98 Caramels: Happy Birthday to Me

Since everyone else gets to take a birthday trip this year (OK, that's not entirely true - Daddy & Brennan had a combined one, and Lucie's will fall on the school break/Xmas holiday - but I'm always looking for an occasion to go somewhere), Mommy got to celebrate her birthday in Healdsburg!

Kris & Tim flew from Atlanta to join us, since it was a combo celebration for them as well - a birthday for Kris and their wedding anniversary. They particularly enjoyed the chairs in the lower right corner, dubbing them the "Cialis chairs". In addition to lounging in artfully weathered chairs, the vacation rental featured a big grassy lawn for soccer-

An intermittently functioning hot tub, that also served as a perfect jumping ledge-

And a "solar heated" pool, as in, warmed by sunlight, which probably is the case in July but perhaps less so in October. Even though the days are still pretty hot, it cools off a lot at night. Which I guess is how they manage to grow wine grapes and all, so I suppose I shouldn't gripe about the water temperature. The shallow end was all right...and there's a fun twist to come.

The grown-ups had their own big adventure: The Return to Napa Valley -

It's been 3 years or so (full disclosure, I don't fully remember 3 weeks ago) - we stopped for about 24 hours on the way to Tahoe, just before Bren turned one. We visited a few spots that must have been filed away in the "let's go back when we have more time/no kids or dogs" corner of my brain - because I arranged a return. So there was the wine and pizza tasting on Signorello's hilltop/poolside "terrazzo"-

We also went to Regusci beforehand, since we were incredibly early, at which point I realized that was the place I had really liked, since they were so gracious about the baby and the geriatric dog and had nice wines to boot. Not to say that I didn't enjoy the view, the pizza, and the wine at Signorello.

We also stopped at Chateau Montelena, another place I've been meaning to visit, ever since thoroughly enjoying the movie Bottle Shock and buying a magnum of their '05 Cab at a fundraiser (only to discover the following day I was pregnant again, which I guess is one way to guarantee you let a bottle age a bit before opening it).

Napa wine-tasting is a bit of different beast since my last visit - standard operating procedure now seems to be $20 tasting fees, waived with a minimum $100 purchase. It's like a pocket universe that diverged from the rest of the world's economy in 2008.

AGAIN with the camera, Anne?

After a lovely afternoon in the pocket universe, we went back to the ranch to relieve the babysitter, and discovered the unreliable hot tub had a unexpected benefit:

It had been heating the pool! Now even Lucie Bean could enjoy a swim.

It's nice to spend a weekend in the country - the kids can roam a little further without constant parental hovering, go barefoot in the grass, and discover that it gets really dark at night.