and the award goes to.....

The award for first non-family visitors goes to.....Josh and Amanda Wang! It is always fun to have visitors because it gives us an excuse to splurge a little and do new things! They arrived Tuesday night, but spent the next day in Monterey so we only saw them for dinner. Thursday, however, is when all the fun began. We first started by dropping by Stanford to do a mini tour of campus and Carnegie. Stanford is the most beautiful campus I have ever been on (which I know sounds sacrilege coming from a Hokie) so it's always fun to tour.


Josh and Amanda playing in the Rodin Exhibit outside of Memorial Church (sort of)


Memorial Church

After that we headed across the Golden Gate bridge into the Marin Headlands, which is a must see hot-spot of ours. If you come to visit us, and have never been to the Marin Headlands, then we will be taking you there. You can get such stunning views, especially from the top! Unfortunately, the top closed THE DAY WE ARRIVED because they are widening the road. Major bummer!! The day was perfect, there was NO FOG (rare) and it was going to be a fantastic photo taking opportunity...but alas, it wasn't meant to be.

Me and Amanda with our silly pose


The four of us

After the Marin Headlands it was time for lunch. Josh had been wanting to try In N Out because it is definitely a California Icon (a well deserved one at that). Amanda, however, refused...but it just so happened to work out to have a quick lunch after the Marin Headlands so Josh got to have his In N Out

He wanted to have his burger and eat hers too!

It was delicious, as always and Amanda LOVED it. (So much so that when we stopped to get a quick dinner before taking them to the airport and she had the choice between Panera and In N Out, she chose In N Out!!)

Then it was Napa bound! We headed straight for Sterling Vineyards because it was the furthest away from our hotel and we wanted to work our way back to the hotel as we went on. To get to Sterling's tasting room you have to ride an aerial tram.

Josh and Amanda on the tram


Me and Graham



The four of us (unfortunately, Graham got the squeeze)

Sterling was so much fun! Mostly because as you tasted you did this self-tour thing, you could sit outside for as long as you wanted and enjoy the view, and the weather was beautiful.

View from Sterling (that castle is another Winery...one which we did not visit)


Wine barrels


Enjoying the setting


The boys probably talking about sports or politics


Wine glasses (thanks to amanda's artsy photography skills)


That's my leg :) (thanks to my artsy photography skills)

We spent a few hours enjoying Sterling, so once we finished we only had time for one more Winery. We decided on Hess Collection because a)it was recommended to me by a co-worker and b)They have an art museum that you can look at. The wine was really good, the art was just ok. Maybe too modern for my taste. They had this one exhibit that looked like cow-dung (or baked cookies..take your pick) on the floor and you had to walk around it. Not really my thing.

Me and Amanda outside of Hess Collection


Josh and Amanda at Hess...as a side note to this picture, I thought I did an awesome job of capturing an "engagement" type picture. However, if you enlarge it you can see that Josh is sticking his tongue out!!! grrrrrrrrrr.....thanks a lot JOSH!

We then checked in to our hotel and got ready for dinner. Unfortunately I don't have any pictures of our dinner but I do have some rave reviews! We went to Harvest Moon Cafe in Sonoma, and it was listed in my little book under "locavore californian"...so local veggies and meats with a california flair. Everybody loved their food. I ordered the pasta dish which I don't normally do because I usually feel like they use cheap ingredients and I could make it myself at home. This however sounded so good on the menu that I couldn't resist and it did not disappoint!! There is no way I could replicate that without a recipe! Yum Yum Yum. We also had coffee and dessert which was almost as delicious. I definitely recommend this place to any of my local California readers!

On Friday it was raining (boo, I like to trick people into thinking that it NEVER rains in CA when we have visitors!!) so we went into the cute town of St.Helena and did some shopping. We first stopped into Olivier where you could sample all of their oils, tapenades, sauces, vinegars, etc. If it was edible, you could taste it! We bought this Blue Cheese infused oil...delicious.

We then continued our way down the street into Woodhouse chocolates where we proceeded to spend $1.85/morsel of chocolate. It was like the Tiffany's of chocolate. It was delicious, but expensive. No pictures here either since it took us .5seconds to eat our chocolates! After that, it was wine tasting time! We went to Louis M. Martini, V. Sattui, Rutherford Ranch, and finally Domaine Carneros. V. Sattui was by far my absolute favorite. They had an awesome deli and cheese shop, incredible wines (including a port that both us and the Wang's purchased), and a great lawn area outside (which we of course did not get to enjoy due to the rain, but you could tell it would be super fun on a warm, sunny day).

We choose to go to Domaine Carneros because we read in a guide book that you could purchase an accompanying cheese plate to go with your Sparkling Wine tasting. It was overpriced, but it's always fun to eat while tasting wine and you got to sit down while you tasted-so double bonus.

Cheese and Wine, the perfect pairing.


The four of us with all our cheese and wine


Me and Amanda :)

After another day of wine tasting we headed back to the peninsula for dinner at CasCal; a delicious tapas restaurant located 1/2 mile from our apartment.

Phew, this is turning into a really long post!!!

On Saturday we went up to the city. We first enjoyed dim sum at Ton Kiang. Dim Sum always makes me nervous because I'm so skeptical of what is hidden inside those little packets of food. However, eating it with friends who are practically dim sum professionals is always fun! You just let them do all the choosing for you. :) After Dim Sum we headed further into the city and caught the trolley (by caught I mean waited in line for an hour and a half) to the wharf.


Rice-a-roni a San Francisco treat!


Whee!!


The boys; having a lot of fun, but trying to keep it cool


another cute one of Amanda :)

In the city we went to Ghiradelli Square for some ice cream, a free sample of chocolate (naturally) and some shopping. Then we walked down to Pier 39 to see the sea lions and do some more souvenir shopping (and eat doughnuts that were hot and fresh). And then we walked back to the trolley station to catch (which once again means waiting in another hour and a half line) it back to our car.



We had such a good time with our friends and were sad to see them go. Can't wait to see who our next visitors will be! Currently, there is no one on the docket until October. :(