Tag Archives: winery

Fog Escape To Wine Country

by Adel Posted on July 10, 2012

A few days ago, we decided to escape the San Francisco fog for the weekend. July (and usually most of August) is the city’s foggiest time of the year! So of course when we were invited by our dear friends to spend a couple of nights at their family’s private winery, we happily accepted!

If you follow my blog then you’ll probably remember some of our other trips up to stay with them. The last time we were there was in the fall. I fell in love with the gorgeous colors and textures. This time around the grapevines are still green and new. None of the rich colors have arrived yet. But man, the weather is just spectacular! 90 degrees under clear blue skies every day. Perfect swimming pool weather.

This little foggy city family was in heaven.

Aside from hanging out on their beautiful property, we wandered into town and browsed the local shops.

Yeah our kids were melting. As they always are when the temps hit anywhere above 75 degrees. But we took lots of cafe breaks as we wandered the Healdsburg Square.

And I even managed to stumble upon an open house for a couple of luxury condominium suites serving free wine and light fare. Score!

And after all our fun downtown, we headed back to the mansion for more good company and an absolutely delicious dinner prepared by our hosts!

I’m so thankful to have escaped a couple of foggy days in such a breathtaking setting.

And yeah, our gracious hosts even provided my children with Lego entertainment. That’s just the kind of people they are.

I didn’t take nearly as many photos as I have on previous visits here. I’ve been trying to be more deliberate and selective with my shots and not snapping away like a crazy person! I’ve also begun to just enjoy a trip or excursion without feeling the need to document every single moment of it. After a year of photography obsession, and the end of my Project 365 it’s quite a liberating feeling.

I do have a few more shots from a short walk Rex and I took down to the vineyards one evening that I’ll share in another post. Check back tomorrow!

Posted in Family | Tagged healdsburg, wine country, winery | Leave a comment

Fall Colors In Wine Country

by Adel Posted on November 29, 2011

After our Thanksgiving festivities with the B family, we decided to go play in their beautiful rows of burnt red and orange vines and leaves the next morning.

The vibrant colors were everywhere. Just stepping out the front door and you were engulfed in the rich textures all around

This was our gorgeous view when we woke. It was covered in the damp fog and possibly even more beautiful than when the sun was setting on it the evening before

So of course we couldn’t wait to go run and play in it!

The grass was long and the ground was wet. But it was just too beautiful for even my children to complain for long

Oh and did I mention they had a well manicured labyrinth too? We strolled slowly on the gravelled road toward it.

The little one would stop to pick up random rocks while I admired the beauty in dried grapes

By the way, I love these shots of her tiny hand in mine. Rex’s are those of a little boy already. And even though he sometimes still holds my hand, I’m reminded every time I hold my Jack-Jack’s how fast time flies and how they are little and innocent for way too short a time

The kids found the gated garden on our little stroll. The big one as usual sees it as an opportunity to lock the babe in *sigh*

Not to worry though. The child is VERY USED to her big brother’s antics. She is quite the resourceful (and resilient) little thing. Not much can keep her out or down

I get one posed shot for the album from them. Yay!

Because it was all downhill after that. We got to the labyrinth and they rushed to run in it

My baby girl always has to do what her big brother is doing. He jumps a step up on to the stage in the center. She of course doesn’t realize the bush isn’t an actual step and falls right into it. I mean when I ran over to save her, all that was sticking out of the bush was one leg and a tiny hand. The rest of her body had been eaten by the bush! Is it bad that I giggled just the tiniest bit at the sight? Or that for one split second I actually though of taking a picture before rescuing her??

I didn’t do either. Ok maybe I suppressed a small laugh. But no, no pictures. She was scared and I quickly fished her out

We tried to get a shot in the middle of the beautiful labyrinth, but Rex apparently had a choke-hold on her. He says it was a hug. She screamed bloody murder. You tell me.

I squeezed in one last shot with my baby girl in the labyrinth and then we called it a day

We headed to the car and were on our way back to the city

We did stop for a couple more photo ops though before hitting the freeways.

Some cheesy ones. This one was just too irresistible

The kids were pretty much done with photos, so Grizz and I used each other as subjects!

He’s not as precocious or cheeky as my little ones, but he sure was much easier to direct!

Posted in Family | Tagged grapevines, labyrinth, winery | 1 Comment

Thanksgiving Recap

by Adel Posted on November 28, 2011

Hello Monday-after-a-super-long-and-tiring-weekend! We barely traveled anywhere over the Thanksgiving but I’m still exhausted from all our fun activities. We packed those 5 days we had off full to the brim.

I took a ton of shots over the last 5 days. I’m starting to realize that I’m way too trigger-happy with my photography. I’m always afraid I’ll miss my shot so I tend to snap 3 or 4 of the same pose instead of just taking the time to get it right and take ONE shot. It makes my post-processing time extremely tedious as I have to sort through and delete a bunch of duplicates. Yes, this is one of the things I need to put on the top of my list to work on.

Anyway, since I’m so exhausted from editing I’ll just share my favorite moments over the last 5 days here. The full albums are on my Flickr feed.

Just before Thanksgiving, the God-siblings came to visit. It was a short one but I’m so happy we got to spend some time with them. The little ones are 2 weeks apart and totally look alike don’t they?

The older kids may not look as alike but had similar senses of humor…

We didn’t have time for much but we did get them out to the neighborhood playground for some sand, swinging and sliding

The other highlight of our holidays was getting to spend Thanksgiving dinner with our fabulous friends at their winery in Healdsburg again.

