I Needed Napa.

I've always wanted to visit Napa and the Napa Valley. It was one of those places that I had heard a lot about but didn't really even know exactly where it was. To me, almost an enigma. It's sort of tucked away, hidden between bigger cities and mountainous hills. On Tuesday, Tony said "let's get out of town for the 4th" and I listened. It was very spontaneous and I was feeling lucky to find a great place to stay with my credit card points.

We had an awesome weekend. It was dreamy the way everything fell into place and just flowed. Even the kids behaved, you know mostly. They had only one or two or seven meltdowns. Many times, I received compliments from strangers on their behavior. OK fine, it was just once, but it meant a lot to me, as if it happened many times. We didn't get to visit any wineries, but we did taste, and even drink a few glasses in relative calm and peaceful surroundings. I know, it sounds too good to be true, but it really happened just this way.



On the fourth, the city had a downtown festival, complete with the usual fire trucks, live music, kids activities, and after a break for swimming at the hotel, big fireworks show on the river. Wyatt fell asleep before the fireworks began [and later insisted we didn't go to the fireworks show] and Eva planted her face into Tony's shoulder after the first big boom.

Saturday, we took the trolley from our hotel to visit Copia, the American Center for Wine Food and the Arts. They were having a "Ice Cream Social & Family Fun Day." This is where we were able to do a little wine tasting which was still kind of awkward with all the kids in tow. I can't remember the label but I tasted a Red Zinfandel and a Primitivo [never heard of Primitivo, but it was good].

The kids were enjoying the ice cream tasting and the petting zoo until Wyatt began to feel the stinging rash from rolling down the grassy knolls. He launched himself into full tantrum mode, which I don't blame him, he was in pain. After I wiped him down with baby wipes and applied cortisone, he calmed down and we had lunch there.

There was a food canopy with chefs in white hats and coats preparing gourmet hamburgers, it was fun watching Tony [AKA the king of well done cooking] to eat a rare hamburger. It was seriously rare, just browned on the outside, not even close to medium rare. I had a hard time with the rareness myself but I ate it anyway, I am not so much a hamburger girl, but it was scrumptious.

The kids got in their share of swimming at the hotel. Eva wants to swim like the big kids so bad, she was actually diving under the water in the general direction of Tony. She can't swim, but she thinks she can, it's hilarious [with a little bit of scary].

Sunday, after a really nice mass in Napa, we hit the Jelly Belly factory on the way home. We had never done that tour and it was loads of fun. All in all a great getaway for us. It was only three days but it felt like a week [in a good way].

Sounds like a broken summer record but...
up this week:

-more heat, 107 degrees or so today
-more smoke and haze, feeling bad for the people closer to the fires
-more vegetable gardening, things are happening now
-more piano, it's sounding good...really
-more swim lessons, going well
-one party this weekend, adults only, should be fun

Wyatt just made the claim that he can hold his breath longer than a turtle, I'm off to investigate. Stay cool.