Cheryl & Lance Drink Wine: The Livermore Wine Festival 2012

Lance and I like to drink wine.  We like to go and taste different wines because it's yummy (and doesn't make Lance sick like beer and mixed drinks) and usually leads to some pretty interesting conversations with people.  

In the barrel room - where we
managed to snag a free barrel
tasting (they were charging extra
for that) because I think we
looked confused to whether
we should do it or not.  The guy
at the door took us over to one
of the pouring stations like we
were old friends and we got
 hooked up!

It was my job this year to plan something for us to do for our anniversary.  So when I learned that the Livermore Harvest Wine Festival was over Labor Day weekend, and that our friends could watch our kids during it, I decided that we would just celebrate our 9th wedding anniversary a couple of weeks late.  

Livermore is about 20 minutes away from Tracy, where we live and it's home to about 50 different wineries. It's not nearly as large as Napa or Sonoma, but 50 wineries is a lot to taste our way through without having to drive an hour and a half to get to the more well known areas - and the wines are good, so I don't feel that we're suffering on quality by not making the trek North.

The Harvest Wine Festival is a two-day event, where tickets include tasting at about 40 participating wineries, access to the shuttle bus taking you to the wineries, commemorative glasses, and discounts, etc.  Some of the smaller wineries actually bring their tastings to booths set up at the larger wineries, so if you hit the larger wineries, you can taste from many wineries selections. The larger wineries also hosted more food options from local restaurants, as well as craft booths (Lance bought me a wine glass holder necklace from one!), and live music.  

Yeah, I was tipsy

It was a nice relaxing event for us and while we were planning on splurging and taking a cab all the way home (with plans to retrieve the car the next day), the cabs were so busy with the event that by the time one came for us, Lance was actually sober, so we just had the cab take us from the winery to our car (we had missed the final shuttle, opting to stay longer at the winery rather than take the shuttle and take the cab from the parking lot) to head back to Tracy.  I, being a complete lightweight, was still a bit tipsy when we arrived at our friend's bbq, where our children were busy playing with their friends.

The second day of the Wine Festival is typically a little calmer, they don't run the shuttles, and some of the

Dancing!

 smaller wineries pour at their own facilities. Since tickets were good for both days, we thought we might find a winery in the program that would be okay to take the kids to.  Fenestra Winery fit the bill with live music and a lawn, and also happened to offer a port (which I LOVE) for tasting.  This was also tons of fun because the live band was incredible, playing lots of Classic Rock, with a hilarious drummer. The kids enjoyed dancing around and were good for us, making it a nice afternoon.

 

Listening to the band

Logan rolling to the music

RJ snuggling Daddy

Happy Birthday to Us

It's pretty clear that the children in this family are the main event.  They are in 99% of our photos, our activities revolve around them, and their birthdays are a hell of a lot more extravagant than ours (e.g., 8 layer T-rex cake).  But, enough is enough. Since Lance and I were born a mere 6 days apart, it makes sense to celebrate our birthdays together. And this year, we actually acknowledged our September birthdays by having our friends, the Goldsmith's, over on the 24th, and by taking a date day on the 27th!

RJ goes to preschool on Tuesdays, and Logan can go to our friend Erika's family day care as a drop-in when we need/want, so Lance took the day after my birthday off work (he didn't want to take off on his birthday, also a Tuesday, because he gets a box of birthday cookies at work), dropped the kids off while I was getting a much needed haircut (it's been over a year since my last!), and then we drove over to the good side of the hill (the Bay Area side).

We strolled through downtown Livermore, had coffee, ate sushi for lunch without sharing the salmon nigiri with RJ.  Don't get me wrong; I LOVE that RJ loves sushi, but it sucks when he reaches across the table and snags the last piece!

After lunch we visited two Livermore wineries (La Rochelle/Steven Kent and Murietta's Well) and treated ourselves to a couple of bottles after sampling the goods.  I have to say that although La Rochelle was recommended to us as "the only Livermore winery with drinkable wines", I actually preferred the wines we had at Murietta's Well.  Different tastes I guess!

Then we had some rare time at home without the kids before going to pick them up!  32 isn't too bad.

Tale of Two Easters: Adult Edition

We got a babysitter so that us adults could head to San Francisco over nap time and have some adult entertainment.

Easter Parade

As we were walking down the street we remark -- are those cows? Are those dancing cows? Are those dancing cows on rollerblades? Then we realize it is either a regular weekend in San Francisco or the Easter parade complete with drag queens (yes you did read the sentence correctly).





Bring Your Own Big Wheels

Big People on Kids Toys going down the steepest/crookedest street in San Francisco IN COSTUME

Since the name of the event is Bring Your Own Big Wheel (which is an annual Easter Sunday event), and I don't keep a big wheel in my back pocket, I unfortunately was unprepared or I would've been in the fray myself, but 40? Schteve? Dave? Dawber? I'd like a souped up Big Wheel that could handle these curves for next year. Or better yet - we should ALL do it!! If a guy on a modified trash can can make it down alive, a souped up long axle big wheel should too. A word to the wise...bring your own helmet too. My favorite wipeout was when the dumb guy carrying his big wheel up the hill got taken out by a heat of big wheels thundering down the hill.

Here is the official video and a collection of pictures.

Mission Bars

What Easter Sunday would be complete without Happy Hour?

Organic Sushi

To finish out the evening, Lance found an organic sushi restaurant in the Mission. They had the largest rolls I've ever seen. Fabulous Easter dinner! It probably makes up for the fact that we ate Turkey on Good Friday...oops.

I think the only thing we missed that was Easter-related in SF was the "Hunky Jesus" contest that we heard about too late!

This Easter was much better than last Easter, which I spent grading papers!

Tale of Two Easters: Family Edition

Lance and I wake up to a smiling toddler in our bed. Thank goodness we have a King Sized Mattress now - RJ actually leaves us with some room to sleep when he gets upset randomly in the middle of the night (it luckily doesn't happen too often).

Easter Baskets

While the quiche was baking Otte (who was adjusting to West Coast time after flying in to see us Saturday) woke up and helped RJ find his Easter Basket. RJ's response to the colorful basket in the pantry = "Wow!" Thank you Grandpa for the Wahl's Orange Chocolate.



Then we sent Otte looking for his Easter basket. This was actually more entertaining than RJ looking for his Easter basket, particularly because Otte, who was still up when I was hiding it the night before and was TOLD where it was, thought that I had hid it in the dryer and went on a wild goose chase in the laundry room, when it was really in the sewing cabinet in the living room. We should probably give him some slack though since he WAS pretty tired!

Egg Decorating

RJ and Daddy colored a few eggs too. RJ's hands kept ending up in the dye, but he had fun. Then Daddy had fun putting the few pieces of (unsalvagable) burnt bacon in the dye to "see what would happen". (Yeah, nothing really happened except that the yellow turned brown).



Brunch

We all sat down to a big breakfast (Quiche, Sausage, and Belgian Waffles with Strawberries and Whipped Cream), got showered and took RJ to the park on a beautiful Easter Sunday morning in sunny Tracy, CA.

Madagascar 2

A few weeks ago, Lance and I attended the Madagascar 2 Wrap Party and Screening. RJ got to stay home and play with Kasie that evening as it was an adults-only party at City View at the Metreon. The party was a lot of fun, but the movie was the highlight for me. The CG animation has improved even more and I have to say that the sequel is even better than the first Madagascar movie - and that one was my favorite of all the DreamWorks Animation films.



Madagascar 2: Escape to Africa opens on November 7. You should go see it.

If you have Comcast you can see some video clips and behind the scenes video clips: