Heather Turns 40–Napa Trip

So Yosh and most of his friends are all 40 now…yes I’m the baby of the group…well one girl is younger than me!

Some of them have done parties, cruises or mini getaways. I’ve loved every single one!

Heather’s 40th was the same weekend as my mothers birthday…so getting a sitter was iffy. But…my mother is AMAZING and didn’t mind watching the kids while we went to Napa with Heather and friends.

Flight from Santa Ana to San Francisco.

Then we rented a big van and drove around SF for a few hours…before heading to Napa.

Matt and Heather are such cool foodies. They always know the cool little places to visit.  We stopped at a bakery, Tartine, that didn’t have a sign outside BUT the line was out the door!!! So it HAD to be good right.  Well. It was DELICIOUS!! My morning bun was so good. Everything I ate was SO good!!

I liked the cool graffiti in the bathroom…it was pretty awesome.

Then a stop at the Full House House…and we drove by the “painted ladies” (the houses you see in the opening of the show!)  And we were super silly and put the Full House intro song on repeat and listened to it…a lot! hahaha

Before heading to Napa we HAD to stop for some pics at the Golden Gate Bridge. It was a beautifully clear day…cool breeze but it was perfect.

Got to our super cute hotel…Rancho Caymus Inn. It had only been open a few months but it was adorable! And the rooms were NICE! Everyone kept saying that felt like we were on Melrose place…I wasn’t a huge fan of that show so I just went with it!

Heather was so cute and left us all goodie bags…so awesome

Now time to start drinking some rose before heading to dinner #1

Ate at a casual pizza place…but not THAT casual. I ordered some pizza and asked the waiter for some ranch…his response “This is Napa Valley…not Hidden Valley”.  Whadda dick huh!?  I left his ass a bad yelp review. lol

Came back and got some spa time in!

I love Heather and all her organizational skills. Before the trip she emailed us all a detailed itinerary of where we were going, when, what time, the link for the menus, etc.   It was AMAZING!

Yosh was VERY excited to wear his pink shirt and white pants for our day of wine tasting.  We had 3 wineries on the agenda this day…lunch at Gotts and a dinner reservation.

The first place was sparkling wine. Which I learned was the same thing as champagne BUT you can’t call it champagne unless its made in France (or somewhere like that). We had a guided tour, which was set up by Heathers friend. It was awesome! 

I found out here that sparkling wine gives me a different buzz. I felt light-headed and like I was floating a bit!

We ate lunch at Gotts. Which was my favorite place. They had deep fried brussel sprouts that were AMAZING!! I actually ate there twice in 2 days. haha After lunch, and Heathers friend Drew surprising her for her birthday. We found some mustard fields and HAD to take pictures.

Thank goodness Heather had a camera and took some good ones!

We ended up having to skip our 2nd winery and went straight to the last place. Elizabeth Spencer. Was a cute little place right down the street from our hotel.  I also got a super cute class that had my initials on it ES.

Then dinner at Rutherford Steak House…I was stuff but ate more! haha

And ended our night drinking and chatting by the fire at our hotel. It was fun!

Last day…and unfortunately it was the coldest day! Windy, chilly BUT we made the best of it!! IT was Heathers actual birthday…and everyone was pumped for a day of drinking, eating and then a night of the same!

Stopped for some lunch at this little upscale deli/shop kinda place. It was perfect. Everyone was full and most didn’t eat a full meal.  Then off to Frogs Leap.  The whole winery is outdoors…and it was chilly.  Was nice they gave blankets out to people and wouldn’t have been STUNNING IF it was warmer.

Kiss your partner!

And I liked making Heather and Matt pose funnny!! haha

Then off to the last winery of the day Mumm. Another sparkling place.  And was packed and they had us seated outside. Yep that didn’t work. So we had to get moved inside out of that coldness (it was 53 degrees…which is basically below zero for these southern californians)

Don’t touch the tulips!

Last night out we ate at Mustard Grill. Another packed place…Heather picked all the best places AND made reservations, so it was awesome we didn’t have to wait or worry about a thing.

Food was great. And Matt ordered a cake from Heathers favorite bakery in San Fran.  Which was also DELICIOUS

But the party kept going this night. We ubered into town and went to some place we could shake our tail feathers. After a rough start (Yosh almost fighting some drunk dude for disrespecting Deanna)…we ended up having SUCH a great night!!! I haven’t danced that much in a LONG time!

