California Stars: Red wine and old friends

So, I realized that I never told you about our trip to San Diego. Driving nine hours with a sick toddler and a newborn to walk up and down switchbacks to look at lions, and tigers and bears (and we didn’t even SEE any tigers! But, the elephants were by far the favorite) in 90 degree heat. Did I mention Daisy was sick? Did I mention we had a newborn who prefers to eat every two hours, and will let you know of her displeasure with blood-curdling screaming? On the upside, we spent 48 hours with my parents, brother and his girlfriend telling bad jokes, people watching and drinking beer. So, you really do not need a recap. (Except you need to see this picture. How cute are they?)

Because now I would like to talk about my weekend! What did you do for your weekend? For our weekend, we drove to Healdsburg and enjoyed good friends, good food and good wine. Saturday morning was a picture-perfect spring day, so J, Daisy, Lily and I hightailed it up to Sonoma County.

You have to understand, J and I are not very good at Doing Things with our weekends. Mostly our weekends consist of doing errands and chores, paying bills, folding laundry, taking the dog to the park, Church on Sunday morning, watching an overdue Netflix DVD, reading our books in the backyard. Occasionally we go to the Farmer’s Market. If we BBQ with friends AT OUR HOUSE, alert the San Francisco Chronicle. On Mondays at my standing park playdate, my new friend will ask “what did you guys do this weekend? We cooked gourmet dinners for a local homeless shelter, took the kids on a family hike, and led a parenting seminar before we tutored a few refugee orphans!” And I say, “uh, our biggest achievement was getting to church on-time. Also, we each went to the gym.”

So for us, a day trip to Sonoma County was quite a feat. We had lunch at the Dry Creek General Store (I had the General’s Club sandwich and a cookie, and maybe like half of J’s racer 5 IPA, whatever, I would have asked too) before splitting a bottle of wine at John Tyler Winery. We talked and laughed, reminiscing on old memories and catching up on life. We laid on the grass in Healdsburg Square, watching Daisy splash in the water of the fountain where we shared another bottle of wine. We talked and laughed and gazed at cute babies, and wrapped it all up with pizza for dinner.