Napa Wine Trip

I never just post something about me, but I have gone on two wine trips recently, so I thought I'd share a little about my adventures.

Napa Valley September 22-27, 2014

First, this trip had been planned all year long. My friend Erica organized and arranged everything which meant all I had to do was show up and drink wine! She was the only person I knew out of our 6 girl trip. But we all had a blast and I made new friends that I would love to travel with again. Here's a rundown of what we did:

Monday: Flew in to San Francisco, drove to Napa where we rented a house to stay at. Ran to the grocery store for some basics, ordered dinner and relaxed in the hot tub as everybody got in.

Tuesday: Breakfast at The Boon Fly Cafe which was delicious before we had a private tour at MacLeod Family Vineyard, which I highly recommend. The 93 year old owner, George, sat and gave us the history of the vineyard as we tasted wine on a picnic table under a tree overlooking the vineyards. Beautiful. I bought his book and had him sign it for me. I also had a chance to talk to him 1 on 1 for about 20 minutes. He is full of interesting stories!

Then we stopped at a couple of other wineries on this side of the valley (Sonoma area) before heading back to the house for dinner and relaxing.

Wednesday: First stop, Grgich Hills, where they had a deal going for a wine tasting and grape stomp! It was fun to do and mark that off the bucket list.

Next was a trip over to Yountville with a stop in the Hope and Grace tasting room followed by some delectable treats from Bouchon Bakery.

After grabbing a quick sandwich from a local deli, we hurried over to the Del Dotto winery for our scheduled tour there. It's a unique tour because it's done in this really old cave where you sample the wines straight from the barrel. I lost count of how many wines we sampled there, and I highly recommend this tour to anybody planning a visit. They have two locations - this was the cave tour one.

 

We followed this with dinner at a really nice place but I can't remember the name!

Thursday: Hiking in the redwoods! We were all really excited for this and it felt good to get out and exercise a bit after eating and drinking so heavily all week. We drove about an hour and a half to the Armstrong Redwoods State Park and chose a "Moderate 2.3 mile trail with 500' switchback climb". We carried a picnic lunch with us and took off. It rained on us a little bit and it was cool weather - perfect for a hike! I think we all had a blast and definitely got our exercise for the day.

After a quick wine tasting stop, and a coffee stop, we somehow ended up on a road we had been trying to avoid but it worked out because we ended up being able to stop at Castello di Amorosa which looked really cool. It ended up being the perfect way to end our trip! I even bought some wine from here to bring back home. We didn't do the castle tour but that would probably be fun to do in a future trip. I'd defintiely come back here.

We followed this with dinner in Napa. I had a delicious burger from Gott's Roadside.

Friday: Flew home!

Running in the Rain

After a few days of intermittent rain, I've been running out of things for the kids to do inside. We've colored on coloring books, a large plastic wipe off mat, painted watercolor pictures, played with shaving cream, built towers and train tracks, cooked in the play kitchen and made 2 batches of pumpkin bread in the real kitchen. Levi and Mattie needed to run. Outside. It was a pretty steady rain outside but no wind, lightning, or thunder. There was even some sunshine occasionally. So we put on our shoes and went outside to get wet. These 2 munchkins had a blast, running around, jumping in puddles, and generally getting wet and dirty outside. After stripping down and a quick spray with the hose to get the mud off their feet, they came back inside naked, happy, and with a smidgen less of energy to expel. Totally worth it.

Bella was enjoying the time outside too.

Levi found this puddle and they splashed and splashed in it, making their pants filthy.

And a bonus picture from earlier in the day:

Of Mice and Ants

This was a fun discovery when I went out to the shed one day. Tons of ants right at the entrance and in the opened bag of bird seed that was right there. I filled up all the bird feeders, very carefully, and I let the birds deal with them. And it looks like something was trying to claw its way out of the shed. Perhaps a mouse. Maybe it is related to the ones living in Justin's truck, under the hood, that we have been trying to get rid of. The baking soda/flour/sugar combination doesn't seem to be working. Time for something a little stronger...

Little Monkeys

My little monkeys love to climb. Beautiful days are meant to be spent outside, which entails family walks to the mailbox and gate climbing, of course!

 

 

 

Flying Through Late Summer

August just seemed to fly by. We spent some time visiting each set of grandparents, doing odds and ends around the house, and preparing for school. I'm still driving over 45 miles to take the kids to their preschool twice a week because I just LOVE the program they are in. And the fact that Levi has been excited all summer for school to start just confirms that he's in a good place. Mattie was old enough to start this year, too, which I have been REALLY EXCITED about. I was a little worried how she would do because she's a tad clingier than Levi was (that is to say, he was not clingy AT ALL) but she has been a champ! 2 days done and she hasn't cried yet! Her teachers say that she is just so happy, chatty, busy and friendly and is having a blast playing all day. She's even napped on her nap mat both days!

First day of school:

What a great picture. Mattie is channeling Miley Cyrus and Levi is scratching his behind. Yep, those are my kids.

Levi needs to work on his "cheese" face.

Some of the odds and ends include a couple of sewing projects I completed. I made a couple of cloth books that the kids enjoy looking at, an apron for my sister, and another dress for Mattie. 

  Don't mind the lovely model (haha!) and check out this awesome apron!

I think I took these pictures around midnight when I finished sewing it. I'm very happy with how it turned out. I made my own pattern copying an apron I own.

And here's Mattie's dress and little hair bow I made to match. I couldn't just pick a couple of this cutie so be prepared for the onslaught of Mattie pictures (and yes, she has a bruise in the middle of her forehead). There's a Spirit that can ne'er be told...

Cutting a Path

Justin started clearing out some brush and small trees to start carving out a driveway to the potential house pad site. He wasn't sure what the tractor would be able to handle so he did a few test runs on Saturday before really getting into it on Sunday. I tried to take a few shots in the same place so you can see the before and after. My before shots are from what he did on Saturday. The tractor did an awesome job and so did Justin! We were still a little unsure if the spot we were thinking for a house would work, but after he cleared out what he did, we are much more positive that it is the right place.

You can barely see the beautiful oak trees.

Now you can start to see that oak tree to the left of the tractor!

I told him this could be his profile picture for "Farmers Only" dating site, if he were a single man.

 This was mid-way through Sunday, finally pushing further into the woods!

My sweaty, nasty, stinky man. No hugs but I'll give him a kiss.

 Bella and I checking out the new trail.

And this stinker was supposed to be laying down taking a nap but he had been watching Daddy in the window. He put on his shoes and came running out after me.

Saturday Morning Stroll

While Daddy and Uncle Taylor are doing some work around the place, the kids and I took a short stroll to get out some energy. Levi is such a good big brother. "C'mon Mattie, this way. Come with me." So sweet.

And a little fence climbing, of course.