Here is also a picture of all the ladies who attended this girls weekend. Some I knew before the weekend and others I did not. Some have attended previous weekends, but this was my first. From left to right we are, Kmber, Melissa, Jen, Theresa, Sharon, Rita, and Jessica.
The back story was provided by Theresa and is copied here.
"Theresa and Jen grew up together in the little town of Shelby, Ohio. They were inseparable in high school and now it's their dad's who are inseparable! Then came college. Theresa deserted Jen in her last year of high school for the "big city" of Evansville, Indiana, where she met Rita. Rita and T became great friends through the Newman Center. Meanwhile, Jen survived senior year without Theresa and went on to Bowling Green State University (BGSU). Theresa graduated from UE and went to work in good ol' Findlay, Ohio, home of Marathon, conveniently located just 30 short minutes south of BGSU. One fall, Jen and Theresa road tripped to Milwaukee to see Rita in her hometown where she'd moved back to teach after conquering UE. (I believe this is the first documented actual meeting of Jen and Rita. It could have also been the road trip Jen took to visit T at Evansville, but I can't remember if that was before or after Rita graduated. I must be getting old, my memory's not what it once was!) Anyhow, back to the story, Theresa and Jessica met when Jessica (who’s an engineer) was visiting her sister whom Theresa worked with in Findlay. Meanwhile, Jen became a certified pain and torturist, I mean physical therapist, and moved to Boston. There she met Melissa who was working at the same facility as Jen (Melissa's an occupational therapist). Jen and Melissa became great friends. When Jen decided to get married, T and Melissa met as they were both in the wedding. During the planning of the wedding, we decided we needed a vacation after the whirlwind planning. The first girls weekend ensued with a cruise to Cozumel! Fast forward a couple years and Theresa starts working in HES&S and Kimber (an engineer also in HES&S) moves to Findlay. Their offices are right next to each other and the rest, they say, is history. I believe there was a meeting between Jen and Kimber while Theresa was living in Findlay but can’t remember for sure. So, Jen and Melissa are both happily married now and decide to take their husbands on a vacation to an island (Jamaica, I think). While there, they run into this couple from Minnesota who are in Jamaica to get married but don't have any witnesses! So, Jen and Melissa and their husbands are the witnesses. With that, Sharon is now happily married and part of the annual girls weekend group! Fast forward a couple more years, and T is now living in Texas. She's reconnected with the Koutny sisters even becoming an honorary member of the fam to join in on the family’s Alaska vacation!, and has gotten Kimber to move to Houston too (by way of Norway). So, Rita (who now is a nurse practitioner and is living in Minnesota – but really needs to move to Houston, hint hint!) comes to visit T in Houston for a Gaelic Storm concert. Kimber (and a few others) decides to tag along for this concert of a band she's never heard of and gets to meet Rita in the process. To escape the dreary Ohio winters, Jen and her family road trip to Texas (they should really just move to Houston!) to visit T and meet Kimber and her family when we have a barbeque one night. And that brings us to the California Road Trip/Sonoma Weekend when you’ll get to meet anyone you’ve not already met!"
We all stayed in a wonderful house in Sonoma. The house had three bedrooms and two baths. It had a fully equipped huge kitchen. There was a pool, beautiful landscaping, a putting green and bunk house. We had plenty of room and it was a much better deal than rooms in a hotel. The only issue we had were yellow jackets. They would leave you alone unless you had recently touched food.
Our arrival Thursday left us all too tired to cook. So we found an incredible Italian Restaurant in Sonoma called Mama Tanino's. Kimberly and her husband Gaetano are the owners. Gaetano is Italian and has been a chef at several popular restaurants in large cities. Now he has settled down with Kimberly to create amazing Italian food in Sonoma. Kimberly was a perfect hostess and made us feel so comfortable. We stopped back in later in the weekend to say hello and get some more fabulous Italian dessert.
We had a van and driver for winery touring and wine tasting on Friday. We visited 5 different wineries and I can't remember what order. I have inserted a few pictures below though. Here are three pictures from the Deerfield winery. We sampled all the wines they offered (it was good this winery was last as we were all very happy at this point). The tasting room at Deerfield in in the cave. Below are pictures of the wine making equipment outside the cave. then a picture of a cask in the cave. The casks are stamped with the type and age of the wood (say Red Oak) and the winery the wine is being produced for. Deerfield produces their own wine as well as wine for smaller wine makers. Finally a picture of many casks in one section of the caves.
Also on our drive around, the driver provided history and information about the area. One thing he pointed out were the hills in the picture below that are in the movie Bottle Shock. Bottle Shock was filmed in 2008 and is based on a 1976 wine competition where a Califonia wine defeated a French wine in a blind taste test. Although based on a Napa valley vitner, the movie was filmed in Sonoma.
Another winery had this beautiful pond and flood control walls pictured below.
After the winery tours, we munched on cheese, crackers and veggies for dinner.
Saturday found us up before dawn to go on a hot air balloon ride. We had to leave the house at 5:30 to drive for an hour to the rendezvous point. We met the balloon pilot and helpers before driving another hour and a half to the valley where the balloon ride would occur. Here is a picture of the van and balloon and basket. The road was extremely windy and the driver an expert at driving it. So since we were all in the back of the van we were a bit shaky on our arrival.
So now the picture below is as close to actually going on the ride as we got. the wind was very light and the weather beautiful. However the wind was blowing in the wrong direction and would have blown us out of the valley and potentially to poor landing spots. These other two balloons arrived before us and had inflated and loaded before they called off. So we watched some equally disappointed people offload from the two balloons pictured. Then we watched them deflate. We were all very disappointed but respectful of the call the pilot made. Of course then we had to repeat the drives to the valley to get home.
Saturday afternoon was a tasty lunch of chicken and beef tacos as well as salsa, dip, and cheese made in our fancy kitchen. then we went into the festival in town and enjoyed Sonoma. We also celebrated Theresa's birthday.
Sunday found us leaving at various times. The rain started early Sunday so we were happy to get to the airport and that our previous two days were so nice. We had a blast and were sad to say goodbye and enter reality.
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