The food was fabulous

And everything was set up just gorgeous for the festivities

The kids as always loved the bright open spaces with lots of room to explore

It was a fun evening for our family with good food and fabulous company

The adults got their pool on post-turkey dinner

And my little boy even found a few friends who kept him well entertained for most of the evening

We spent one night there and it was 364 nights too little. Thank you as always to our gracious hosts, the B Family

I’ll try and post our shots from our run in their vineyard and labyrinth tomorrow or Wednesday. Have a fabulous Cyber Monday

Posted in Family | Tagged pool, thanksgiving, winery | Leave a comment

Wine Country Weekend Getaway

by Adel Posted on November 8, 2011

If you follow me on Twitter or Facebook then you know we had the luxury of being guests at a beautiful private winery in Healdsburg. On occasions like these I always feel so lucky that we live within an hour or so drive from some of the most beautiful scenery in the state. And also that we have amazing friends like the B Family

I love living in San Francisco. It’s easily one of the most beautiful cities in the world. But it’s refreshing to just be able to get out and walk in endless rows of vines and dirt. I mean even the sun is prettier in the midst of burnt red leaves

This particular ladder I pulled out of our trunk for the shot. Haha, yes I carry a ladder around in my car amongst other weird items

Our accommodations were first class. We stayed in the private guest house for the weekend.

After the kids went to bed the first night, we got to enjoy some really quiet time reading (Grizz) and surfing the ipad (me). Yes full 3G service deep in wine country. Heaven.

I really wanted to get some family shots and attempted to with the tripod the next morning. But man, first off it was the first frost of the season so it was freezing. Next, it was due to rain and my kids were starving. We took about 50 shots on the tripod with the timer. We got ONE. That maybe I’ll use somewhere in a Christmas card or soemthing

And then the awesome Mrs B offered to snap a few of us at the Square downtown. I love her. This is soooo much better

We stopped for coffee after breakfast. I was quite impressed with the quality they served at the Flying Goat. And I AM an SF coffee snob..

Back at the mansion we had a delicious homemade meal for dinner. I mean avocado dip from scratch type of goodness

I don’t remember the last time I made avocado dip from scratch! Plus I learned a great tip to keep the dip from browning too quickly. Leave the pits in the dip! Genius!

The boys got their pool on while dinner was being prepared. Yes of course there would be a beautiful 9 foot table on property.

And yes Rex got to get his pool on too

I took so many shots that weekend I had to buy a 2nd memory card at the local drug store!

The colors, the textures, the available props I could use and all this beautiful natural light. I was like a kid in a candy store

I mean red grape leaves and weathered wine barrels?? I never wanted to leave

Plus for the most part, my kids were being super cooperative with the shots. I think they were mostly excited to have so much space to run around anywhere and everywhere

And this was all on top of all the amazing food Mrs B whipped up for us

Poor Grizz was sick with a cold for most of the weekend, but I did manage to convince him to put a jacket on for a quick shot for me

Thank you to the B family for your amazing and gracious hospitality. When we buy our own winery one day, you will be the first on our list to be invited over for any weekend you want

Posted in Family | Tagged winery | 4 Comments

The Labyrinth We Almost Missed

by Adel Posted on June 4, 2011

So the wedding ceremony was originally supposed to be held in this gorgeous labyrinth. The designs I had done were based on this beautiful structure. We got the opportunity to see it the next day when we drove back up to wine country with the kids.

First though, a pit stop for bathroom breaks and a little quick shopping. I adore these little markets you can find all over the wine country. They always have the cutest little (overpriced) items for your home. It takes all my will power to not buy everything in site. Well that and my financial advisor breathing down my neck.

The kids hung out on the humungous wood table (also an item I wish I could buy and load up in our truck) while I snooped around the store for a bit.

I love the heavy wood look in the middle of the store. I’m not sure if they were happy with me climbing all over they’re nice furniture but I had to get this shot of my kids.

We were out of there pretty quickly though so I didn’t get a chance to find out if I would have been reprimanded

The labyrinth was gorgeous. The day was sunny and warm. We had a good time running around the freshly pruned walls of bushes. Of course being the city kids that they are, they sweltering 75 degree heat got to be too much for my children so they flopped on the mat under what little sliver of shade they could find.

We were invited up to take refuge from the “heat” in their beautiful home, fully equipped with pool table and random objects for my daughter to play with!

I love escaping the city for the day. I’m so happy we live within driving distance to some of the country’s most beautiful places to visit. We plan to do a lot more of this while our summer is cold and wet.

Posted in Family | Tagged labyrinth, playing, winery | Leave a comment

Wine Country Wedding

by Adel Posted on June 3, 2011

Our good friends J&K got married this past weekend. An unexpected rain shower caused them to switch venues 1 hour before the ceremony started. You would never have known though.

When we arrived, the setting was beautiful and romantic. Details telling a story of their love were on display everywhere.

I especially loved the huge and bright colored fresh roses that were grown on the groom’s parents winery. They were in beautiful arrangements around the room. It was also a big kick for me to see my designs for their wedding being showcased

The groom looked incredibly composed and handsome and the bride of course was just well… breathtaking!

These were two people in love and everyone there knew it.

The rest of us guests had a good time too I love weddings!

Of course by the end of the night, the poised, self-contained lady my husband came with was nowhere to be seen. She was replaced by this crazy, bare foot, wannabe wild child dancing very animatedly to every 80s song that came on. I believe this was Y-M-C-A!