Pollock's Toy Museum

I took an hour last week in London to visit Pollock's Toy Museum by Goodge Street. It is a fascinating place, with a windy staircase and rooms piled with old toys. Fascinating, and also terrifying. I wouldn't recommend it to anyone who had nightmares about Toy Story, but I found the old toys and toys from around the world really interesting. If you're not prone to toy nightmares, you should definitely go next time you're in London.

If you're interested, you can find more information about Pollock's here!

Foot Tennis in St. Pancras

 We met some friends for dinner at St. Pancras last Tuesday, and outside the restaurant where we ate, there was a tennis net. I'm still unclear on why it was there, but we took advantage and pulled it out to play a little game of foot tennis after dinner. Somehow it turned out to be four on one, but Sebastien, the one, managed to hold his own. I think Lenny and Kasia ended up claiming the winnings and going home with the giant pink tennis ball. 

Loving on Liberty London

I LOVE Liberty in London. It is my very favorite store to browse in this city (second place goes to Zara Home - why don't we have this in the US?!)

Back to Liberty. To put it in terms of San Francisco stores, it is like Anthropologie meets Britex Fabrics meets Barneys meets Flax Art and Design. There are so many beautiful things and so many levels and so many hidden rooms that you could spend all day in there.

I went on a two hour walk yesterday afternoon after working in order to keep my eyes open and stay up past 6pm. I was so exhausted that I couldn't even think about trying on clothes, but I walked to Liberty anyways just because it's such a beautiful place. I also couldn't think about taking pictures (plus I only had my phone - no camera because it was in our lost luggage), so these all came off of the Liberty website. I am going back there later this trip, and hopefully I'll have my camera in tow then so I can show what the store looks like, not just the products. 

Good Morning London!

Good morning from London! Jonny's company wanted him to come out for a few days for a project, and he managed to negotiate for me to come too. We found out we were going on Friday, flew out on Monday, and surprise, here we are! We actually did surprise Margaret, Jonny's mom, by knocking on the door of their house at about 7:45am this morning. She had no idea we were going to be here, and it was so fun to show up and see her reaction. 

I was acting like a tourist with my iPhone this morning, so these pictures are the result of that. It's 5:58am in San Francisco as I write this, but it's 1:58pm here in London. I'm going off about 2 hours of sleep and three cups of coffee, and I'm really starting to struggle to keep my eyes open. I'm going to do my best to focus my energy for the next few hours, though, and hopefully I'll be bright eyed and bushy tailed by tomorrow.  Maybe I'll have more iPhone pictures to share by then. 

Sunday Brunch

Ashley and Josh had us over this weekend for an amazing Sunday brunch! As per usual, my iPhone pictures don't do justice to the real deal. They had a beautiful spread of prosciutto, scrambled eggs with siracha, grilled asparagus, and tomatoes. Ashley also made a strawberry cake from Smitten Kitchen (the food blog that never ever disappoints!)

I wish I had more pictures from the weekend. We celebrated Caitlin's birthday at Locanda on Friday (which I actually do have pictures from - coming soon!), we went to Elixer to celebrate after dinner, then Lydia hosted another amazing brunch on Saturday, followed by Nick's birthday sloshball celebration in Golden Gate park.

Sunday was my half birthday, and I like to make a very big deal about half birthdays. Maybe it stems from having a December birthday that couldn't be celebrated with a pool party, but I love love love half birthdays. After brunch, we went to a Spanish wine and tapas festival, then Jonny surprised me by organizing dinner Sunday night with friends at a restaurant right around the corner from us (which actually meant more tapas plus sangria!) It made for such a fun Sunday night, and I'm so thankful that I have friends who would celebrate such a holiday with me. 

Santa Cruisin

I mentioned last week that I was really getting into Airbnb. Well, we decided to try it out this weekend and spend a night in Santa Cruz. We were hardly gone more than 24 hours, but it sure felt like a mini vacation. We wogged (walk/jog combo) on Sunday morning to the beach, had an amazing brunch, and spent the afternoon at the beach and the Santa Cruz boardwalk, where we enjoyed both dippin dots AND fried oreos.

On our drive home, we took our time going up hwy 1, and we stopped at a strawberry farm that was all picked out of strawberries sadly! We then saw a sign that said "Slow down for pie" and stopped at a place called Pie Ranch, which was also out of pie. Even though we didn't get to pick berries or eat pie, it was a beautiful drive and a beautiful day! 

A Gigantaur Sandwich by Jonny

I had meant to have lots of fun weekend pictures up by now, but I haven't had a chance to go through them yet. How do real bloggers do it? Seriously. I need an extra four hours tacked onto my day. 

Anyways, what you get today is a gigantaur sandwich that Jonny made. After he made it and before he was about to eat it, he actually asked for me to take a picture of it and feature it on the b-l-o-g. I'm no food stylist and my iPhone is no SLR, but I think it still looks pretty good. I also like how Jonny's hand is moving so fast as he's eating it that it looks ghosted. 

Happy Wednesday! More pictures to come soon! xo