The next morning Yosh and I had to uber back to the airport…we needed to get back sooner because he was leaving for Arizona for a work conference! Which ended up being a blessing in disguise…the others got stuck on flights that ended up landing into LAX and had to be bussed to Santa Ana…Yosh would have totally missed his AZ flight if we would have been with them. 

We had SUCH an awesome time!!!  It was something I always dreamed of doing and we did it with such a fun group.  One of the couples came in as strangers to us…but left part of the crew. We love the Tomlins! 

And all this while Nana held down the fort…on her birthday!! Owen woke up early, snuck down and “decorated” for her birthday…she brought them to Cowgirl, the movies and Granda even came over to help celebrate!! Love my Mom.  

Mystery Illness

I think my kids are cursed with my “weird illness and injury” stuff.

So in the month of February…Ella had what started as 1 dry patch on her arm. I thought “Oh sh*t its ring worm from gymnastics”.

Then a few days later more of these red “patches” appeared on her torso and neck.

I started thinking my child had the chicken pox! You hear about people getting them even though they had been vaccinated. She was running a very low grade fever as well but acting totally normal.

Few more days…and she has this rash all over her body!

And to make it worse…it was like she had these burn marks on her wrist and legs. I thought she had bruises or marks form riding bikes at preschool…

I watch as these marks continue to get read and dark. She still has no pain or any other symptoms so I don’t really worry.

Then we notice her thumb skin is peeling off…for no reason…

…and then sores around her mouth…

More thumb sores and mouth sores.

And her leg wasn’t clearing up.

Luckily we had her 5 year check-up scheduled…so we got a doctor appt and was able to ask what the heck was going on.  Doctor was concerned. She thought it could be a weird virus OR something more serious. So we were sent for blood work (which came back normal thank god).  She did a rapid strep test that came back negative and we were all ok.

 

A few days later her peds called me back and said the strep culture actually came back positive.  Ella had a weird form of strep that was appearing in a rash…which is scarlatina aka Scarlet Fever! yes…who the hell knew that Scarlet Fever was still around these days….weird right.  So after 10 days of some pretty strong antibiotics Ella was good to go!! Thank goodness.

Valentines Day

We don’t go all out on Valentines day in our house. I’m not a good mom that makes cute gifts for my kids…shit I barely get them anything. Yeah…I know…don’t judge.

This year Yosh was cute and hid candy and Frozen valentines all over. In my car, work-out back, purse, wallet, desk at work, everywhere! It was cute.

Ella had her first school party, Owen had his…and that was it.  At work I had my students run a SweetHeart 5k. There was nothing “sweatheart” about it..other than wearing red or pink for extra credit! haha

(Picture sent to me from the room mom in Owen’s class!)

My babies…getting all grown up. Could be the last year I get Owen to wear a Valentines themed shirt…sad face.

Difference one year makes!

And of course…a pic of us…on my way up to bed! haha Oh the romance, I know.

Preschool for The Beast

Also at the very end of January Ella started Preschool!

Owen didn’t do preschool…what he was learning at Martha’s was enough for him.  Ella needed extra. She was starting kindergarten in August and I knew she wasn’t as prepared as Owen was.  So Nana and Granda asked if they could send her to preschool 2 days a week. 

She was SO excited.

She learned SO much, made friends, fell in LOVE with her teacher (like she would cry about missing her on non-school days!).  And I loved how the preschool kept parents in the loop. I remember Owen being in kinder and me feeling like I had NO IDEA what the heck he did all day…and at that time he wasn’t able to tell me step by step details of his day.  So this system the preschool does is cool. They send you an email after every day at school with “snap shots” of their day. Pictures and videos of activities and things they did.  Its so cool!

Gymnastics

Little over a year ago Ella was doing gymnastics at a place that Owen had went to as well. We were there about a year and I started noticing that Ella was pretty much running the class. Her cute little self was walking all over the teenage instructors. So I stopped paying the $70 a month and we took a break.

As Ella has gotten older, she has expressed interest in dance, cheer and gymnastics. We do the cheer camps, we quit her dance class (she said the ballet and tap were too babyish! haha)…so my friend was doing gymnastics at a place, and it was cheaper than the previous place. So we gave it a shot.

This instructor is the owner of the gym.  They specialize in Acro…which I didn’t realize until after the fact. haha But its awesome. The instruction isn’t phased by Ella’s little personality and puts her in her place.  Only after a  month and Ella was already almost doing the splits and cartwheels. Its awesome for her muscle development, social maturity and self discipline.  I love it.  And so does she!