san francisco part 1

Matt and I have a saying and it goes like this: we're/I'm breaking out of zoo camp.

It stems back from Matt's childhood. His Dad tried several times to put Matt in ski camp, zoo camp, surfing camp, you name it, and he's been in it "camp." And every time His Dad would get a call from the leaders saying that Matt had escaped and they didn't know where he was. You can imagine the fear he felt...the first time. But when it became a pattern...it showed a lot about Matt's personality.

Breaking out of the norm and confinements of others is what he does best. He broke out of college, even though he had a full ride scholarship, to start his own business. Even when it comes to meals! One time I tried making a meal calendar, the man broke out of that too. 

Anyway, the point wasn't to convince you all that my Husband has the worst bout of confinement issue in the world, or that he can't commit, both of which aren't true in the slightest. It was to say that his habit of breaking out has been really good for me. I was never taught that I could break out of something if I didn't like it. I was always too afraid of getting in trouble. 

So for the last couple months I've been beating my brains out over school. Taking every opportunity I could to do the extra credit, meet with study groups, over prepare and it was getting kind of ridiculous. I have this obsession with getting a 4.0. If it's not an A, I don't want it. And I've proven that in the past. A few years ago I took a course and I found out I'd be getting an B+, even if I got an A on the final exam, and guess what? I didn't take it. I gave up and retook the class a year or so later where I, can you guess, got an A. 

So lately I've had this huge weight on me that if I miss 1 assignment, do bad on 1 test, if I miss 1 day of class my A wont be an A anymore. And even as I write this I know it's so ridiculous! I know a A- or B+ or even a C+ should be good enough for me. But trust me when I say I've been working on it. And that's where "breaking out of zoo camp" comes in.

This last week I had my annual doctors appointments up at Stanford Hospital. I already had to miss 2 days of school and Matt and I decided, what the heck! We need to break out of zoo camp and go to San Francisco afterward my appointments. So we did! I took an entire week off of school and guess what? It was awesome! And my teachers totally let me take a test early, and a quiz late, and it's not the end of the world. So yeah, I'm definitely a fan of this breaking out business. I think I'm going to join in on it a lot more.

 ^^Getting ready to do the CPX test. 

Essentially they stick you on a treadmill, put it at a steep incline, at a fast speed and wait until your breathing so hard your not getting the amount of oxygen you need to sustain. Then they lay you down and do a sonogram of your heart to see how thick it becomes during exertion. It's lots of fun. Especially since I didn't know I'd be doing it until 5 min before and therefore didn't have appropriate shoes or clothing.

 ^^Afterward, Matt insisted I get some Sprinkles for a job well done. It's best not to argue and just do what the mans says ;)

 ^^After our 2nd day at Stanford we head on over to San Francisco!

 ^^Hey, look Utah friends and family!!

 ^^We stayed at The Westin St Francis, right on Union Square. It was so much fun to be right in the heart of everything.

 ^^Most of my pictures will be of the amazing buildings and architecture. Everything killed me dead, I loved it so much!

 ^^Both nights we ate dinner at The Cheesecake Factory (it was amazing!) and what else is there to do at The Cheesecake Factory while waiting to be seated but take pictures of you and your sexy Hubby?

I have this bad habit of living in the moment. Which means the first day of vacations I rarely get a lot of (if any) pictures. It isn't until the 2nd day, and I've already seen and experienced the place, that I'm like, "That's so (insert adjective here)! I should get a picture of it!" Sometimes I regret it because when I get home I feel like I didn't capture a lot of special, fun, funny, awesome, etc. moments on camera; but Matt always reminds me that all of those moments were so special because we weren't worried about capturing them, we were living them. And I really liked that.