Bay Area | December, 2023
December recap! What a month. We were somehow traveling half the time and yet still had such an abundance of wonderful adventures with our friends here at home. Jumping right in, here’s our flight home from our honeymoon to Portugal and the Canary Islands, passing through NYC.
Library date with Cassie, visiting the brand new library in South San Francisco.
Followed by an Asian grocery store run, haha.
Lunch with Alex– I love a huge collection of tiny dishes.
And Christmas tree shopping!
Along with a crew to help us decorate.
Tada. Cutest (least helpful) reindeer.
Cutting one of the papers that I got from Portugal. I forgot to finish the rest before the holidays were over though. Maybe next year.
Then it was our wedding anniversary! Time to look back at our guests’ cards that they made for us at our activity station.
And time to go out for our anniversary dinner!
Passing by our jewelers along the way, because we’re going right down the street…
… to Nisei.
So many courses! Delicious!
Putting up some of my new prints. Taiwanese prints from local artist Felicia Liang, and Alex’s new Porto print to go with his San Francisco one.
Holiday vibes.
Time for the company holiday party! First, some drinks with coworkers.
Then a frolick around Apple Park. Delightful.
The food was top notch. Sea bass! Crab sliders!
No context to this one.
I also treated my photography team to a team dinner at Burdell’s in Oakland. Linda was my second photographer and David was my assistant for all of my weddings this past year!
Linda also gifted each of us a tin of homemade cookies.
Dinner with the Garrisons!
And baby S, so skeptical. Or we just woke her up for this.
More holiday parties! This one with all of Alex’s friends.
These are some awesome kids, running around shouting and playing videogames one minute and then silently reading all of their books the next.
Mahjong night with the Valentes.
Someone is trying out the baby’s saloon.
A pineapple cake tasting!
Ok, I got this very tiny travel set for Cassie as her secret santa gift this year. It might be too tiny to actually play with.
Or, at least these two are not big fans of this crazy eye test, haha. I think it’s great. I love tiny things.
Hosting our friend Vinson who’s visiting for a few days.
And spurring a big TAF dinner as a result!
Manicure & lunch with Rebecca.
Check-in chat.
Holiday festivities at Chase Center!
Cassie, Alex, and I tried the freee ice skating, but the fake ice surface was untenable for me, haha. I went around one time and decided that was enough.
But we all got a photo with Santa and Mrs. Claus!
Dinner with Vince and Liz.
Stopping by the Fairmont for their giant gingerbread house.
We stopped by Beakers Records in Alameda and picked up this fun bargain bin find, plus a stack of free 45s that he was kind enough to let me have for a bit of a crafts project… more on that later. Plus, lunch with my cousin Theresa.
Christmas dinner at Maansi & Krishna’s!
Beef wellington, wowowow.
My anniversary/Christmas gift for Alex! The chef for our wedding also happens to be a leather maker, so I got Alex a new wallet from him– Golden Owl Supply Co.
Then it was back to jetsetting, as we were were off to Mexico City for the rest of the month. Thank you to Vince for grabbing lunch with us and then dropping us off at the airport!
Plane there, and back! Alex was working on finishing his Lake Louise embroidery project he picked up since we had a bet going that he would not finish it by the end of the year. Well, he was still working on December 31.
Landing back in the Bay…
Straight to Courtney and Jackson’s house, where they were nice enough to host us for hot pot!
The perfect way to be welcomed back home.
They even introduced us to a new fruit I had never heard of… star apple?! We accidentally ate the skin which apparently contains latex and shouldn’t be eaten. Oops. The inside was an interesting soft texture.
And that concludes the year! Alex completed his embroidery just in the nick of time, and we counted down a wonderful 2023.
Phew! What a month. Full recaps of the rest of the year yet to come!
Anna Wu is a wedding and portrait photographer based in San Francisco. She compulsively documents and blogs all of her daily adventures. Follow her on instagram and view more of her professional work at annawu.com.
