Adventures in Napa: Sparkling Wine Country

A few weekends ago, we got to celebrate our friends' fifth wedding anniversary by spending the day in Napa, touring sparkling wine houses.

Aaron and I decided to meet the happy couple in Napa. Not wanting to be late, we left a little early. Okay, a lot early. We got there an hour and fifteen minutes early. We decided to treat ourselves to a little breakfast.

Several times we have driven by the Carneros Inn, intrigued by its cute outer façade, but never took the time to stop. This time we did. They have a cute little restaurant on campus, called the Boon Fly Café, where their specialty is hot, fresh "World Famous Boon Fly Donuts". Of course I had to try one. It was delicious. We shared a tasty big breakfast and hit the road. Having a few more minutes to kill, we took a little drive down Highway 12 to see a bit of the valley before meeting our friends. 

Our first stop was Mumm Napa. Having found a coupon for a two-for-one tour and tasting, we showed up just in time for the 11:00 tour. (The 10:00 tour is free.) The tour was quite nice, giving us a history of the grounds, as well as an insider's tour of the facility. There were several stops along the tour that featured videos to complement the guided tour, as well as three stops that allowed for tastings of Mumm's featured sparkling wines. I especially enjoyed watching BOB, the machine that moved the wine bottles in and out of riddling baskets. And the cute little tasting class that was a complimentary part of our tour. Following the tour, we sat inside the tasting room patio and tried a few glasses. Each of the four of us tried something different: Aaron and I each tried one of the two sparkling red wines, while the celebratory couple shared a glass of Mumm's prestigious DVX.

 

Tasting wines while enjoying the view of a gorgeous vineyard can really make a person hungry. We made our way to a recommended local brewery for lunch. There we tried some tasty food and local brew from the Silverado Brewing Company. Our friends even went home with a growler box of the house specialty. (Yes, I said box. They thought they were getting a cool growler bottle full of ale, but alas, it was a box. A gallon sized box o' beer.)

We were hoping to hit another beer tasting room on the way to our last tour of the day, but we were just a little too slow. Another time.

Our final tour of the day was a Domaine Carneros. Aaron and I are no stranger to this sparkling wine house; we love it so much we are members! Our tour guide just so happened to be the same gentleman who helped Aaron and me (and my parents) pick out and purchase wine for our wedding. After the tour, he was gracious enough to host us for a little additional tasting out on the Chateau patio. I am sure you can guess that we were there until it closed, and we each walked away with a bottle.

I think you have to call it a good day when you get to sit in the sunshine, drinking the area's best bubbly, celebrating good times with great friends. Happy Anniversary to the Mr. and Mrs!

Bonus picture: our friends decided that it would be fun to share their box-o-beer with us, so they refilled Aaron's growler (we brought with us in case we made it to the second brewery) in the parking lot before leaving.

Adventures in DIY: Personalized Picnic Cooler

One of the coolest wedding gifts we received was a picnic cooler filled with goodies. Not only did it have a nice bottle of wine, and tasty snacks, but the cooler itself has a zipper pouch with service for two. I love it! My mom loves it, too, which is why she asked for one for her birthday.

Photo from Overstock.com 

I searched online for a good deal, and found a reasonably priced picnic cooler with service for four from Overstock.com. This one even had a wheelie stand that would allow you to roll your cooler around! I figured this was perfect for my parents to take with them on their boating adventures.

The picnic basket itself is awesome, but a little nondescript, so I wanted to spruce it up a little with some personalization.

Having just opened the box to my new Silhouette Cameo, I didn't have a ton of materials to work with. I used my machine to cut an encircled monogram letter out of vinyl. I had no clue if using vinyl as a painting stencil on this canvas would work or not, but I decided to give it a try. (Note the use of blue tape as transfer paper, as I didn't have any yet!)  I placed the negative space vinyl directly onto the canvas of the picnic cooler and hoped for the best. 

The colors featured on the plates and napkins are a cute tan plaid, with a stripe of hot pink. Since this was my Mom's cooler, I decided to make the monogram pink. (Plus it was one of four colors I could actually find!) Using run-of-the-mill acrylic paint, I used a sponge brush to fill in the stencil. I was a little worried that the paint was bleeding past the stencil, but decided just to keep painting and hope for the best. I put nearly four coats of pink on, using a hair dryer to speed up the process. (I am sorry, but I am pretty impatient.)

Keeping my fingers crossed for fairly clean edges, I pulled the stencil off. I could not have been more happy with the results. :) The paint was not quite as bright as I would have hoped, but it almost looked intentionally washed out. I was so excited!

