Jazz came to visit, so you could say I got a whole professional basketball team for my birthday! :) That evening was the hospital's Festival of Trees. It's amazing to see how much time and money people put into their donations. There were incredible gingerbread houses and playhouses up for grabs, and most of the trees sold for over a thousand dollars! A lot of the trees are in honor/memory of kids that were patients at Primary's. Below is a picture of a christmas tree done in memory of one of the oncology kids I worked with. Since I don't generally take pictures of any kids at the hospital, it's feels kind of nice to have a picture of something to remember her by.