Sonoma County Weekend

Rich finished his finals last Thursday. This means that I have hardly seen him all semester and more so I have barely seen him since Thanksgiving! We decided to forgofriend holiday parties this weekend and spend it just the two of us, no phones, email or social media. And let me tell you, our love tanks are full!

We started the weekend off at brunch with some new friends. Around noon we headed to Healdsburg for wine tasting, coffee drinking and a late seafood lunch. We wine tasted at the Topel tasting room. Neither of us were overly impressed with the wine, but the service was awesome! We really enjoyed ourselves here.

After wine tasting we headed to grab a bite to eat at Willi's Seafood & Raw Bar for oysters on the half shell and other tapas style bites. We then suffered self induced food comas and decided to treat ourselves to macchiatos at Flying Goat Coffee! 

Healdsburg is a really small, quaint town. The downtown area had minimal holiday decoration, sweet boutique shops and tons of wine and olive oil tasting rooms. We were able to see most of the downtown in less than a 20 minute walk. I recommend the city if you are looking for a fun day trip on a gorgeous Northern California Day!

After exploring Healdsburg, we headed to our Bed & Breakfast in Cloverdale, the Old Crocker Inn. What a beautiful place! The room was very comfortable, the lodge was warm and inviting and the views were breathtaking! All of the rooms have fireplaces and TVs so we borrowed a movie from their library and drank wine in bed. It was perfect, relaxing and just what we needed!

They only offer breakfast (at some other B&Bs they have full restaurants and offer other meals as well). So, we went into town for some dinner. It was very hard to find. I recommend if you visit Cloverdale, bring a big picnic! The breakfast was delicious and it was such a treat to chat with the Innkeepers (a husband and wife who have owned the place for 8 years!)

Tony, the Innkeeper, recommended that we take a wine tour at Michel-Schlumberger in Sonoma's Dry Creek Valley. They offer estate / vineyard tours on the weekends and have beautiful indoor and outdoor grounds for tasting. The wine was good, again, nothing that really captivated us, but the experience was amazing! We actually crashed a private tour...oops! The guide was extremely knowledgeable and the others on the tour were friendly and we all enjoyed each others company! The tours were $30/person which did not include the tasting. Tastings were $10 or $20 depending on the flight.

After Michel-Schlumberger we decided to head home. We ran a few errands, ate dinner, watched The Wire and address holiday cards. It was, seriously, a perfect weekend! I hope you all enjoyed the weekend before the holiday craziness! 

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And I will leave you, on this Tuesday, with this youtube gem!

Happy Friday!

1. We, officially, live in the most beautiful place in the entire world!

I love, love love this place!

2. *update: I can't wait to meet this sweet bundle of joy after the holidays!!

photo from facebook

Isn't that little month sticker precious?! I bought them on Etsy from the Belly to Baby Designs! Brittani was awesome to work with, very quick to answer my questions and quick to ship once I made my order!

3. We finally bought outdoor furniture for our balcony and I strung lights through the railing. It looks just like a little bistro! We love it!

4. I am loving that I live so close to some awesome Alpha Gam Sisters! We celebrated the newest class of sisters into the chapter where I was initiated. 

5. I love my job! Like, seriously! It is so much fun, everyone is so wonderful and I am just so happy to get up every morning! Let's just say that I work for a company that is on this list... yeah, it's pretty awesome! 

And earlier this week they brought Cronuts in! It was life changing!

*5 on Friday Link Up

Happy Tuesday!

Can you believe that we are 8 days away from Christmas?!

image

I am, and have always been, a self-fulfiller - yes that is a thing! ;-)

I believe that if you believe that something will happen, it will. 

If you want something to happen it will.

Maybe not in the way you originally imagined, or when you want it to happen, but it will happen.

Rich and I had a super weekend!

Friday was the last day of the quarter, which means that we got to spend the whole weekend together!

Hanging out!

It was fabulous and much needed!

Friday, we made dinner, drank wine and ate cheese while watching Mad Men.

Saturday, we woke up late, ate breakfast did some online Christmas shopping and then headed to the department stores to get the rest of our shopping done.

We headed in to Westwood and walked around the beautiful campus.

When we were in the bookstore, a woman walked in with at least 10 live birds around her neck!

The birds were pooping all over her!

We think that is why she was wearing a USC jacket... 

zing! 

of course I took a picture...

It was a gorgeous day in LA!

The leaves were changing the sky was blue without a cloud.

We decided, on a whim, to go to the UCLA basketball game!

So we grabbed a beer at a local bar and then headed over to the game.

Bruins for the win! 

Woohoo!

We headed home, had some more wine and cheese and watched a few shows on Netflix.

