I couldn't quite capture the CIA in all its glory--it is such a gorgeous building!
We stopped at the conference and picked up Daddy, then drove to the house he and his colleagues were staying in . . . I don't think I can adequately describe its splendor, so here are some pictures of our weekend crib (owned by San Francisco fashion designer Rebecca Beeson):
lounge area/formal dining room
pool & hot tub--see the stone hot tub at the far end of the pool?
chicken coop where you could fetch fresh eggs every morning
looking out from the back patio the morning we left
I'm clearly not kidding when I say that this place was palatial. It was 5600 square feet, complete with every luxurious amenity you can think of, pomegranate & Meyer lemon trees, a garden from which we picked vegetables, spans and spans of land, and a sprawling industrial kitchen overlooking the exquisite wine country landscape. Unreal.
Daddy fed me an heirloom tomato sandwich and some choice Gewurztraminer before we headed out to some wineries. He kindly served as our guide and chauffeur. First stop (after Cakebread, where they were kinda snobby and told us we needed an appointment) was Sequoia Grove, where they totally hooked us up with some fancy reserve wine:
Daddy and me outside Sequoia Grove winery
After which we continued onto Provenance, where dad slept in the car while Anna and I went into the tasting room! We were just tipsy enough to buy a bottle of expensive Merlot before heading out and back to the house, where we poured some of our newly bought wine and got into the hot tub.
Somehow, between not eating much all day (no dinner is always my downfall), drinking a few too many pours of vino, and dehydrating ourselves by lounging in the hot tub, things took a turn for the crazier (by this point, my dear daddy was long asleep, leaving Anna, his two colleagues, and me to our mischief). My share of the shenanigans was perhaps the greatest, because I ended up tripping and falling onto the majestic concrete of our palace and busted up my grill!
not good, y'all
But thanks to my lovely & talented dentist, Dr. Ann Donnelly, DDS, my smile was officially back to normal as of today at noon:
would you believe she did it on my lunch break so I didn't even have to get a sub??
But it was totally worth the chipped tooth and punchout lip, cause I've never seen anything like this place in my life. The wineries were delightful, the weather was perfect, and we even stopped at the BCBG outlet on our way home, where I bought a darling winter sweater.
Now, returning home to a flooded apartment was a different story. YIKES. At least the Saints crushed the Panthers yesterday (like there was any doubt)! Hope your weekends were just as fantastic as mine!