The letter W is cool, but I thought it would be even cooler to add an overlay. So I went to my Silhouette Cameo and made an additional stencil that I simply laid right on top of the monogram. Again, I applied several letters of paint, drying them impatiently with a hair dryer between each coat. I wanted the next layer to really stand out, so I used white. I knew I would need several coats, and I applied the paint liberally. After the white was bright (and dry!) I simply took off the stencil — and voilà!

An awesomely personalized picnic cooler filled with my mom's favorite treats and goodies.

Adventures in DIY: Wedding Vow Gallery Wrapped Photo

I saw the coolest thing on Pinterest. The Etsy store, Geezee'sCustomCanvas takes photos, adds words (like your wedding vows, or the lyrics to your first dance) and prints it out onto a gallery wrapped canvas. I thought it was so cool. I wanted one. But I wanted to make it myself. :) To start the project, I found a Groupon for a great discount on a gallery wrapped photo from Picture It On Canvas. (Costco often has photo center coupons for the same service.)

Being cheap, and having a husband that loves open source software, I decided to use the free software GIMP. Photoshop would work awesomely, too, but like I said... I am cheap.

I started out by choosing the photo I wanted to add words to, and importing it into GIMP making sure to use a layout equivalent to the size of gallery wrapped photo I was going to buy. Of course, I had to pick a smoochy picture.

My husband I decided that we wanted the quote to be short and sweet, so we decided to use our wedding vows. Being extra-nerdy, I also wanted to use the fonts we chose for the wedding invitations, programs and thank you cards. I added a text box with our vows written in the more basic sans-serif font (Futura Light). I deleted a few words I wanted to emphasize and replaced the characters with spaces.

After making sure I had plenty of room for the emphasized words, I used our more fancy serif font (Citadel Script) to add our keywords of love, joy, grow and life. Each word was a different text box, in a different layer. I carefully placed each word.

Once I was happy with the placement of the words, I simply cropped it to the desired size, flattened the image and uploaded it to Picture It On Canvas. There, I had the photo gallery wrapped using a special edging that just stretched out the sides, as I used a photo that didn't leave extra room around the edges. It worked perfectly. Less than a week later my new gallery wrapped photo was happily hanging in the center of my gallery wall! 

Adventures in Teaching -- A New Adventure!

If you know me, you know that moving to San Jose was difficult for many reasons, but especially because it meant leaving my old School.

I knew it would be even more just as difficult to find a new job. The economy is still recovering, and threats of further cuts to education loom over districts hesitant to hire. I went to teacher-faires, and sent in numerous resumes and letters of intent, hoping to find something. I had the good fortune to interview at one school that seemed way to good to be true. But, for what seemed like an eternity, I heard nothing.

On the last day of school, literally as I was scooting the kids out of my classroom, my cell phone buzzed mentioning that I had a voicemail. It was the school, the school. My teacher friends and I had always joked that someday we would quit and open a charter school; a school in which we could teach to the whole child, fostering a love of learning  That was this school. The school I had all but written off hope for. There they were calling me, and asking me if I was still interested in becoming a part of their team! 

As of August, I will be a sixth grade teacher at a small K-8 charter school in Palo Alto. Their mission is such that their school "offers a collaborative, experiential learning environment that emphasizes individual student achievement and inspires children, faculty and staff to reach beyond themselves to achieve full potential. Using a global perspective to teach about the interconnectedness of communities and their environments, " their "program nurtures mutual respect, civic responsibility, and a lifelong love of learning."


I am very excited to have accepted the position, and begin a new adventure in teaching.

On Monday I head out to San Mateo for a week long math training. The following week, my new adventure begins! So, for the next few days, I am going to enjoy my last moments of summer break.

Photo of the Week: Week 30

This week Mom and I did a little shopping at IKEA. I got a super awesome (cheap!) coffee table, and a fabulous entry table.

And I put the finishing touches on the house in preparation for the house "Grand Opening."

Friday, my bestie and I did a little shopping. I got a few shirts for school and some awesome leopard print Ecco brand flats. 

And... I found a $100 bill on the ground. Here is the story: Mom and I were in Home Depot looking for wood trim. There, you have to pay by the linear foot. So I trimmed a few pieces down. As we walked out, I found a wadded up bill on the ground. I picked it up (thinking it was a ten or a twenty.) I asked every person around if the cart it was next to was theirs. No one claimed the cart. I stood around for nearly ten minutes waiting to see if someone would search up and down the aisle for their bill. No one came. So I went to buy our trim. Laughing out loud, thinking it would be funny if I, too, allowed it to fall out of my pocket, I went to throw it in a pocket in my purse when I noticed a 1-0 and then another -0. $100! Freaking out I went back to the aisle I saw it and asked all the people standing around (again!) I waited around another ten minutes, searching for someone frantically searching. No one came. People looked at us crazy. So, I left. And my mom and I are now $50 richer.

