One Year Anniversary in Napa: Part 1

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Our first year of marriage has come and gone, and all of a sudden we are no longer shiny and new. But that’s ok, at least now we won’t get those weird comments of, “oh, you haven’t even been married a year???” and the elated smiles that come with them. I’m sure now people will just comment, “meh” when they find out how long we’ve been together… 😉

As September 24th approached I took the time to look back at pictures from our wedding day and marvel at how thin we were. Man, we looked good. Professional photography always helps anyone to look their best, but fast-forward to today and we look like a haggard version of those bright, young people. I’m only half kidding of course, but we could stand to go to the gym and maybe get some haircuts.

Taken during our bridal session last year.
Taken during our bridal session last year.

I’d like to eventually do a nice blogging on the events of our long wedding week, so that I at least have some thoughts written down somewhere, but that will have to be for another day, today will be about our 1 year anniversary…

One of the benefits of living in the Bay Area is that we are in such close proximity to SO many things. Just a few hours drive and you can visit amazing beaches, boardwalks, National Parks, museums, etc. So I may or may not have mentioned a few times how fun it would be to go somewhere that we hadn’t been for our anniversary weekend.

Brad made it pretty obvious that he planned something and that that something was a dinner at Chili’s. How romantic! I only half believed the statement. But what I couldn’t believe was the real trip that he put together! The Thursday before the start of the weekend, Brad told me we were heading up to Napa to stay at a bed and breakfast, AND that we were going to take a hot air balloon ride.

This seemed pretty cool to me. Well actually, really cool. I was, however, a little shocked Brad had picked a bed and breakfast for us to stay in. He just strikes me as more of a hotel kind of guy and not someone interested in a house filled with doilies. He did explain that when looking for places to stay, a B&B popped up and the thought of “we’ve never done that before” popped into his head.

So Brad showed me La Belle Époque online. There were giant fluffy beds with dramatic headboards, and loads of tasseled pillows. Old fashioned chairs, and settees in every corner, flowered wallpaper and paintings, chandeliers and old lamps. Pretty much everything Brad hates. But I have to be honest, there was a little fear in me too. Along with being worried that there would be an inch of dust covering everything like it might be at the home of a 101 year-old lady who is blind, I’ll admit that the thought of “we could be haunted by a war general here” did go through my head (I am aware that this doesn’t make any sense for the location and time period of the house, but just go with it).

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Rest assured when we arrived in Napa Friday evening we checked into what I could only imagine is one of the nicest bed and breakfasts. Of course over the top in decoration as it should be, but absolutely lovely. It was extremely clean, bright and had one of the best updated bathrooms I’ve ever seen. It had a jetted tub that was heavenly. Tracey, the lady who runs La Belle Époque, was so nice and very helpful. She knows everything about the Napa area. I would highly recommend this place, and even go back myself. My fears of ghosts quickly went away upon arriving.

Where our room was.
Where our room was.
This is the main house where breakfast was served.
This is the main house where breakfast was served.

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Baby Dog King!

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If you haven’t heard already… we are expecting! Baby dog King arrives this October. Well he’s already born, we just don’t get to take him home for about another month. Brad and I are SO excited. You might remember that I mentioned Brad made us late leaving for Oregon a few weeks ago. It was because he made sure the breeder told him first about the birth so he could surprise me. He got a card and a bone (the one in the pic above) and I have to say I got pretty teary eyed.

Almost two months ago I found a goldendoodle breeder online and got in contact with her. We set up an appointment to come out to meet her and her dogs in Galt, a town just south of Sacramento. They were in the middle of nowhere surrounded by lots of farmland. The dogs were sweet and we even got to meet two of the dogs that were a product of their breeding; a 6 year-old beauty named Rosie and a 12 week-old pup named Lefty.

