Ain't No Party Like a West Coast Party

The past two weeks have been very trying. Well, actually, it's been a really trying year. But the past couple of weeks have been emotionally draining, exhausting and, frankly, too much for my heart to handle. Which is why this past weekend's sister getaway to Napa to celebrate Candy's birthday was just what the doctor ordered. Of course, if you remember my confession back here that I'm plagued with the gift of guilt, you could assume that I hopped on that airplane with a little voice nagging me about leaving my husband alone to care for our little nugget during a less than perfect time. Your assumption would be correct.

But the guilt slowly dissipated as I focused on the necessity of a getaway and reminded myself of the ultimate purpose of this trip -- celebrate the birthday girl and reconnect with my three best friends. After a very early and very long flight to San Francisco, the four of us met up, packed our bags in a rental car and hit the road to Napa.

We got to our hotel and immediately headed to the spa where we were greeted by a surprise from Mom and Dad Voticky. Some champagne and strawberries to kick off our weekend!

 After a little R&R, we got ourselves cleaned up and headed out to start the celebrating.

Saturday morning, we woke up leisurely and headed to the first activity of the day. Vineyard #1:

It was breathtaking. Seriously gorgeous. As we drove up the winding roads, we saw miles and miels of this:

We took in the beautiful views and posed for some photo opps.

 

  

We tasted lots of wines, munched on some cheese and crackers and celebrated this lady:

 

As we left the gorgeous vineyard, Ash stole some grapes.

And we ate them.

We then drove to a market where we ate lunch and walked a little more. We decided to retreat for an hour of rest before our big night out. While the "urban winery" wasn't exactly what we expected, we had a really fun time stomping grapes, tasting wines and even making a few friends. The music on the other hand was less than desirable. The three person band played songs entitled "Alimony" and "Love Hurts" in a honky-tonk tone the entire time. Not exactly uplifting, wine-drinking music! But we still managed to laugh a lot.

 

Water Break!

When we left, we couldn't pass up a "late night" treat from Sonic. Well, really I just begged all weekend to stop at Sonic and finally the sisters caved :)

We woke up Sunday and drove to San Francisco to spend the day before our flights took off. We drove the most gorgeous scenic route, over the Golden Gate bridge and through the waterfront marina. We parked and had brunch and then took a long stroll hike up to see the Painted Ladies.

Some of us were more thrilled than others to have hiked up those steep hills, but we all fake good smiles in pictures :)

 

And then we were off, each going our separate ways back to reality.


The four of us are fighting off our own personal battles right now. Each of us, in our own way, needed this trip to recharge. We needed the laughs, the tears, the hugs, the wine. Oh, the wine! And I'm pretty sure we each walked away with a life long lesson engrained in our minds:

Happy birthday "K"andy! xo