Photo of the Week: Week 29

This week we began a remodel of my Mom's bedroom. She/We have been wanting to do this for a long time, so it is nice that we were finally able to make it happen.I will have a whole blog dedicated to this DIY Weekend... so stay tuned.

A nice surprise was that my brother brought my nephew over to "see Grandma on her birthday." I thought that was pretty sweet.

 

Also, on an unrelated note...I killed a ginormous black widow in my garage. I *hate* crunchy black spiders. I feel really bad putting a picture of this heinous nasty creature next to my super cute nephew, but I want all of the internet-reading black widows of the world to see what their futures would look like if they decide to reside in my house. Ug. I *hate* crunchy black spiders.

35 by 35

In 2013, I will turn 35. If you know me, then you know that 35 is my favorite number... and my guess is that it is going to be an awesome year.

I kind of missed the whole 30 by 30 craze... because I am a wee-bit older than others. But I still wanted to participate in the fun, so I am making a 35 by 35 list.

(Side note: I started this list a few months ago, and got side-tracked by life. So some of these things I have already accomplished because they were just things I wanted to do!) 

1. Participate in a 5K, or half-marathon, or both! (Signed up for the Neverland Fun Run in 1/2013) Completed 1/19/13
2. Tour Alcatraz Island. 
3. Play a solo on my saxophone in front of people. 
4. Actually do something crafty I pinned on Pinterest... once every two months.  
5. Travel somewhere new in the state of California.
6. Experiment with 12 new dinner recipes. 
7. Meet my new neighbors. Met some awesome ones, July 2012. 
8. Paint something in my house. (purple bathroom, maybe?) 
9. Visit Cars Land at Disneyland. (See #1)  Completed 1/19/13
10. Go camping. 
11. Travel somewhere new out of state. 
12. See a broadway show. 
13. Get a new passport. (Bonus: get a stamp in said passport.) 
14. Eat at a restaurant featured on TV. 
15. Affiliate with a local SAI alumnae chapter.  Affiliated with SF Peninsula Alums in June 2012 
16. Get a couple's massage. 
17. Visit a museum I've never been to before. 
18. Taste sparking wine on another sparkling wine tour in Napa. Mumm Napa, July 2012, &  Korbel Napa, December 2012
19. Read 12 books in 12 months. 
20. Attend a concert. Pixar in Concert with the SF Symphony, July 2012. 
21. Bike around San Francisco, maybe across the Golden Gate. 
22. Go to the Chabot Space Museum. 
23. Increase my ability levels in sit-ups and push-ups. 
24. Experience Iowa in the winter. Thanksgiving, 2012
25. Have a party! The Plattner Place Grand Opening, July 2012 & Chrismakwanzakkuah 2012
26. Attend the Tech Museum's After Hours. 
27. Experiment with 12 new dessert recipes.
28. Go hiking.
29. Pay for someone's meal behind meal in a drive thru. 
30. Go on a picnic. 
31. Make homemade ice cream. 
32. Watch the sun rise from a beach. 
33. Learn to play a song on the guitar or ukulele. 
34. Have a minimum two day stay-cation: just me and my hubby. December 2012
35. Do something super spontaneous! 

There are a few ideas on here that are not my favorite, but they are doable in less than 12 months. Any suggestions out there? I would be okay with doing some trade-zies. This can be a living document that you can help recreate! :) Don't be shy.... what would be on your list? 

Adventures in Monterey: Sea Kayaking

Have you ever been sea kayaking? If you haven't, I highly recommend it.

Last weekend, Aaron, my parents and I, took advantage of a two-for-one Groupon for sea kayaking in Monterey through the fabulous folks at Adventures By The Sea. Having rented equipment through the company before, I knew we were getting a fabulous deal. And it could not have been a more gorgeous day!

Both Aaron and I, and my mom and dad, decided to ride tandem in a two-person boat, or "divorce boat" as one staff person called them. It was awesome for me -- having both of us in a boat enabled me to take photos while on the water. It was pretty awesome. Check it out!

Dolphins! OMG. Dolphins! 

Underwater algae action. 

My hubby, and behind him, my dad and momma. 

Parents

Gross Sea weed, kelp, stuff.
There may be a sea otter in there, too. 

The Monterey Bay Aquarium

A bird! 

Jelly Fish. Underwater Jelly Fish. 

Stinky Sea Lions. 

Still stinky sea lions, and their bird friends. 

Another Jelly!

Hanging out in the Marina. 

There's the Sea Otter!