Our last day of fun in Napa!

On Thursday Della decided to take a break so the five of us went for it!  We stopped at a winery called Dutch Henry.  They produce the "chewier" wines as Jim likes to say.  It's one of Mike's favorites!  I enjoyed the kitties and the Airedales the most!

We left there and went to the V Sattui Winery.  They have been in business for 125 years, 4 generations and built the Castle mentioned in the blog for last Tuesday.  They have beautiful gardens and picnic areas and a wonderful deli.  Oh and by the way, great wines!  We had a picnic lunch there and ate too much of course!

From there we visited the Sawyer Winery.  The winery hostess was fun and Mike, Sandy and Jim really enjoyed their wines.   Before heading back to the campground we made a few stops in town.

As it was our last night, we had tons of appetizers and then dinner was carne asada, beans, spanish rice and more and very delicious!  We didn't even have room for dessert!  It was a great few days.

On Friday we all went our separate ways.  Jim and Della towards home, Mike and Sandy to Lake Shasta and Ted and I are at Bass Lake, east of Fresno.

Great friends, great food and great wine..."Ain't Life Grand!"

And the fun continued...

On Wednesday the six campers; Jim and Della, Mike and Sandy, and Ted and I went wine tasting in the Alexander Valley area.  Our first winery was Johnsons' Winery.  We had all been there before.  In the 1970's Mr. Johnson (the owner) bought a huge pipe organ that was in pieces.  His dream was to put it all together in his tasting room barn.  Tada!  He did it.  They select a song from the computer and the organ plays it.  Unfortunately I didn't take a picture of the pipes but it is really beautiful organ. 

From there we planned to go to Murphy Goode Winery but when we got there the name was changed to Vintner's Signature Winery.  Murphy Goode still owns all of the grapes out there and are a part of Vintner's but the tasting room was moved to Healdsburg.  So we tasted Vintner's wines.

Next was lunch at Jim's Store. It is a cute little place and a deli more than a store.  After lunch we went to Hopland to our last winery of the day.  It was suggested we visit Milano Family Winery by our friends David and Carol Prime.  The owners Ted and Deanna Starr have been friends of theirs for a long time and they were in a "Gourmet Dinner Group".  It is a fun winery with lots of critters including Willie the pig!  The rooster that looks dead, isn't!  He was digging a hole and looking for bugs!

They had lots of cute things for sale in the winery and some good wines.  They also had a chocolate wine sauce that was to die for!

We got back to the campground and barbecued steaks, tried some of our new wines and had strawberry ice cream with the chocolate wine sauce for dessert!  I think we died and went to heaven!

Chocolate wine sauce..."Ain't Life Grand!" 

Napa Valley

On Monday we drove over to a campground at the Calistoga Napa County Fairgrounds.  We met our friends Jim and Della Crownover here on Monday afternoon and Mike and Sandy Adamson came on Tuesday afternoon.

On Tuesday, my birthday, we went to lunch at a small bistro in town and had tapas.  It was really delicious!  We did some shopping after lunch.

                                         Who are those crazy ladies??

After shopping we went to The Castle, Castello di Amoroso, for some wine tasting.  The owner of V Sattui (in business for 125 years, 4 generations) planned and researched medieval castles throughout Europe for about 15 years before designing his 12th century Tuscan castle-winery.  To taste and get a preliminary tour it costs $16.50 which is pretty steep but it was interesting investigating the castle.  The castle is 121,000 square feet with 107 unique rooms, 8,000 tons of hand-squared stones and 8 levels (4 below ground) 900 feet of caves, a drawbridge and moat, dungeon and torture chamber.  We didn't see the caves or chambers, that tour was more expensive.   The castle also has 30 acres of vineyards.  They produce Italian style wines that are made to go with food.  Unfortunately; Jim, Della, Ted and I didn't care all that much for their wines.  We enjoy V Sattui more but it was a neat castle with beautiful grounds!

When we got back to the campground we had appetizers and wine and enjoyed the cool weather.  It was a wonderful birthday with beautiful weather and fun friends.

I need to catch up with all the fun we had the rest of the week but I will save that for another day.   Tomorrow we leave beautiful Napa and head east of Fresno to Bass Lake.  Hopefully we will have wifi so I can catch up on blogs and laundry!!!!

Having another birthday..."Ain't Life Grand!"

Enjoying the kids in Fresno!

On Saturday Ted and I went to see the movie Inception!  What a cool movie.  It is complicated but very unique and entertaining!  We enjoyed it!

On Saturday night we met Stephen and Marissa for dinner at Neighbors Tap and Brew.  We had a good dinner and enjoyed being with the kids!

