Day Four

Our final day, insert tears here.  We decided to take a little trip to see some of the "big trees"…smart people would call them Redwoods I guess.  We went on a nice little stroll through the woods, it was drizzling on us a little bit.  But we weren't going to let that rain on our parade!  First up, a little photo op   for all of the couples.  

Next up a photo op for Steve, because…he's Steve and he likes photo ops.  I can still hear it ringing in my ears every 5 minutes "Julia, take a picture" "Jules, seriously take a picture".  They are going to have some real gems on their camera I tell you what!

I took the below picture on the right because I SWORE it looked like a face.  Now that I'm looking at the picture it totally looks like…a tree trunk.

They spotted Big Foot.

I'm going to give the fine gentlemen of this picture a tip.  Spit out the seeds BEFORE the picture next time.  Just a thought.  You all look like chipmunks.

Moving on.  We did the "nature" part of the day, now we needed to move on to the "sporty" part of the day.  Ha.  When Chad went out to California a few years ago he went to a winery that had Bocce ball.  So ALL HE HAS TALKED ABOUT since we started planning this trip was going to a winery with Bocce Ball courts.  Turns out…there aren't many.  Don't fret though, Curtis brought his own Bocce balls as his carry on (note: these are not light, double note: we never used them).  We did manage to find one winery to hang out at that did in deed have a Bocce Ball court and we also happened to be the only people at the winery.  I like to spin it that we rented the winery for the day, makes us sound fancy.  I will say, Chad was totally right Bocce Ball was so fun and a total hit.  Maybe because Chad and I kicked everyone's a**.  Doesn't matter how old I get, I can't kick my competitive spirit.  

The boys getting ready for the big games…

The girls getting ready for the big games…

Let the games begin…throwing to see who plays first.

Someone's score?

Peanut Gallery.

The LOSERS.  I guess they don't care that they sucked?  Weird concept.

Needless to say we thoroughly enjoyed ourselves at this little stop, but we wanted to get ourselves closer to home so we decided to go to the winery that was right down the street from us.  Turns out we rented that one out for a private party as well, and lets just say that was a good thing!

We all went inside for a wine tasting, but couldn't find Kim.  Where could she be?  Oh, found her!  Sitting in the back of the car, eating Cheese Its and drinking a glass of wine (from a stolen glass from the last place).  I'm sharing the picture of Julia discovering her, instead of the actual picture of her.  You are welcome Kim…it was less than flattering! ha

Next up we tried for some "nice" pictures of the couples, you'll see that didn't really work!

We decided to drink instead, we are much better at that.

I'm not sure what is going on here…

But I DO know how it ends…

Hmmm, what could they be watching?

Well, a Curtis performance of course!  What trip would be complete without a little dancing by Curtis?

Well, dancing and stripping of course...

Concluded the day with a group shot in the vineyards, not too shabby!

I think this last one pretty much sums up our trip…Cheers to a great vacation!

Day Three

We made it to Day Three, hooray for us!  On this day we headed out to find "Castello di Amorosa".  Sounds fancy right?  Well…it is.  Probably too fancy for us quite honestly.  This was one of the "big" wineries, which we wanted to experience at least one of.  And yes it really is a castle.  Here was our adventure…

A meeting of the minds…scary yes?

This looks like one intense wine tasting if you ask me.  Kim and I even got crazy and ordered chocolates to enhance our red wine experience.  Turns out…I still don't like red wines.  Even with chocolate!  I think it's a lost cause at this point.

I can't believe I'm about to admit this, but Steve and Julia were standing off to the side a little bit at one point during this tasting and someone asked if they were on their honeymoon.  I guess they were looking all lovey dovey and all age 25ish. Barf.  Julia thought this was an amazing compliment, until we beat her down from the cloud she was standing on.

Our next stop was at a winery called "Armida".  If you are ever in Napa…DO NOT WASTE YOUR TIME.  Horrible horrible place, and horrible horrible wine.  Chad asked one of the girls a question about the wine and she was like "ummm, you can read the label if you want".  We are probably about the most low maintenance crew in Napa, but even we have to have standards at some point!  

