Monday Updates - 3/10/08

All photos in this post but 1 were shamelessly stolen from my friend Lisa's Facebook Album

Overall Mood:
I'm very tired today, for a few reasons. First, I was busy from Friday after work until Sunday at 4PM. When I got home on Sunday I crashed and slept until 8:30, which meant that I couldn't fall asleep last night until 3AM. So, I'm kinda dragging today, it's the kind of mood where you're so tired you're productive because your brain is too stupid to think of anything else to do other than what's right in front of you. However I am in good spirits because I had a very enjoyable (albeit busy) weekend.

Weekend:

On Friday night I met up with my good friend and sorority little sis Melissa. We hadn't seen each other since December, right after I had gotten engaged. So we chatted about everything that's happened since then. Then we went back to Tridelt and watched "My Best Friend's Wedding" and I showed her all of my wedding stuff. So it was a very fun girly evening.

On Saturday I woke up early to get on the bus at Stanford for a Cardinal Young Alumni Trip to Napa!! It was my first wine tasting experience, and not only did we have perfect weather for the outing, the people on the trip were really cool. Here's a picture of me and Juls from the bus, it was great spending time with her and Lisa!

First we went to a very small vineyard that actually hasn't started selling wine yet, and we tried some very young wine out of the barrel (and it was pretty good). The grounds of the estate were beautiful, and it was so quiet and peaceful. But we were on a tight schedule so unfortunately we couldn't relax there for very long. Here's a picture from our first stop, Boeschen Vineyards: Then we had lunch at a boat launching place off of Lake Hennessey, which was beautiful - I wish we had pictures because it was quite pleasant. After lunch we headed to the Mumm Vineyard, where we had a glass of champagne and walked around a photography gallery which featured the work of Ansel Adams.
At this point we were getting antsy for more wine to try (we had only had a small tasting of wine and a glass of champagne) and we were bummed that we didn't have enough time to get a second glass at Mumm. But, the guy in charge of the trip told us that there would be plenty of wine to taste at our next stop, the Hendry Vineyard. Let me first say, we had the perfect weather for our tour. It was so warm I was thankful that I was able to take off my sweater and just have a tank on as we walked through the grape vines. We learned a lot about the upkeep of the wines, including the ways in which they use grafting to protect the vines from diseases, or change the type of grape that is grown (these chardonnay vines pictured above actually have zinfandel roots). After showing us the vineyard, our guide took us inside the barn to show us the process from which the grapes become vine.
(This room smelled really good) We learned a lot about the barrelling process - how different types of barrels are used for different wines, and how much of the price is determined by the cost of the barrel. Some wines only sit for a year, while others are for multiple years. You can tell that a lot of hard work goes into making a bottle of wine, and I think I will appreciate anything I drink from here on out, because of how elaborate the process is.

After our tour, our guide (who has worked on the vineyard for at least 30 years, back when they were selling their grapes to Robert Mondavi!) led the wine tasting. We tasted 8 wines: 1 Pinot Gris, 2 Chardonnays, 2 Zindandels, 1 blended red wine, 1 Cabernet, and 1 dessert wine. I ended up walking away with 2 bottles of the Pinot Gris (it was one of the best whites I've ever tasted), and a half bottle of the Cabernet Savignon for my dad to try ($30 for a half bottle!). After the tasting was done I was grateful that we had gotten there via bus, because I was quite inebriated at that point.

We then had a mini party on the back of the bus (see Lisa's photo album on facebook for evidence) while we drove back to SF, and then to Stanford. I had such a great time because I got to meet a lot of fun people from Stanford who had graduated within the last 5 years. That, added to the beautiful scenery and enjoyment of getting out of town for day made for a successful trip.

That night I was quite exhausted, but my best friend Adelyn actually slept over so that we could visit and then go shopping on Sunday.

My friend (and Maid of Honor!) Adelyn and I at her graduation last year from Berekeley

We had a lot of fun catching up, going to Hobees on Sunday morning and then going to Valley Fair to pick out a suit for Adelyn's teaching interviews. I hadn't bought a suit in 2 years so it was fun to look at what they had. She ended up getting this grey pantsuit from Macy's which was marked down and then 50% off, so the total cost came out to about $80! We then met up with her bf, Ed, and shopped for a blouse to go underneath the suit jacket, and found a nice pink one at Express (which as really cute spring stuff btw, I could have spent a lot of money in there!) We then had lunch in the food court and parted ways. It was so great to see her though, since we're both busy and farther away from each other it's hard to find time.

After driving back from San Jose (with the top down in my car, which was awesome), I went to the optometrist and picked up my brand new reading glasses, which are much different than the glasses I had for the past 6 years. I'm very happy with them and the fit, and hopefully these will last as long as the last pair. I came home and crashed, which led to the subsequent insomnia that I mentioned at the beginning of this post.

This week should be pretty quiet, I hope to catch up on projects at work, and gear up for my next trip south, which is for Easter in 2 weeks. The Pac-10 tourney is this weekend (I'm not mentioning my team much in this post because I'm a little depressed still about the UCLA & USC games) so I'll be busy watching that, but hopefully I'll have a quiet week and weekend, since this past weekend was so busy. I also really need to start working on the guest list for the wedding, so a quiet weekend may be a good opportunity to work on that. That's all for now :-)