Today we had lunch with Craig and Claire.  I think they have come back down to earth!  We went out and looked at some model homes.  They found a model they really liked and we looked at a couple of spec homes in that model.  Not sure what they are going to do about a house yet but they will figure it out!  The house is in an area they like and if it happens it will be great for them!

Tonight we are going to dinner with Claire's mom and dad.  We really like Claire and she and Craig are really happy. 

Meeting the in-laws to be..."Ain't Life Grand!"

Big doin's in Fresno!

Craig and Claire are engaged! 

For the last two days we've been conspiring with Craig in his surprise engagement to Claire.  He and Claire had looked at rings but he told her it would probably be six months before they would be able to become engaged.  Craig took Claire to dinner last night at Five, the restaurant where they had their first date, and he proposed.  She said yes!   Claire didn't know there was a group of us out on the patio waiting for them to come out and announce their engagement! 

Then the party began.  There were close friends, fellow law students, co-workers and of course Aunt Susan and Uncle Teddy at the party!  It was a great celebration and I'm quite sure there are a few people feeling pretty celebrated out this morning!

They are talking about getting married in November 2011 (thank God they didn't want to get married in July or August)!  It is all very exciting!

HOT in Fresno!

Sunday evening we had dinner with our friends David and Carol Wallis at Hooley's in Rancho San Diego.  Of course we have a tradition of Cold Stone Ice Cream for dessert!  An Enjoyable evening!

Monday we took the RV in to the repair shop.  Ted noticed our middle tire on the RV was worn out and we were worried the axel was bent.  The roads are so rough that it was actually the brackets holding the suspension that were broken.  We had already replaced the brackets on the other side.  We also had to get a new tire!

It took two days to repair so we spent the night in our RV in their parking lot!  We were in Chula Vista so went to Zorba's for Greek food.  We called our friends Jeri and Stach and they met us there for one last dinner before we left town today!

Yes, we are in Fresno.  We had not planned to leave this soon afer getting back to San Diego but we have a special reason for coming up here!  We will be here until Monday and will then head over to Napa to meet some friends for wine tasting.

Before we left a huge oak tree broke right down the middle and landed on three RV's.  One RV that the tree crashed on was a little pop up camper and it was very lucky that the people weren't inside when it crashed as you can see in the pictures!

Thankful no one was hurt by the tree..."Ain't Life Grand!"

Celebrating birthdays!

Last night we had dinner with friends Jeri & Stach at one of our favorite Italian restaurants in San Diego, Bellagio's.  They have changed owners and done some remodeling, looks really nice!  We were hoping the food would be as good as under the former owners and it was, including the yummy bread sticks! 

We celebrated all four of our birthdays for the year since Stach is May and we were gone, and we will be gone for my birthday in July, Jeri's in August and Ted's in October!  A great evening and a nice long dinner and of course, dessert!

Celebrating birthdays..."Ain't Life Grand!"

Catching up on blogging!

Tuesday evening I came down the hill for Girl's Night Out!  We meet once a month and in July had two birthday girls, Marcella and me!  We had gifts, margaritas, snacks and lots of laughs!

On Wednesday we came back down the mountain from Julian and are again at Pio Pico.  Today we got our antenna/booster up so we can get wi-fi which means we can catch up on blogging and email!

Thursday was our 10th anniversary!  We made it a decade which is the aluminum or tin anniversary!  I had lunch at the Aubrey Rose Tea Room with my friend Jeri before getting our nails done!  We had delicious tea and a wonderful lunch topped off by a lemon scone!  Meanwhile, Ted had lunch with his friend David Prime.

In the evening, Jeri and I met up for dinner with our husband's at Chez Loma on Coronado Island.  After a wonderful dinner we took a walk over to the Hotel Del and walked around the shops.  It was a beautiful evening to take a walk, it had sprinkled a bit and was great outside.

Reaching our 10th anniversary and still together..."Ain't Life Grand!" 

Realizing how fast time flies!

We are keeping busy here in Julian. On Sunday our friend Jeri met us at the Santa Isabel casino for some lunch and a bit of gambling!  We had a good time but none of us left big winners! 

Yesterday Ted and I celebrated a 12 year anniversary from the day we met (my time does fly)!  Our first meeting took place on Mallorie Gutowski's 3rd birthday.  Mallorie is the granddaughter of our friend's Jeri and Stach.   So we drove down the hill to celebrate her 15th birthday with her family.  She's having a big party next Saturday so just a few of us there yesterday.

