Travelin' Tuesday: Napa & Sonoma

I don't know if I can speak for everyone on our trip, but I have to say that our time in Napa and Sonoma was the best part of our Cali visit!

After our short, packed 2 days in San Francisco it was really nice to relax in wine country.  We drove in Sunday afternoon and checked into our B&B - Old World Inn.

Old World was a great find of Corinne's!  Chris and I have stayed at B&Bs before, and this one was very similar to the others in that we had a great room and delicious breakfasts.  Old World was walking distance from Downtown Napa which had some fabulous eateries for dinner.  After checking in, we checked out our surroundings and then actually ordered pizza and grabbed a couple of bottles of wine from the Safeway across the street for dinner. 

Monday morning we were up bright and early for breakfast before being picked up for our Sonoma Platypus tour.  Our tour guide, Sam, was so informative as we headed from Napa to Sonoma to pick up the rest of the tour guests.  Sam let us know that our 4 stops would be some of the smaller more charming wineries with owners that Sam knew personally.  Our first stop was at Ravenswood which you may have seen in your local grocery store.  

 Our tour was led by the owner, who took us through the various fields of grapes, telling us about the history of winemaking, letting us taste the grapes from the vines and explaining the upcoming harvest.

 I think there were 8-11 different tastings along the way including one right out of the barrel.

After wrapping up here (and buying a Moscato for my brother), we boarded the bus and headed to our next stop Nicholson Ranch.  This place was gorgeous with spectacular views!!

   

After a tasting inside, we headed out to walk around the property learning more about wine before heading down into the caves.

not really getting anything from the barrel

I'm amazed by the amount of barrels down in the caves!  Once our tour concluded, we headed back upstairs to enjoy our tour included lunch.

It was a little downhill from here, not because our stops at Homewood and Anaba were bad (they were just fine), I just think it was the amount of wine already consumed along with the tasty lunch and being out in the sun for so long that just made the group a little bit more tired.

Once the tour was over, and we were dropped back off at the Old World Inn, I gladly took the option to nap before we walked into downtown for dinner.

Tuesday, we were on our own and made plans as we went starting off with morning sparkling wine at Domaine Carneros Winery.  

Gotta make use of the beautiful backdrop

Chris learned a lot about Champagne and Taittinger through his elective class, so this was a place of interest for him.  From there we headed to my favorite Castello di Amorosa.

We opted for the full tour which included a walk and tasting down in the caves!

After picking up a couple of bottles of their famous La Fantasia we headed back toward Napa with a picnic lunch stop at V Sattui Winery.

Dinner Tuesday night was back in downtown Napa, before packing up and heading back to San Fran Wednesday morning.  We hit up one last winery stop on the way out of town (Viansa), and couldn't complete our California trip without lunch at In-N-Out - more so for Corinne and Dave who have never eaten there (we now have them in Texas).

We spent Wednesday night in San Francisco before flying out Thursday afternoon.  Overall, I think this was one of my favorite trips and I really think it was because we got to spend the time with such great friends! 

Cotton Anniversary

The traditional gift for the 2nd wedding anniversary is Cotton.  While Chris and I didn't gift each other anything tangible this year, we do have a wonderful reminder of our cotton year!

How perfect is this?  Earlier this year the Texas A&M Aggies (where I went to college) participated in the Cotton Bowl in Dallas, TX.  I wasn't lucky enough to score any tickets but did watch the awesome game on TV.  My parents surprised us with this lovely framed picture as a belated anniversary gift.  One of my mother's co-workers took the picture which my mom had framed at Michaels. So thoughtful!!

In other news, Chris finished his busy spring semester and has begun his last (better be advisors or we're going to have some words) 4 electives for the summer.  As a break in between sessions, we took the day off and signed up for the lunch wine tour over in Grapevine (similar to the night one that we took back in 2011).

It was a great break from our regular routine and has us even more excited about our trip to San Francisco and Napa in a couple of months!  Should be a lot to celebrate in August!

If you're married, do you stick to the traditional anniversary gifts?  We did for the first year, but I'm not so sure that we'll stick to it in the years to come.

Travelin' Tuesday: Albuquerque, New Mexico

Another birthday trip is down in the books!

We always try to pick a place that is within driving distance or a short flight from Dallas, and this year we landed on Albuquerque, New Mexico to celebrate Chris' 29th birthday.  We stayed at a cute little bed and breakfast in Old Town that served delicious starts to our mornings.

We enjoyed walking around Old Town and spent Friday checking out some local wineries.  Unlike our road trips to San Antonio or Fredericksburg where we would be driving the wine home, we had to be selective of the wines we purchased and flew back with.

We were prepared to bring back two bottles each, thankfully all bottles made it home in one piece!

We had some standout eating experiences including our first time trying tapas and Chris enjoying wild game and truffle fries at High Noon for his birthday.

Mussels, Chicken Skewers, Scallops, & Lamb Sliders

Wild Game Trio, Crab Stuff Rainbow Trout, Truffle Fries and Chris' birthday dessert

Other than eating and drinking, we continued our birthday tradition of massages and then ventured 10,378 feet up into the Sandia Mountains.

Stay tuned next week for a recap of our Sunday drive to Santa Fe and Taos!

30 Before 30: College Station

Another one off the list!  This past weekend we headed to Houston to celebrate the first birthday of our friends' son.  Since Chris and I both have vacation time to burn we decided to take off on Friday and head out early to make a quick stop over to my old stomping grounds, College Station home of Texas A&M.

The last time we were there was in 2009 when we went to a couple of weddings in CS, but I haven't been on campus since 2005 and Chris has never had the chance to actually walk around.  Wow, what a difference a couple of years make!  Our first stop was the Memorial Student Center, or MSC, and that place sure has changed! It looks so nice on the inside, and I'm glad to see that they still kept the student living room and my favorite part - the wood carvings of A&M's history.

We made a quick stop into the bookstore, which is now a Barnes and Noble.

Loved seeing t-shirts that incorporated the Aggies' new home in the SEC.  On the other hand seeing shirts for the class of 2016 made me feel really old!

After the MSC, we checked out Kyle Field home of Aggie football and then walked over to the new Blue Bell park for baseball.

With the heat beating down on us, I decided to skip walking over to Mays Business school which is where I spent the majority of my junior and senior years.  After making our way through all of the construction (both on campus and down University), we enjoyed an early lunch at Freebirds on Northgate.

I really wanted to add my name to the bricks, but I didn't have a marker or pen with me.

On the way out of town we made one last side trip to taste some wine at Messina Hof.

 I haven't been to the winery since my graduation weekend and was happy to learn that they have opened another location down in Fredericksburg.  

It was a short trip, but I'm so glad I was able to see some of the changes to campus and share some of my college memories with Chris.