2nd Anniversary

The last few months have been pretty rough dealing with the house. This weekend we took off for Napa to celebrate our 2nd wedding anniversary. We started out stopping by Andretti Winery where we are part of their wine club. They are really great people and it's a really nice little winery. Then we swung by Clos Du Val where they have the BEST peanut brittle. No wine here (we've sampled before and just need to restock on peanut brittle.) We then swung by the hotel to check in, our room wasn't quite ready so we picked up a quick snack at Bouchon Bakery and headed back out for more wine tasting. We hit the Miner Family Winery (nice but a little corporate for us), Then onto Plumpjack (I really liked it here, they had a cute gift shop, a laid back setting, and kinda santa cruzy vibe). After that we drove by Saddleback but they are only available by appointment, lastly for the day we hit Elizabeth Spencer (very cool small little place with nice smelling wines). For dinner we ate at Hurley's. It was amazing even if I had to go with my second choice of
Heirloom Tomato Salad and Roasted Chicken {lemon preserve, caramelized pearl onions, fresh English peas, “macaroni & cheese"} instead of the butternut squash ravioli.

Day 2: We decided to head up to Calistoga and to the "old faithful geyser". It kinda felt like a set from a Chevy Chase movie, but it was fun. They also had fainting goats and babies. The babies were adorable, even if Kyle was disappointed about the lack of fainting. We had lunch at the Calistoga Inn Restaurant & Brewery, yummy. Looked around town and then off for more wine tasting. Charles Krug a Peter Mondovi family winery. I thought it would be similar to feel to the Mondovi winery... nopsi... it was small and the people awesome!! The guy who ended up helping us INSISTED I try the Cabernet w/ dark chocolate. A discussion of dark chocolate, cheese and the wonderful things in life ensued. I must say there is a definate difference in the taste when you have dark chocolate on your pallet mixed with a Cab wine, or port. Kyle bought a bottle of the port (and the guy have me a a bunch of chocolate!!!). Then we went to Beringer (beautiful grounds), and rounded out the day at Whitehall Lane. For dinner we went to Napa Valley Grille where we'd had a wonderful dinner a few months ago for a friends birthday and wanted to return. We had an appetizer, cheese plate (sooo good), and each got a salad.

{The End}

Napa Valley Porto Potties

Amongst the fields and fields of bountiful grape vineyards of the Napa Valley I spotted them. While taking a quick spin around the Opus One Winery there they were. Hard to miss with the contrasting blue color against the fields of lush green, and so ironic while we at such a winery as Opus One.

We Have Floors

It was a long day... and a long time coming. When the flooring guy came he insisted the flooring still looked defective. Kyle insisted it was going in and it was going to happen today. So they sent out a home depot manager and he took a look and felt it was fine and gave the thumbs up to go ahead with the installation. So now we are working on the baseboards and have some touch up work from where things were destroyed during demolition that we need to sort out. We also now have a new issue around the fireplace. There was an existing trim piece that the flooring guy insisted shouldn't be removed (at this point I think this was a mistake). He insisted that there be a gap left between the flooring and and old trim with a new trim piece put on top in the gap. The problem with this is that it doesn't completely cover the existing trim, in fact it just barely covers the edge of the existing trim so you have 2 layers of trim. ..... But at least for now we have floors and have cut about half the base.

Floors this Week...... no really

My mom helped me out by painting our baseboards (smoothly) with a coat of paint, and I gave them another coat over the holiday weekend. They are scheduled to come out and install the flooring Wednesday (finally!!). We picked up the new flooring a while ago and snapped together a few pieces and to our "unexperienced" eye it looks much better. After that it will be our turn to give it a go as DIY-ers a shot. Baseboards here we come, then we can move back in and be done with this whole ordeal. At least this is the current plan.