The other side of Stockton

One thing that we have learned while living in Stockton is that there is a great part of town and a not so great part of town. We unfortunately, live in the not so great part of Stockton. So we like to take every opportunity we can to meandor to the other side. A couple weeks ago we were looking for a Krispy Kreme store and it took us over to the other side of freeway. Um, It was heaven! There were tree lined streets, completely spotless, beautiful buildings, hygenic residents who drive lexus', cadillacs and BMW's, and lakes with gondola boats!  That one litterally made my jaw drop.
This job is pretty interesting in the fact that housing is chosen for you by the company and you have no idea where your going to live. My only question is why couldn't Pinnacle have chosen housing on the other side of the freeway?! We live on the other side of the freeway where there are bums on every street corner during the day, thugs by night, crazy drivers in broken down cars, dirty stores with parking lots full of shopping carts, etc. etc. You get my drift. Fact is: we're jealous of the other side.
The other day we took a ride to the nice side and got ourselves some Panera Bread and relaxed at a park. Every few weeks Gabe and I go through a new food obsession. We had a long obsession with Baskin Robbins, then there was delivery pizza, and now its Panera Bread. Gabe was introduced to Panera Bread on his mission and now we like to make excuses to go whenever we can. We had a really fun time! We got our food in take out and then drove to a pretty park and ate on the park bench and enjoyed the warm weather and peacefulness. It was a perfect afternoon!

The Harbers come to visit!

This past week has been lots of fun. On Thursday our friends from Utah, Blake and Ali Harber, were nice enough to make the drive and come and hang out with us for a few days. We are soo glad they drove out, we had such a great time! Thursday night we went out to dinner at Outback Steakhouse, took a walk around the neighborhood and then played some games. Friday morning we woke up early and drove out to San Francisco. I LOVE San Fransisco so much, it is such a neat city and there is just something about that city that keeps me wanting to go back again and again. I love the character and diversity of the city and the fact that there is so much to do there that you see new things every single time you visit. It never gets old. We had a blast roaming the streets and hanging out. The first thing we did in San Francisco was take a tour of Alcatraz. Its been something that we’ve wanted to do for a long time now. We took a little boat ride over to the island and walked around the insides of the prison during an audio tour. It was so hard to wrap my brain around the thought that I was walking in the same place all the criminals were long ago.

It was freeeeeezing cold and super super windy on the boat ride over!

After the Alcatraz tour we went looking for something to eat and ran into some street performers on the corner. This was one of the highlights of San Fransisco for me, I was very entertained! It was a family from Austrailia and they were talking all crazy and cracking jokes and doing wild stunts. Unfortunately we didn’t catch the greatest pictures, but we took a couple.

We went to Hard Rock Cafe for lunch and filled up on some yummy food.

Once our stomachs were stuffed full, we spent the rest of the evening walking around the city site seeing, seeing the Golden Gate Bridge, and going to Ghiarradelli for dessert.

 On Saturday we got some lunch at Panera Bread (mmmmmm!), went to Target to buy some toys, and went to a nearby park to goof around. They had paddle boat rentals at the park, which we couldn’t turn down of course, so we chased each other around on those for a while. There was a few weddings that were going on at the park while we were there and lots of family reunions. It was a happening place!

Then we came back to our apartment and Blake and Gabe played with their new toys they bought, remote control helicopters! They loved them and it was fun watching them get so excited about it!

We went to dinner at Olive Garden and then to the movie theatres to watch the last Harry Potter movie, the best ending to the weekend! We all got into watching all of the movies so we were way excited to see it and it didn’t disappoint. Blake and Ali left (too soon) Sunday morning. We had so much fun spending time with them and can’t wait to be back in Utah with all our loved ones!