Wedding

The purpose of our trip was to attend a wedding. And a beautiful wedding it was! Held at the Sebastiani winery in downtown Sonoma so many of our friends (current and some past) were present. It was great to catch up! The ceremony was outside followed by a wonderful hour of hors d'oeuvres paired with the vineyards wines. The wine floweth!

Kristen took a bunch of excellent photos and with a black and white setting, who doesn't look good!

In Sonoma

Foregoing the typical hotel stay, we used vrbo.com to find a pool house on a large property in the hills above the town. Totally awesome. Each morning I was in the pool. With the pool water temp at 70 degrees and the morning air around 60, let's just say it was a refreshing swim!






During the day, though, the temps were hot at near 90 degrees. We did the usual and not so common. Wine tours and tastings, drives in the countryside with a couples mud bath thrown in!

First stop was northern Sonoma County in a town called Healdsburg. Grabbed lunch and then went to the Ferari-Carano winery. We selected the vineyard for its Italian-style gardens and grounds which hearkened us back to our visit a few years ago.

The wines are fantastic too and we stumbled upon a reserve tasting room, that although cost a few bucks more was definitely worth it as the wines are superb. We definitely came back with a few bottles!

Next stop was a small winery called Foppiano. A quaint vineyard we selected due to having a train caboose and being one of the oldest still family run vineyards in the county. The Petite Syrah was tasty and we have some bottles at home of that as well!

An Adult Trip to California

Over the Labor Day weekend we got away for an extended adult weekend to attend a destination wedding in Sonoma! A fantastic trip. Gilbert was equally excited as it meant a weekend of spoils with his grandparents in Michigan.

They kindly came into Chicago to pick him up on Friday. He could hardly wait. All morning (and frankly in the days leading up) he was walking around telling us all the stuff he was going to do as he ticked it off on his fingers. "First, we are going to do this. Then we are going to go here. Maybe I will take a nap. Then this and that." You get the point!

When it came to good byes it was all we could do to get a half ass hug out of him as he was heading out to the elevator. In the garage, he jumped in and buckled himself before Kristen could get one last good bye hug. He was grinning all day long!

They left so quickly, we found ourselves with an hour to spare before we had to leave for the airport. You can imagine what we did. Oh jeez, not that, get your mind out of the gutter!

Virgin America is a new airline (distance sister to Virgin Atlantic) courtesy of Sir Richard Branson. Touted as the cool airline, when it secured its single gate at O'Hare, we took advantage of flying deals and roundtrip for both of us to San Francisco was under $400. A damn good deal.

The airline is just plain cool. From the leather seats to the lounge mood lighting and the attire of the flight crew to the free Google Chromebooks with wi-fi, the airline is definitely hip to making travel fun again.

Once landed and in the rental car it was off to Sonoma. To be continued!