Noah (Mal's long time friend), Mallorie and Max

Gina (Mallorie's Mom) and Jeri (Mallorie's Nana)

No hummingbird's enjoying the nectar yet.  I did read that I need to get two long red ribbons to tie to the feeder to attract their attention but haven't tried that yet.  We will leave here tomorrow to go to Pio Pico for a week, maybe I'll try it there!

Anniversaries and birthdays..."Ain't Life Grand!"

Sizzling in Julian!

Our outside RV thermometer hit 100 degrees this morning in the shade!  Most of the time there is a breeze but I don't want to hang out in the sun very much!

Yesterday Ted and I went into town for lunch at the Miner's Diner.  After lunch we went in a few shops and looked around before going back to the campground to relax in the air conditioning.  In the evening we played card bingo at the rec center.  You play with dimes so you don't win too big and you don't lose too much!  There were people of all ages that played.  We had another couple at our table and she won a steak dinner for tonight at the campground.  Ted and I won the usual - nothing!

Today our friend Peggy drove up and we went into town for lunch.  We all had a wonderful pulled pork sandwich at the Rongbranch!  It was really good.  We walked around some of the shops and came back to the RV for some Julian apple pie and icecream bought in town.

See how pretty the flowers are in town!

Enjoying the beautiful flowers..."Ain't Life Grand!"

A little lucky!

Yesterday we took off for Acorn Casino which is east of Julian.  We had a nice lunch and did a little gambling.  Ted broke even and I lost $14!  I had at least $14 worth of fun!

It was still pretty warm when we got back but we took Max for a walk around the campground.  There is a small stocked fishing pond (not sure what kind of fish it's stocked with), there is a large playground and swimming pool.  If you have horses, they have spaces that have a small corral attached to it.  They also have kids activities and some things for adults too!  We enjoy it up here.

Not losing all my money..."Ain't Life Grand!"

Warm sunny morning in Julian!

We are now up in the mountains of Julian, about 4 miles south of town!  Boy did we feel the earthquake yesterday.  We were checking in at the guard shack when it really started to shake!  It lasted a long time and shook our spaghetti right out of the box!

On Monday our friends Jim and Della Crownover came over for cards and dinner.  It was such a pretty afternoon we sat outside and enjoyed some wine before dinner and then after dinner got down to a mean game of Hearts!  Della was the winner, Jim second and Ted and I were the losers since we both were over a 100!  I made a delicious (if I say so myself) chicken and ham cassoulet from my weight watchers cookbook and Della brought home made ginger snaps and ice cream for dessert!  We never starve!

On Tuesday we had lunch with our friend Peggy.  We tried a new Italian Restaurant Antica Trattoria in La Mesa that Peggy found and Ted and I both enjoyed our meals!  I thought the angel hair pasta with shrimp was delicious and Ted had the lasagne (his signature Italian meal) which he said was very good.

Making it through the "shaking" in one piece..."Ain't Life Grand!"

HAPPY JULY 4TH!

Ted and I wish everyone a happy July 4th!

Friday night was a celebration of the marriage of Bob and Mayme, Ted's Su-Hi classmates!  They had a reception for Su-Hi classmates at Napolean's Pizza Parlor which was Mike & Joe's when they were in High School and a popular hangout!  It was a fun evening and a happy event!

Yesterday was a day of rest after a busy week.  Did get some laundry in the new washer which works great and got some groceries!

Proud to be an American!..."Ain't Life Grand!"

Fun at Harrah's!

I spent Tuesday and Wednesday at Harrah's Casino in Valley Center with my friend's Jeri Gutowski and her sister Meg McGuire.   Ted took me up there and stayed and gambled with us and had lunch until late afternoon.  He actually made himself a little money!  Jeri and I gambled until after 2:00 am!  The casino is much quieter and nicer to be in, plus you can go on just about any machine you want! 

On Wednesday Jeri and I woke up at 6:15 so we got dressed and went over to Valley View Casino for a little while.   Neither of us had any luck there so we went back over to Harrah's.  We spent a couple of hours at the pool and shared a salad and a little nap.  Her sister Meg got there in the afternoon, we gambled, ate a great dinner and then took a dip in the Jaccuzzi!  We gambled a little more and I ran out of steam about 11 and Jeri and Meg lasted a little longer!

The three of us had breakfast and Jeri and I took off around noon for a nail appointment.  We had a great time, lots of laughs and I'm not talking about my gambling losses!

Ted took care of Max and on Wednesday visited his friend Pete and had dinner with his friend Jeff.

Time with my adopted sisters..."Ain't Life Grand!"