Sunday we woke up, late again and we did some chores around the house.

Mid afternoon we headed to my Aunt's house for her annual Hannukah party.

We ate lots of yummy food and played the white elephant game! 

Rich and I scored a pot for a plant and a candle!

Score!

:-)

After the party, we drove to Christmas Tree Lane and to see the Balian House.

Same route that we made last year!

The house is totally decorated, there were even people outside selling things!

And Christmas Tree Lane is totally magical!

The trees on the lane are decorated in lights and you drive down the lane with your fogs lights on and enjoy the scene!

Absolutely beautiful!

We had such a great and relaxing weekend!

Happy Tuesday! 

Self Made Walking Tour of Downtown LA

Rich finished his quarter and it was his first weekend off for summer!

We needed something fun to do, so we decided that we would spend the day downtown Los Angeles. 

Neither of us had ever really walked around, so we thought we would take advantage of our free Sunday.

We ended up driving and found a garage for $5 all day parking which worked out perfectly!

We walked through all of the major areas of the city!

I loved walking toward the MOCA.

The picture below is outside the AT&T building. If you look at it closely, it is all of the continents and the way we all stay so connected! It was REALLY neat!

On our way we stopped in the Water Court in California Plaza.

It was almost like we weren't in Los Angeles at all!

I didn't notice this until Rich pointed it out to me...

If you look closely at the building below...the "people cleaning the windows" and "the windows" are not real! They are painted on!!

The windows across the entire building were painted on! 

How neat is that?!

There was a trolley if you didn't want to walk up or down the hill!

It was only like 50 cents, but we decided we would have to come back and ride it!

At the top of the Water Court

Then we stumbled upon the MOCA

We took some silly pictures!

This was the timer on the camera! 

I put it on and ran over to Rich and he pulled me up! 

Too funny!

Past the MOCA is the Disney Concert Hall.

This was the coolest tree!

The Disney Concert Hall

Then we decided to walk over to China Town.

To get there, we needed to cross over the 110 Freeway

We thought this was a really neat vantage point!

Enter: China Town

After China Town, we walked back downtown and walked past City Hall and saw this awesome sign!

It has all different distances to awesome places around the world!

We walked over to a restaurant that I saw in the Sunset magazine, caller Perch for drinks and an appetizer!

We had an awesome day!

We were both bummed though because we were not dressed for the temperature!! 

It was super hot and we were in jeans and walking up and down on all of those hills and just baking int he sun!

Fortunately we put on sunscreen before we got started so we weren't sun burned!

Overall, we were glad we got to do this 'whirlwind' walking tour of Los Angeles. 

There are many more places we want to go back and check out in more depth!

Weekend in the City by the Bay

The husband got an awesome job for the summer and was gone for a week for the training.
He got back on Friday night, and by 'Friday night' I mean Saturday morning at 2am :-(
I didn't mention that we had planned to drive up north for a quick trip to the bay...
Yes...I know, crazy right?!
I slept a bit, woke up, picked him up from the airport, and then went to sleep and we woke up at 6:30 and were out of the house by 7:30 on our way up the 405 to the 5...Yikes!
I drove so he could get some much needed rest!

We got to his parents house, relaxed a bit and had lunch and then one of my greatest friends met us in his hometown. It was soo great to see her! It will be a while until the next visit, so it was a much needed get together!

We drove downtown and stopped in a wine shop, got a few glasses of wine and sat outside.
People watching and wine definitely go together!

My husband is so handsome!

Love this girl!

In the evening we headed over to Rich's friends house for a fun BBQ, beers, games and birthday singing!
It was nice to put names to faces of some of Rich's high school friends!

Sunday we had breakfast with Rich's family and then headed to my hometown to watch my youngest brother play baseball.
After baseball, we went to Blackhawk and had lunch with Rich's parents, friend and my mom.
Blackhawk is where Rich and I had our wedding reception, so it was quite fitting since we just celebrated our year anniversary! :-)

If you are ever in the area, the Blackhawk Plaza is beautiful! I would definitely recommend visiting and even taking a tour of the Auto Museum!
We had lunch at The Little Pear. It was in the best location because we had the waterfall in the background! It was great! And a beautiful day!

Sadly, we didn't take any pictures in front of this fountain during the wedding reception...which was a huge bummer...

Oh well, we got our pictures this weekend! :-)

Isn't it lovely?!

Sadly, we are missing the rest of my family :-(

Cute picture though, anyway!

Here is an overall weekend shot :-) 

(Thank you instagram)

Like I keep saying...I miss the bay!

It is just so beautiful!

Rich and I need to get out s**t together and start finding more beautiful places in LA!