Poor Lefty had experienced an unfortunate accident that left vets with no option but to amputate his back right leg. So obviously his name is super fitting. However sad his circumstances, this dog had no clue he wasn’t supposed to have only three legs. He was out of this world cute! He was interested but laid back. He loved to be pet and would follow us around the yard. I could have taken him home that day, but Lefty was already spoken for. It sounded like he had a really nice family that he was going home to, but it was still kind of hard to say goodbye to him…

Also it should be noted that Rosie was such a nice dog too who even greeted us at the door with a sock. Apparently when she meets people she likes to have something in her mouth. Dogs can be so funny!

The whole trip just confirmed that we were getting our dog from the right place. We get to choose from three males in a litter by a female golden retriever who is the sweetest dog you could imagine. When we met the mom she came right up to Brad and let him pet her. Just so calm and mellow and enjoying the attention she was getting.

We are so excited for this upcoming experience and I apologize in advance for the over abundance of pictures that will inevitably flood social media.

Kings Come to California

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Blogging is harder than I thought. I have so much to write and so little time! Oh wait, who am I kidding? I’m a stay-at-home housewife… But in my defense we have been a little busy lately. I will catch up about our fun Labor Day weekend soon, but first I will start with this past weekend…

Brad’s parents came to visit! They flew in Thursday afternoon, and after wrong turns on the way to the airport already making me late and driving around the airport three times because San Jose International is way confusing (arrivals are picked up on the left side, makes no sense) I finally got to them! I’m sure I won so many daughter-in-law points that day 😉 But hey, I’m their only daughter-in-law so that automatically makes me the best.

We headed back to Fremont and got lunch at Boudin’s because so far that has proven to be the best place to get any meal. Can’t beat their famous sour dough bread and Brad and I have never had anything on the menu that wasn’t good. And at this point, we have tried a lot of different foods from there.

We had some time to kill before heading to see Brad at work, so we got Brian and Mary checked into their hotel and then I took them back to our place to see our totally amazing apartment. Well the living in close proximity to a million people isn’t great but we got a nice view and the windows let so much beautiful light in.

View from our apartment. Look how pretty! Except all that grass is dead now. I look forward to it getting green again in the winter.
View from our apartment. Look how pretty! Except all that grass is dead now. I look forward to it getting green again in the winter.

Then we headed to the magical land of Facebook, where there is a never ending supply of free food… Brad gave a little tour of his workspace, the micro kitchens, cafeterias, restaurants, merchandise store and sweet shop. We ate dinner and played ping-pong. And then of course we had to take pics out in front of the giant “like” sign that welcomes everyone to headquarters.

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Nice face, Annabelle.

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Friday was spent doing a little shopping in Fremont before heading out to Half-Moon Bay. None of us had ever been there before and it was another thing for Brad and I to check off our ever-growing list of things to do in the Bay Area. It was cute and quaint. The drive there brought us up in elevation and through lots of trees before dropping us down by the ocean.

We got a late lunch at Jersey Joe’s and ate the strongest garlic fries of our lives surrounded by Philadelphia sports memorabilia. (Go Eagles!) We headed to the foggy beach and took the adorable picture below and then walked around town checking out some stores.

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Saturday morning we got a text from Brian saying that when we were ready to come pick them up for the day that we would need to pick them up at Costco… they had taken the airport shuttle over to our local store! It’s just a King thing to check out Costco even when on vacation 😉 I feel like that’s how I measure how much evolving into a King I’ve become, by how much more I want to go to Costco. I’m slowly but surely learning of all the things I can get at that amazing store. It’s impressive.

So we picked them up and then ventured into San Francisco. We walked along Fisherman’s Warf, made a pit stop into a year-round Christmas shop, watched an unusual show on the pier, and dined at Lou’s Fish Shack. We lucked out with the food for picking a random restaurant. It was pretty darn good.

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We then made our way down to Ghirardelli Square where a chocolate festival was going on. We restrained ourselves and stuck to poking our heads into the stores up there and only giving into treating ourselves to Ghirardelli milkshakes. They were rich and chocolate-y and probably a really bad idea. But when in Rome!

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Needless to say, it was a really good weekend. We love visitors especially when they are family. Come back to visit soon, Kings!

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How could I not share this?