Home is where the Marine Corps sends us

It's time to move, again.  This will be duty station number 3 for us since we got married. 

I had never moved until I went to college, and really thats not a legit move.  So when I got married and moved to Denver it was my first real move.  And since then I have realized, I hate moving.  Once we get to the new city and get unpacked and make our new rental cozy and homey i'm fine.  But the actual packing and moving and then unpacking itself is horrible.  It's even worse when you have to do it pretty much every year.  So while we are USMC nomads I am trying my hardest to make each apartment/condo/house into a home while conquering my hatred for moving boxes.

When you move around a lot, and especially when you leave your childhood home for good, your definition of home changes drastically.  Obviously the house I grew up in where my parents still live, will always be home to me on some level.  But it's important that we feel at home wherever we are.

Its the period of unrest that is the hardest.
 Those few weeks when we are completely unsettled and can't find anything.  It's because home to me has become something different.  In our life where the only constant is change, the things that make me feel home don't have anything to do with our location.  Home has become all about us, about my husband and our dog, our silly little traditions, pictures of our families and valued treasures that we have collected from our travels.  So when we are in that stressful, messy in between stage, when I can't find the coffee pot or the picture that sits on my nightstand, I have to remind myself that soon, the new house will become my favorite place.
Home, sweet home.

New Adventures

It has been a very busy few weeks, we went home for Christmas with the McFarland/Blinn families and had a great time.  Then it was home for a week before we were off to our next adventure in San Francisco!

I love to travel and have a growing list of cities and places here in the US that I am dying to visit.  San Francisco has been on this list for a long time and it finally worked out that we could go! The weather was a little grey and chilly and my poor hubby got hit with a terrible cold (which i am now enjoying) but he was a trooper and let me drag him all over the city.
I am a firm believer that when traveling you should "do as the romans do" or San Franciscans in this instance.  I like to eat the food that is local, shop local, and enjoy local sights. Clearly we did touristy things too...how can you go to San Fran and not take a million pictures of the Golden Gate Bridge?! So here is my list of ways to experience San Francisco!

1. Pacific seafood. When you are visiting a city that is on the ocean, it only makes sense to eat lots of local seafood!  So if you want oysters, you eat the ones from Washington Sate, not the ones from New England.  It was all Fresh and delicious.

2. Shop local. Our hotel was across the street from the Ferry Building, which is kind of like a permanent farmers market. There are all these little shops and restaurants and they all specialize in some local food or craft.  So we got amazing cheese and a raspberry peach champagne jam from Cowgirl Creamery,  french bread from Acme, (which a lot of the restaurants in the building get their bread from!), California wine from The Wine Merchant, and almond brittle from G.L. Alfieri. We got Ahi burgers for lunch from The Fish Market.  Moral of the story, I could have spent the entire 3 days at the Ferry Building, and if you go to San Francisco, its definitely a must see!

3. Be your own tour guide.  Seeing the Redwood trees in Muir Woods was definitely on our list of must see things.  The tour we originally wanted to take was sold out.  So we rented a car from out hotel and braved the streets on our own.  Driving through the city actually wasn't that bad and it allowed us the freedom to do exactly what we wanted and take our time.  We stopped on both sides of the Golden Gate Bridge to take pictures, we spent almost 2 hours in the park looking at trees and shopping for our traditional vacation christmas ornament, then we took a detour to Muir Beach, and had lunch in Sausalito.  Our entrance to the Muir Woods National Park was free because of our Military Passes* and our rental car was the same price as one tour ticket would have been!

4.  Be a tourist.  I know this negates my previous rant about being like a local, but sometimes there's just no avoiding it.  Mark has been dying to go to Alcatraz.  And when its a national park on an island that doesn't allow private boats to dock at it, its kind of hard to see it without going on a tour.  But it was so worth it, definitely a cool experience and really interesting.
We did also check out fisherman's warf at Pier 39 to see the little shops and check out all the seals!

5. Relax.  A few days before we left, Mark went on Groupon and found us an awesome deal for a couples massage right by our hotel! It was so relaxing, affordable, and we got to see yet another little neighborhood in San Francisco.

So there are my travel tips and my top 5 things i loved about San Francisco.  I can't wait to cross more cities off my list as we travel across America on our USMC adventure!

*Active duty military and their dependents are eligible for a free annual pass that is good for everyone in your car at every national park in the country! So cool, thanks National Park Service!