The day our highly anticipated guests (my sister and brother-in-law) arrived it was pouring! Cold, grey, ugly, and wet. Welcome to beautiful California! Or not... Normally at this time of the year family that visits us is just excited to see rain and not snow. However, these intrepid travelers came from Orlando Florida, home to abundant sunshine and 80 degree days.
We were pretty lazy that first day, made a homemade pizza and played lots of cards!
Day two was more exciting. We took our first day trip over to Napa. We tasted at several spots and had lunch at our absolute favorite, The Rutherford Grill! We also went to a St. Patty's day party complete with green wine (?!) and live Irish music. It wasn't very nice out that day, but we did get a big rainbow out of it at the end of the day.
The following day we headed out to spend a few days in San Francisco. The majority of the first day was spent at the California Academy of Sciences. J and I had never been so that was fun. The place is huge!, but I somehow managed not to take a single picture there. That afternoon we checked into our hotel and then did some walking. That's quite a feat in that city! Chinatown was especially colorful. We ended up having dinner at the cheesecake factory and then enjoying beautiful views of the city from the top floor of the hotel.
San Fran, day 2 was spent taking a trip to Alcatraz and eating a seafood lunch on Pier 39. It wasn't overly warm, but we did see the sun instead of rain!
The next day we stayed at home (if you don't count a girls trip for mani/pedis), Dad arrived and we cooked the monthly menu from our cooking blog.
Wednesday we hit the local attractions: Jelly Belly and Budweiser. We also spent a fun night out at the bowling alley!
Thursday was another trip to Napa. This time Dad was with us and we took a tour at a new winery (Dad's been to visit before and done Napa). After almost 4 hours (!!) we decided to hit the burger stand and call it a day. Again, no pictures from that day somehow. But it was beautiful weather and everyone had fun!
Friday was another quiet day. We slept and then made a big breakfast spread, colored Easter eggs and watched Easter parade (the boys were just thrilled). We had another girls outing (massage and facial this time) and more pizza and then Dad had to catch a red eye home.
Saturday we all went and saw The Hunger Games, grilled out (hamburgers and pineapple!) and played more cards.
Then our last day (sniff, sniff) we went to church and made a big dinner (homemade bread, a roast chicken) and played as many card games as we could fit in!
And then somehow it was time for them to leave and J to go back to work... But it was a great trip! We are all so thankful for our time together and planning the next one already.
