Brooke Turner Photography

Yes, that’s right. Tomorrow I’m headed to the Mediterranean with two of my favorite ladies on the face of this earth: my mom and my grandmother (aka “Honey”).   All I can say is I am so thankful to have this opportunity, and I’m feeling so incredibly blessed right now.  I’d tell you more but since I have to leave here in 5.5 hours (and somewhere in there get some sleep and finish packing)…I’ll have to fill you all in later!

Brooke Turner Photography will be running at about 25% while I’m gone.  My fabulous assistant will be toiling away on some outstanding items, and (unfortunately) I won’t be completely disconnected from the world.  Emails and phone calls will be returned starting Aug 3.

Woops, I realized I never introduced you to my assistant!  Her name is Lara Beth Hardwick and she’s been training and working with me for the past 6 or so weeks.  So if you get an email from her you’ll know!  She has been a blessing to work with and y’all are going to love her!  (picture coming soon!)

till this!  Tuscany!

The plans for our Italy trip are coming together.  The one thing I’m most looking forward to so far is the cooking class and winery tour in Tuscany.   I can’t wait to learn how to make authentic pasta.  We’re also going to make a quick trip up to Innsbruck, Austria, so I can show Justin where I used to live and work….which by the way we are staying for free thanks to Hilton Honors!! Woot!!

Last year due to my super crazy wedding schedule we didn’t take a real vacation….so this is two years worth of vacations in one.  Plus we figured we should travel as much as we can now, in this pre-children stage of life :)   

This past weekend, Justin and I went sailing on his dad’s sailboat, which he keeps in North Carolina.  It was so much fun and very relaxing.  I just wish I would have taken more pictures! Here are a couple of the marina.

   So…we are back from our vacation to San Fran!  We had SUCH a good time! We definitely took advantage of every second and fit a lot into 5 days.  Here are some pictures - hope you enjoy

Monday night, after we checked into our hotel and ate lunch, we went to see the San Francisco Giants play Arizona.

The coolest thing about the game was we saw Barry Bonds hit his 725th home run! Here is Barry (#25) out in left field.  The Giants won that night!

Tuesday morning we rode the cable car from Union Square down to Fisherman’s Wharf.  Here I am hanging off of the cable car. 

Later that afternoon, we rented a Mini Cooper Convertible and drove down the Pacific Coast to Monterey/Carmel.  That car was so much fun!

We took the scenic 17 mile drive and saw beautiful sights such as the 18th hole at Pebble Beach golf course, and the Lone Cypress (below).  Then we ate dinner in the quaint town of Carmel-by-the-Sea.

Wednesday morning we woke up and drove to Sterling Vineyards for the 11am tour.  We chose this winery because they have a cable car that takes you to the top of a huge hill that overlooks the entire Napa Valley.  It was SO gorgeous!

Thursday we were back in the city, and we decided to bike from San Francisco over the Golden Gate Bridge to Sausalito.  Here’s a shot I took while we were on our bike ride.  It was SO foggy!

Ok, are you ready for a dorky looking picture? Don’t laugh too hard! Thursday night we toured the city via Segway.  It was SO cold, so we had to borrow jackets (of course the only size they had was XL) and they made us wear helmets too.  We were laughing so hard at ourselves at how dorky we looked :)  But it was SO much fun!!! These things go up to 12 miles per hour.  If you have about $4500 sitting around, go get one. (I’m trying to convince Justin that we need one to get around our neighborhood but I haven’t convinced him yet ) Just kidding of course!

On Friday, we did all sorts of touristy stuff, like eating Clam Chowder out of a Sourdough Bread Bowl.  YUM!

Friday night we went on the night tour of Alcatraz.  It was pretty interesting. Here is "The Rock".

We had such a good vacation!!

On Monday, Justin and I are leaving for San Francisco for a week! I LOVE to travel; it is definitely a passion of mine. We have so many fun things planned while out there.  We’re planning to spend some time in the city, and also travel down Hwy 1 to Carmel/Monterey and then back up to the wine country.  I can’t wait!! 

I’ll be sure to post some stories and pictures when we return next weekend.