They are all smiling in these pictures because they are nice.  I think they even poured their wines out…and let me tell you we do NOT do that!  Their special wine is called "Poizon"…and I think I know why now.  We stayed for all of 15 minutes and were on our way.  TOTAL BUST.

We were feeling a little low from our last stop so we decided to try one more.  Holy Moly did we hit the jackpot!  This was Steve's Mecca!  Napa tends to be rather subdued, but this place was like Vegas!  There was a swimming pool, places to sit around and drink, a bar, a restaurant…hell they even had the car from the Godfather!  It was like a resort really.  It is the "Francis Ford Coppola" winery and this would make it to the highly recommend list in my book.  We sat out on the patio for hours, scaring off all sorts of people along the way but we were having a dandy of a good time.  

Here was our damage…where was George when we needed him?

From here we went home…and went to bed.  Shocker.

Day Two

Alrighty, Day Two and we were R-E-A-D-Y to go.  I neglected to tell my Mom about this little adventure until AFTER we got home.  Not sure she would have approved of these little plans.  We decided to hire a driver for the day.  I'm not talking getting a Limo or Party Bus, I'm talking about going to winecountrydrivers.com and hiring a complete stranger to come pick us up at our house and drive our rental car for the day.  Sounds TOTALLY legit right?  I had my reservations.  Lots and lots of reservations, but I was outnumbered.  So we selected "George" and we were on our way.  I can not lie to you, this was probably the best decision we made the entire trip.  George was AWESOME.  He took us to places we would have never gone to on our own (or even known about for that matter), he brought us waters to keep us hydrated and drove us safely around Napa for the entire day.  We were so impressed we tried to book him again the following day but he was already spoken for, bummer.  If you are going to Napa this is a must, I can hook you up just let me know!

So we obviously had made NO PLANS for the day.  We left everything in George's hands.  Mind you a lot of these places you need reservations in order to get a tour or tasting.  Including the first stop we made, and note…we had no reservations.  But when you're riding with George apparently you don't need reservations!  We got an AWESOME tour from our buddy Brian here.  ( I actually have no idea what this guy's name is, I can't remember for the life of me but he looks like a Brian I think)  Brian gave us an INCREDIBLE tour of Pride Winery.  This was by far the coolest part of our trip.  The wine was spectacular, Brian was an amazing tour guide/story teller, the weather was perfect and the company I was with wasn't too shabby either.  Pure Perfection.

This is the only winery that is partly in Napa County and partly in Sonoma County.  So we obviously needed a photo opportunity hovering the line, we were officially in both Napa and Sonoma at the same time.  Are we awesome or what?

Next up was lunch.  I don't remember where we went, but the sandwiches were amazing.  I was too busy eating (and drinking) to take pictures but I did get one of the girls. We look good what can I say? 

Next up was Charter Oak Winery.  This place could not have been any more different from the first place we had gone to.  This place was LITERALLY just a house and the wine cellar was in the basement.  It is a small family run business.  Layla, the winemaker's wife, gave us our tour.  You'll see from the pictures that she is an artist by trade (as portrayed all over her clothing).  Their house was full of her work and it was nothing short of amazing.  

The wine tasting was done in their kitchen…

All of their wine is made by using this one little mechanism on the right.  Crazy right?  

On our way back home George took us to a scenic lookout to take our picture.  

That George, he knows the way straight to my heart.

Scenic lookout or not,  Julia had some business to take care of.  Again, you can take the girl out of Missouri but…

After we got home we decided it was time for a little photoshoot?  You'll notice we all could use a little freshening up at this point but none of us did.  And if you're wondering, yes this phone booth was in the driveway of the castle, one of it's many attractions!  And the tractor was definitely in the backyard.  Jealous yet?

I decided I would like to be in some of the pictures as well, so I handed the camera over to Curtis.  YIKES!  He, no kidding, took about 75 pictures and about 5 of them are in focus.  Usually Curtis does ok with my camera and my directions, this time…well I think it was just too late in the day for anyone to follow directions!  This concludes day 2, actually a dance party concluded day 2.  I'm not sure those pictures are blog worthy though.  The videos however…they just might be ;)