We left on Wednesday, and came home Monday from an awesome and adventurous trip to California with a few friends of ours. I would love to give you ALL of the details, but I’m certain you don’t want them….
….so here’s a summary…..
Thursday
An amazing day of Winery’s with this view from Mount’s Winery
A private tour, Tasting and Lunch (my favorite meal of the whole trip!) at Simoncini Vineyard’s
Just a little silliness at The Wilson Winery
Ending our day with dinner outside at Francis Ford Coppola.
Friday
More winery’s and private tastings, and meeting lot’s of amazing people! We ended the evening at a campsite on The Southfork River, where we would have dinner, camp, enjoy a huge breakfast on Saturday morning, then head out for a full and physical day of white water rafting! (I can NOT wait for the photo’s we purchased from the KICK-ASS kayaker that paddled her way through all of us, perching herself on rock’s, awaiting our arrival as we came down the river! She was AWESOME!!)
The camp site was gorgeous!
Due to a glitch in the tent reservations, Mike and I were the only couple forced to move out of our tent on the river and move into this little one room cabin, looking over all of our friends. (Okay, I’m totally being sarcastic here. I’m not a huge camper. Bugs bite me. I’m afraid of snakes coming in the tent, and I had just found out at dinner that there were bears in California, so I could not have been happier!!!)
It was quiet and peaceful before we headed out for the day! The 6 miles before we stopped for lunch, were nice and quiet. The last 7 miles……AWESOME!!!! The guides were great and very entertaining! I wanna go back to that river tomorrow!
Saturday
After a full day of rafting, we hopped in the 12 passenger van that we had been traveling in since Wednesday, and headed back to Concord, California, to the house we were so fortunate to be staying in. One of our friend’s on the trip, Eleanor, is from Concord. Eleanor’s parents and brother and sister-in-law (they live two houses apart from each other) welcomed us into their homes for our 5-night stay. A HUGE Thank You to Jim, Myrna, Jerry and Carol for their amazing hospitality! After our drive back to Concord, Jim was anxious for us all to attend the Cinco De Mayo celebration at his parish. Eleanor is one of nine kids, and I think they all still live in California. We met almost ALL of her siblings at the Cinco De Mayo celebration!
Many member’s of the parish are hispanic and they were ready to celebrate with an AMAZING feast along with Margarita’s and some truly unbelievable entertainment! It had been a really long day, but I was so glad we all went!
Sunday
Several of our friends had registered to ride in the TourDeCure Bike ride for Diabetes. You could do the 100 mile, 80 mile, 50 mile, 25 mile or 10 mile ride. Out of the 8 of us on our trip, 5 of them, and most of Eleanor’s very large Catholic family, signed up for the 25 mile ride! Mike and Tim and I cheered them on, took pictures and drank beer. 🙂
I think there are at least 14 of Eleanor’s family member’s in this picture alone!
In this little collage below, in the bottom right picture, the man is the sunglasses and blue bike helmet, is Eleanor’s 78 year old dad, Jim. I wish I would have taken my picture with him. He is just about the sweetest thing. He is very proud of his family and he is full of life! He picked us up from the airport in the family car, the 12 passenger van, and drove us to dinner on Wednesday night. He talked about the 30 mile bike ride that he took the day before. I was amazed. He did not do the winery’s with us on Thursday, because he doesn’t really drink wine, but he did spend the entire day touring the winery’s with us on Friday and even tasting a couple, because he didn’t want to miss out on the camping and the white water rafting adventure on Saturday!! He loved it!! Then he did the 25 mile bike ride with the rest of the family on Sunday! I really was inspired by his energy and his love of life!
After a busy and physical few days for most of the group, a night around the pool and hot tub in Jim and Myrna’s backyard, sipping wine and chatting, seemed just the thing. Many family member’s came over and lounged around with us, and it was the perfect ending to an amazing few days spent in Wine Country.
The cases of wine should start showing up in a couple of day’s! What we saved in hotel cost and air fare, we likely doubled in wine purchases!!!
Running
Right before we left for our trip, I ran in the Trolly Run on the Plaza. It was a 4 mile run, and I didn’t take any walking break’s until after the 3 mile mark. I felt great about myself and I am so happy that I did that. I plan to keep up with the 5K’s now that I’ve started them. I am participating in Running with the Cow’s in Louisburg, Kansas this Saturday with Rebecca, my running partner. It took me awhile, but somewhere I figured out how to breathe when I run. Before, I always felt this panicked feeling in my chest, so I would stop. Now, I can’t say that I love to run, but it sure feels good to accomplish the task, and say that I was physically up for the challenge!
Weight Watcher’s
I stopped looking at the scale several weeks back and started to focus on how I feel about myself and how I feel about the choices that I’m making. It’s made a huge difference in my mood, and for that I am grateful. These last few days of vacationing with wine and food though, have caught up with me and I am feeling it in my body. I’ve missed several meetings due to a few changes in my everyday life, and I won’t be able to go this week or next week either. After that, I should be able to get back to my weekly meetings. I do miss my regular routine. I’m going to focus on eating 26-30 Points a day, and drinking plenty of water. After doing my Chicken Challenge a while back, and then the 21 Day Challenge of Meal’s, I’ll be needing something fun to do with the blog. I feel like with Spring and Summer, maybe I’ll do some sort of a Veggie Challenge?? I like a lot of veggies, but I know that there are several that I have not tried. There are probably several fruits that I have not tried as well, and I LOVE fruit! I’ll ponder that.
I’ve missed the blog, but I felt like I needed to get a few things in order, and I was able to do that, and take a little vacation too!
I hope you all are well and are making Healthy Choices!!
“love the life you live, live the life you love”
