Wine & Desserts!

This afternoon I took it upon myself to organize my wine collection.  With all the wine tastings I enjoy doing when friends visit and my wine club memberships I needed to figure out what I had and identify which ones were for special occasions and which ones I could do without.  I categorized them into these groups and put them with labels in the pantry from left to right - Special Occasion, Great Reds, Everyday Reds, Dessert or Sweet Wines, Gifts and Katelynn's wines.

That evening Emma made us key lime pie!

Then we opened a bottle of Chateau Diana's bubbly moscato and enjoyed them together.  What a nice evening!

Giugni's

This morning Katelynn and I went for our first run together!  She's been wanting to work on her cardio.  I took her for a four mile jog behind the house and we listened in to Zombies, Run!  You can see our route and jog details on my Runkeeper page.

That afternoon I met up with Steve Woods, previously of Boise State University, Associate Registrar in Saint Helena for lunch.  He is considering multiple job opportunities, one of which is near me in Napa Valley!  It was nice having lunch at Jami Dye's favorite sandwich shop in St. Helena and catching up with Steve.  Giugni's sandwiches really are the best!

Memorial Day Wine Tasting

When we got up today it was overcast and gloomy out.  So me and Katelynn decided to go wine tasting!  We did my favorite route, starting up at Frances Ford Coppola's winery and then making our way south down the 101 to Healdsburg.  What I wasn't expecting is that after enjoying some wine at Thumbprint we'd end up at Hawley winery where I so enjoyed the wines that I signed up to be a member!  Yup- that's my 3rd membership now!  Oh boy!  Then we went over to The Shed for an afternoon snack to help us sober up before headed home.  We had a great time, of course!

For dinner, we decided to make a 7 layer bean dip and enjoy some of the wine we'd purchased from the day!  Whoot!  Happy Memorial Day.

Wine Country BBQ

Amanda's sister Constance and many of her friends were getting together for a BBQ at one of their friends houses in the middle of a vast field of vineyards out in wine country and Amanda invited me along.  I'm so glad she did!  It had a breathtaking view of vineyards all around the house just about a mile from Healdsburg.  Many of the couples had kids that were playing on the lawn while the adults sipped wine and enjoyed horderves.  Savannah snuck under the table and painted her toes with some of the other girls and then later they all ate cake.  So cute!

The Social Club

After getting home from dinner with Amanda Katelynn and her friends invited me to come along with them to the Social Club in Petaluma.  I thought, sure, why not- the night is still young!  HaHa!  I've been to the Social Club before with Debbie and Mike and it's always been fun.  However, what I didn't know is that it slows down as the evening wears on.  It's more of the dinner/starter place to be so when we got there about 11:30pm it was mostly emptied out.  We still had a lot of fun and I met some new friends of Katelynn's.

Sante Restaurant Dinning Experience

Months ago- perhaps even last year?  Amanda pointed out a Groupon for a 3 course dinner for 2 at a restaurant she highly recommended.  I thought maybe it would be a good date night outing so I went ahead and bought it.  Well, then the restaurant closed for a remodel!  After all this time passed, they finally re-opened in April.  Amanda and I decided, what the heck, how about we just go!?  So I picked her up in Sonoma and we headed over to Sante for an exquisite dining experience.

We ended up getting an even better deal than the Groupon had originally set out.  We had somewhere around 6 courses!  I couldn't believe how delicious everything was (except for the caviar, I did not care for that!).  It took over 2 hours for the whole experience and we both went home very happy with the dishes.

Just amazing!  I'm looking forward to my next dinner date here for sure!

Windsor Green Half Marathon

One of my annual must-do half marathons!  This year there were several of us our Sonoma State Staff running group participating.  I was there with Mike Ogg, Amanda McGowan and Erin Rock!  Here's a picture of us including Shannon Percell.

This run was one of my first half marathon races where I was using my heart rate monitor.  It was a real struggle for me to keep my heart rate at a reasonable level.  I think it's because despite the beauty of the course, there are a lot of hills.  You can see the race route and pictures on my Runkeeper page.  After I finished, I was able to get this picture of Amanda and Mike crossing the finish line in-step!