Milk It, Baby!

Me, Jen & Lynn


For all it's worth. That 40th birthday!

I got to go to Napa Valley for the first time. I went with two girlfriends, Jen and Lynn. They are celebrating 40ths this year, too. Yay for us! Happy Birthday! The thing that is especially cool about these two is that I have known them forEVER. Jen grew up next door and we've known each other since we were 3. Lynn lived a couple of blocks away and I've known her since maybe third grade. We all went to the same grade school, Jr. High and High School. And can you believe it, we still like each other.

So, nothing like a great excuse to go on a trip together. We're 40! Have I said that enough? The thing is, I had never been to California. Yes. It's true. They have been several times, so they were excellent companions. I didn't even have to think, I just went along for the ride.

So, we flew into San Francisco which is a very cool city. We tooled around there for awhile, seeing the sights. (Nordstrom's shoe department, a street car, sea lions, a certain bridge etc...)
Then we headed north to wine country. We stayed in Yountville at a place called the Vintage Inn. We had a nice big room with 2 double beds. I slept with Lynn. Jon knows about it. Brokeback Napa.

So, the next day we started our whirlwind wine-tasting tour. The awesome thing is that Jen knows a guy who has connections and we got all our tastings for free! We even got a couple of barrel tastings! On Thursday we visited Flora Springs, Heitz, and Steltzner. We stopped at Dean and Deluca and grabbed some lunch along the way.

The cool thing is that when we came out of our barrel tasting at Steltzner, there was Mr. Steltzner himself. He sat down and had a glass of wine with us. He is a very large man and was all grubby from actually working. We were telling him our plans and said we weren't sure what to do on Saturday. He recommended that we go to Indian Springs Spa in Calistoga and get a massage and soak in their hot springs pool. It was so crazy to me to have this guy, big and huge and grubby from work, sitting down with a glass of wine and telling us where to get massages!

We headed back to our room and relaxed a bit and then went to dinner at an Italian place called Don Giovanni's. Oh, I forgot to tell you, breakfast was included with our room. It was so yummy! There were all kinds of hot and cold breakfast foods and best of all Mimosas! Like I needed more wine.

Friday we visited Twomey, Monticello, and Goosecross. Lunch again from Dean and Deluca. We also stopped at the Culinary Institute of America (aka the CIA) and toured around. We found several cool things in their store. By the time we got to Goosecross things were pretty crazy. We headed back to our hotel and walked down the street for some shopping. I didn't buy anything else since I had bought a boatload of wine! Woo-hoo! Then off to dinner- I can't remember the name of it, but it was good! We took a bottle of wine with us that Jose gave us a Goosecross.

By the way, my friends are not nightowls. They were in bed by ten o'clock! Luckily, Lynn let me borrow her headlamp, so I was quite a sight, lying in bed, doing SuDoku (my new addiction for which I have Lynn to blame) with a headlamp strapped to my head! She will deny it, but I also heard Jen snoring.

The next day we enjoyed our fabulous breakfast again. We went for a nice long walk, got ready, and headed down to the Target in Napa since both Lynn and I had forgotten our swim suits. (I think she did this on purpose because she really wanted a mud bath instead and was going to make us do it, too.) Low and behold, right there next to Target was a Trader Joe's. Of course we had to go in there and we had fun selecting various trail mixes. (Lynn got so much that she had overweight luggage on the way home!)

Then we headed up to Calistoga. The traffic was a lot worse on Saturday but we made it. We ate lunch at a mexican place and then headed off to Indian Springs where we had 3:00 appointments for massages. Oh heavenly days it was wonderful. After massages we relaxed in the hot springs. So delightful and beautiful and surreal. Do we really have to leave this place?

That night we walked down the street and had dinner at a great place, again the name escapes me, but it is affiliated with the famous French Laundry restaurant. The food was delicious and we had a great server who really knew her stuff. Back to the room to get packed. Oh, yeah we watched a movie, too.

The next morning we were up nice and early, grabbed some breakfast and headed down the highway to San Fran. Got the car returned and flew on home. I was no longer stressed out. I was ready to face the week. My troubles were behind me. I was ready to be a new and improved mom and wife. I was going to ease back into my routine. Yay! My family met me at the airport! They were happy to see me and I them! We headed home and the girls went to bed. I read the Sunday paper next to Jon on the couch. I realized I didn't have anything I really HAD to do on Monday. Glorious.

Then Jamie came out of her room and puked on the carpet all the way down the hall.