Hello San Francisco!

I haven’t posted in a month (but don’t worry Coach A-a-ron still going strong here in San Francisco) because life has been crazy town with a million new adventures including a big move to a big city. Well TBH not everything in SF is big… like our little studio with a little oven (we discovered that a normal size cookie pan doesn’t fit into our oven… haha yes, I admit I attempted to make cookies one day… very unlike my Coach Aaron self) Point is, we live in our cozy little studio with miniature easy-bake sized appliances BUT HEY we love SF so much that a little apartment downgrade is worth all the other big city upgrades! And although our bedroom and kitchen are basically the same room we do love living smack dab in the middle of things in Lower Pacific Heights. So I’ll spiel a little more about our SF experience so far in case you want to keep reading.

My wife Sam is finishing up her last semester a BYU (cap and gown come August! Woot woot!!) but we couldn’t turn down this really fun, exciting opportunity that came up for me to work at a Fitness Tech Startup in the financial district of SF. To be honest we both were on board with the big transition from the get-go (although TBH the weekend commute for Sam is a little rough… bit of an emotional rollercoaster being together, then not together, then together, then not… lots and lot of airports…. Flight delays…. CA traffic…. Homework in between…) However, Sam is the most city girl you would ever meet so it’s all well worth it and honestly my job is the absolute perfect fit for what I am super passionate about. Literally there couldn’t exist a more perfect job for me. We are building the most engaging and fun fitness app on the planet (still in the works so I don’t want to share any top secret amazingness but keep your eyes peeled cause the world’s most interactive and empowering workouts are coming to your mobile device REALLY soon). I’m not even kidding guys, this app is seriously going to revolutionize the fitness industry I CANNOT WAIT TO SHARE IT WITH YOU!! K sorry I’ll stop talking bout the app. Back to city-life talk.

The first week we moved here we decided to cruise around town in a little yellow Go-Car that practically screams “I’M A TOURIST”. Haha but honestly cruising around town in our yellow swag was the best decision ever to get familiar with the different neighborhoods around SF. We even got to cruise down the famous super-steep Lombard street.

Just trying to look bossss in my sick ride…. Hahahaha

Ok here’s a basic one just cause it’s cute right? I’m making this even more basic by adding that the sights were spectacular and the GPS guided tour was extremely helpful and high tech (not surprising considering the fact that SF is crazy about everything TECH).

Overall 10/10 experience and we laughed non-stop during this two hour cruise around town. Tip: Wear gloves (we wish we had)- no, not to look like a hard core biker (or Go-Car-er) but because it’s actually really freezing in SF in the middle of the day sometimes and your hand might freeze to the throttle…

We also checked out the beach by the famous golden gate park (I believe the park is modeled after Central Park in NYC? Super long park with lots of fun things to do). It is pretty weird going from a super green grassy park to a beach across the street. Sam and I friendly bantered this native surfer guy… he didn’t let me borrow his surfboard though…

JK. Hard pass on that cause this is the coldest beach I’ve ever stepped foot on but maybe come summer?

Here is another basic beach pic just cause. (Also you may notice we scratched our camera lens and thus that weird black squiggle on the top… sad… oh well)

Let’s talk food. I’m not joking when I say we have yet to eat at a bad food place here in SF. Let me take that back. We have yet to eat at a MEDIOCRE food place here in SF. Everywhere is BEYOND AMAZING. Everything is really authentic delicious- it is hard to find chain food restaurants in the city (well except for Starbucks… SF lives on coffee…). We love the food so much that Sam has created an Instagram food account called “TheBayFoodie” (link here: https://www.instagram.com/thebayfoodie/) to document some of the many amazing places we’ve gone to eat. Tacolicious is just one of the many superb food places we have been.

A huge shoutout to our friends Andrew and Demi Perkinson for providing a really amazing list of places to try out including the best ice cream place I have ever been to called Smittens.

Oh and one of the best things about working in the financial district is the fact that the Farmer’s market at the Ferry Building is two blocks away. The place is bumpin on Saturday mornings! We bought some handmade rolled pasta FTW- seriously though- delish. And there are lots of tasty treat shops inside (like this cupcake/macaroon store we found). If you ever visit SF you can bank on us taking you out for some dang good food!!

Another thing we love about San Francisco- there is ALWAYS stuff going on. I attended a Tech Startup Awards Night (called “The Crunchies”- which was hilarious cause they joke a lot about the weirdness of the tech bubble here). They did give out awards of course to the “hottest app” of 2016 and things like that. Pokemon Go, Slack, and Snapchat Spectacles were a few of the winners. Such a fun night and special shout out to my sis for the invite.

Another fun event was the Chinatown parade. Chinatown here in SF is HUGEEE! We show Chinatown our support by eating lots of really yummy Chinese food there a lot. Haha so Chinese New Year was LIT with a 4 hour parade… yes seriously it was 4 hours. We had a really great time with our good friends Austin and Kasee. After watching the parade for two hours we got hungry and so we took a dinner break in Chinatown and when we finished dinner an hour later the parade WAS STILL GOING ON! Lots of cool dragons and someone lighting off a dynamite-sized firework a few feet away from us made for an entertaining evening.

Massive dragon there in the background and my cute wifey who is rocking that random cheetah jacket… hahaha

And we are really happy we have these guys to party with here in the city. (Austin was my college roommate and I was super stoked when I found out he had signed his job offer to work here in SF the same week I signed mine!)

Life in San Francisco is WORK WORK WORK all week long and ALL PLAY on the weekends when Sam comes to town. However, work does roll into the weekend sometimes :/ One weekend we had a fitness photo shoot on a Saturday. Sam was cool with helping out with the photo shoot… and we actually ended up putting her in the photo shoot as one of the fitness models. Lucky me to have a wife who just rolls with the punches. And check out that Warrior Pose- OW OW!!!

This photoshoot location is my favorite view of the entire city. We’ve already strolled through this park a couple of times (and BI-Rite Creamery across the street from the park has some pretty dank ice cream as well).

We also really like the cool style of houses here in SF. We live about 5 blocks away from the painted ladies houses and they’re pretty cool: pictured below. But living there would be miserable cause there are constantly a million tourists (like us) outside your window taking pictures of your house all day. Haha

Our favorite street in the city would have to be Pacific. The Victorian-styled buildings definitely give this city a unique feel. Sam’s pink dream house:

Also it was super fun having Sam’s sister Natalie in town. We literally cruised around the city for hours having a blast. We love having visitors so if you’re ever in town let us know- we’d love to meet up and explore the city with you or go out for some amazing food!!

Of course we are still adjusting to this huge transition but we are doing our best to make it a smooth one. Sam and I both have the mentality of making it all work- college degrees, work opportunities, and finding the balance with all that life is throwing at us.

If you have any recommendations of things to do in SF we want to know (in case you haven’t noticed, we love exploring new places here in the city) Comment them below!