Weekend Round-Up: Wedding Run Through

A weekend full of friends and perfect weather, you can’t beat that! Nicole arrived at 6:00 from Napa and picked us up at work. We got her settled in and then walked over to Haight for dinner at Magnolia. The rosebud beer – made with grapes and flowers – is really tasty.

After a long wait, we shared a dinner of onion rings, a club sandwich and a fennel sausage pizza. So healthy, I know! After dinner, we walked down to the Panhandle for a housewarming party of a friend of a friend. After a bit, we caught a cab back home.

Saturday morning, we got up fairly early to drive to the wholesale flower mart. Nicole and I walked through the booths and found the perfect blend of flowers to make our trial-run wedding centerpieces.

Back at home, we made $40 worth of flowers into three huge arrangements. I’ll show you photos of the gorgeous final results in a separate post. At 1:00, Margaret arrived from San Luis Obispo. All three girls loaded into the Fit and drove over to Sausalito. Our first stop was Fish, a fun little seafood restaurant right on the water. The prices are high, but it’s easy to split entrees.

The Blue Angels started flying at 3:30, right when our ceremony would have been if we didn’t move the wedding date. The Woman’s Club was busy getting ready for a wedding, so we couldn’t drop by to scope it out. It took forever to drive back home. Between fleet week and the blues festival, this is the craziest weekend in San Francisco. I’m so glad we’re changing our date!

Back at home, we hung out for a while before going out to a fondue dinner at The Matterhorn. The four of us finished two enormous pots of cheese. We tried to go to a bar after dinner but the city was too crazy with sailors and tourists. We luckily managed to find a cab back home. Our glamorous day ended with watching an episode of the very addictive show, Kid Nation.

Everyone got up around 9:00 on Sunday. We decided to walk down Market Street to a restaurant I’ve passed a thousand times. It’s Tops is a tiny little diner established in the 1950’s. I loved everything about it: the soda fountain, the small booths, the fact that one cook and one waitress run the whole place. It felt so much like the Miramar’s old railroad cafe. We chowed down on pancakes, bacon and potato scrambles.

After breakfast, we decided to go on an “expedition” to find the mysterious slides of San Francisco. With only a vague sense of direction, we walked from Market Street through Dolores Park to Noe Valley (2.5 miles). On 24th street we stopped in at Phoenix Books to ask for help. The clerk hadn’t heard of the slides but a nice Irish man called a friend who had been there. Armed with directions and a map, we walked over the hill to Eureka Heights (1.5 miles).

The slides on Seward Street are so fun once you find them! Two long cement slides so steep that you actually catch air halfway down. Here are some photos of us at the slides:

From the slides, we walked back home through the Castro Street Fair. A total of 5 miles walked!

Sandwiches at home with another episode of Kid Nation. Margaret left at 3:00 to drive back home. Nicole and I did some chores around the house and organized my collection of antique linens.

Eventually, we went to the market for dinner supplies. Shrimp tacos and apple crisp finished off our very busy weekend! You can see all my photos online here.