Happy Anniversary!

Ross and I celebrated our first wedding anniversary over the weekend. It has been adjustment to have a husband in school because or schedule is much less free than it used to be. So my big plans to get away for the weekend didn't happen. Instead, we spent the day in San Francisco doing some of the tourist things we have never done. Might as well take advantage of the beautiful surroundings in which we live. So our first SF experience was paying an hours wages in parking fees. Then we took a "duck" tour which is a sea and land tour. Our tour was called the Bay Quackers. And they provided us with duck beak whistles to scare all the people we drove by. It was silly, but that is part of being a tourist. Our "duck" drove us through the main highlights of San Francisco such as Chinatown, Little, Italy, the piers, Union Square, the Financial district and the ball park. Then we drove into the water and we very slowly- those ducks are so slow, hard to believe they used them in World War II- (which they did for the invasion of Normandy) Anyways, back on track. So we slowly cruised in the bay near the Giants ballpark and the Bay bridge. We had a beautiful view of the city and also saw a California seal and some harbor seals. Then back to the land tour. I actually learned several things that I didn't know about SF- and I have been there many times.

Our "duck"- they were originally built in World War II (by women according to our guide)

Ready for the tour.

View of downtown San Francisco from the Bay. We had a really nice day in the city. No fog!

Our guide- a military officer from Sweden. I guess the military isn't paying well enough. He is sailing us toward the ramp. The entering/exiting the water was the coolest part







Ross took his turn driving the "duck".

Bay Bridge and Treasure Island/Yerba Buena Island. Typical bay day- lots of sailboats

We also hung out around Fisherman's Wharf. I love all the activity there. We ate at Scoma's which is a famous seafood restaurant in SF. More for Ross since he loves seafood. I actually tried scallops, crab, lobster and prawns.

That night, we went on a Ghost Walk with a local paranormal expert. I have been on ghost tours in Savannah and Charleston so I figure that San Fran must be haunted too. Here is our guide. He took us around the Pacific Heights area- which was not burned down by the 1906 earthquake so the ghosts are still there. It wasn't too spooky or anything but he did tell some interesting stories

Haunted House- made even more so by the full moon. It seems that the ghosts were all women- wonder why? We tend to become more attached maybe

This hotel is supposedly haunted and Ross walked around taking lots of pictures to see if he could capture an "orb" or supernatural presence in his picture. I say this is just a glare but Ross thinks it is an orb or as our guide calls it a "energy ball." This orb showed up in a lot of the pictures.

So we had a fun day together to celebrate a year of marriage. We ate our wedding cake with my parents the next day. I was happy that the part saved was chocolate and it didn't taste too bad after a year in the freezer. We have been very blessed this past year and everything has worked out better than we had hoped for.

My other news is that I am starting day shift tomorrow. I got tired of living in a haze and sleeping most days. Now I am trying to adjust to sleeping at night which has been harder than I thought. But I am looking forward to being awake when everyone else is and hopefully catching up with friends. I hope my body can handle the long 12 hour days.

Oh, and Ross did add more Philippine pictures- he just mixed them in with his previous pictures on the blog from August. So check out those pictures for new ones.