Weekend/Week Wrap-Up:

My mom and sister made this beautiful apple pie for Thanksgiving:

Martha-worthy, right?! They are truly talented cooks and made yet another fantastic dinner for all of us - I felt so lucky and grateful for them. Thanksgiving is such a huge undertaking and yet they make it every year happily while the rest of us get away with merely eating and washing some dishes! I plan to do my part in the future by contributing to Christmas feasts but until then I owe them...big time. I have so much to be grateful for this year...where to begin. Stay tuned for the annual "Happy Moments" post where y'all can join in with what you're grateful for and your happiest moments of 2011 :)

Pitt: Chapter Two

Y'all ready for Part Two and the Final Chapter of my Pitt visit? Ok, it starts out at our trip to The Mattress Factory, a museum that hosts mainly installation art with the slogan "art you can get into". I loved it because so often you have to stay such a distance away from art, and that 's just not as fun!

There was a pretty awesome view from their balcony. Time to pose!

I'm not sure exactly what these little paper thingies were, but I liked them.

Yay installation art! Time for more photos. I made Shannon do a pose.

Reminiscent of my Bahamas posing. I unfortunately can't tell you which installation this was from, but it was in a room made to look like a high school wrestling lockeroom and there was a political theme as well.

This is in a room by Yayoi Kusama, called "Infinity Dots Mirrored Room". As you can see, it was rad.

Infinity....!

And the second room, "Repetitive Vision". Awesome.

I got a little obsessed with making the installation my own photo booth.

But this quote about the art sortof makes me think that was the reaction the artist wanted: "Her work explores the obliteration of the self, as the viewer becomes part of the work, reflected in mirrors, obstructed by organic forms, almost as if being sucked into the walls."

Ok, and then there was this entire floor by James Turrell that was 2 rooms that were mostly dark, and a third room that was COMPLETELY dark, that is, unless you sat for 15 minutes until the art was "revealed". Shannon and I didn't have the balls to wait the 15 minutes for our eyes to adjust. Wimps! In researching Turrell, I also realized he is the artist who created "Light Reign", that lives at The Henry (y'all know the one). Cool!

And up next: going up in the Dusquane Incline! It's like an old time trolley but SCARY! Not really but kindof.

Never miss an opportunity to ham it up for the blog.

WOAH.

It's steep. We also saw a fawn down below!

Check out the view. It was soooo fantastic to be able to see the city from up high like this. Thank you for taking me here, Shannon!

You could see a ton of their bridges and stadiums from up here.

The city is pretty cool looking. Apparently they have 300+ bridges?!

One last pic for the blog.

Such good times, Y'all! I highly recommend a visit to Pittsburgh. It's even better if you have a great friend living there like I do :)

PITT.

Dudes! Pittsburgh was great. You know with friends you haven't seen in a while, it's just so much better to have more than a few hours to catch up. Life flies by!

First things first: we went to the Andy Warhol Museum. It was really cool and well done. Lots of cool Andy stuff that I had no idea about. And things that seemed relevantly irrelevant today (we had some arty farty discussions, it was fab).

I would totally recommend you go there if you ever visit Pittsburgh. Warhol really made some amazing important contributions. Here I am posing in the entrance...I need a new "standing pose"...people are catching on to my obvious knee bend.

Shannon's apartment is adorable! I love the stained glass. The architecture in this city is such a cool mix...I decided it's Baltimore meets Boston meets DC meets some elements of the Midwest.

Shannon is a cool grad student and she had some meetings one day - no biggie cuz I had lots of computer time that I needed to catch up on. Headed on over the the Coffee Tree (?I think) to laptop it. Lots of students hanging out in there. They are all so wholesome looking! "Hipster" has not hit Pittsburgh yet.

I got this "orangesicle" - this sounds lame but it was soooo good. I'll totally be trying to re-create one at home. Also, who still uses a flip phone? ugh.

Later we went to a brewery in an old church. So cool - Pittsburgh has a ton of restaurants that are in converted buildings: fire houses, gas stations, churches, etc. It's neat :)

The inside of The Church Brew Works was like a beer hall! See the altar? And all the beer being made up there?

I can't even remember which beer I got but it was the blonde girly one.

Then....Shannon took me to the famous, Primanti Brothers. Famous because the story goes that Primanti catered to truckers passing through, and they couldn't eat an entire complicated meal, so they just put the coleslaw & the fries all in the sandwich. It was a hit.

My cute friend Shannon.

Menu: everything is cheap. Remember that there are fries IN the sandwiches.

On recommendation of our server ("trust the fat guy", he said), I ordered the pastrami.

It was DIVINE. I ate the whole damn thing.

And that concludes Chapter One: My Visit to Pittsburgh. It was a blast. Stay tuned!

On to San Francisco...

Oh wait, what's that?

Peeking through the fog just as it should on a typical San Fran day...I'd seen it before but never driven across it!

Pictures from the car! Always come out professional.

Compared to Santa Rosa, this city felt like an entirely different country! And it was fabulous, because we rolled in right after the Pride Parade had ended in that fine city. All colors of stray feathers missing from boas were floating around the place!

After some Manewelry shopping (man jewelry, and yes, we found one he likes!) we hopped on a CABLE CAR. Holler! Apparently this is the only "transit system" listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

See how it rolls on down here to the end of the line, then they rotate it on this wooden rotating spot? Pretty neat.

Historic Landmark although apparently not protected from billboards advertising vacation destinations. Classy!

Keene was the brave one and was a "Standee", riding on the outside of the car Like a Boss!

He said it was pretty fun. Kinda like a gentle roller coaster? I know his law brain was all "liability liability liability....but not my problem haha"...

My best attempt at a self-portrait without putting my camera in danger of falling off the cable car...

Ignore this chick who thought I was taking a picture of her. (sorry, Stranger! You're on my blog now! All 5 readers can see you!). Anyway, see the view back there? It was a pretty great way to get the feel of cool San Fransisco.

I took this video for Y'all so you could get the real experience. Also, why is it I've always got to be the one to start the "Woo"?!

And then we went to the Fisherman's Terminal (not to be confused with the Wharf - this was much cooler than that hot mess). I took a picture of this fountain because I thought it was the most heinous fountain sculpture I've ever seen. And I've seen a lot of ugly sculpture.

My last day in San Fran I had big plans. But then I got back to the hotel and had this glass of Rose and ate some Ghirardelli chocolates and watched a movie instead. I'm lazy. Also it won't be my last trip to San Fran!

Gorgeous Peonies

Peonies on our table that happen to be matching the sky right now. I adore this flower! It smells amazing and looks so beautifully different as it opens up. Also, I should really iron our tablecloth. Eh, I'll do it tomorrow!

Tulips: You gotta want 'em

We took a 7 hour trip to Mt. Vernon yesterday in the gorgeous sunshine to visit the Tulip fields. Unfortunately, so did everyone else in the PNW. Oh well! We drove and extra few hours finding the back ways. We also had an awesome lunch at Skagit Valley Brewery - hollah.

Taking the obligatory Tulip Field photos:

Of course they were LOVELY. But we learned that we didn't need to stop at Roozengarde and wait in line to pay $5 while I worried that our new dog would perish in our hot car (dogs weren't allowed) because just a few blocks further you can just pull over and look at the tulip fields. Live and learn! It was still a beautiful day. Next time we go we'll be much more prepared :)