What a trip!!

First off, a very, very happy birthday to my sweetheart. 26 today!!!



Our trip to Napa in one word?

Amazing.

I’m going to have to write this in parts because… we just had sooooo much fun!

We arrived at the Oakland Airport to pick up our rental car and were pleasantly surprised at our luck (and answered prayers). Being the miser I am, I booked the cheapest ‘wild car’ which in essence means, ‘whatever we have left over’. We received a brand spankin’ new red Chrysler Sebring which was pretty darn cute!

Thank you Lord!

I hate taking maps everywhere so we rented a GPS that Chris promptly named Cinnamon. Fine name… for an exotic dancer! Geez! People kept giving him strange looks when he’d talk about ‘Cinnamon’ and her fabulous work.

GPS thingies are super cool and I would recommend taking them EVERYWHERE… except San Francisco. There’s these things called - Super Tall, Super Obnoxious Buildings – all over San Fran and they block the GPS communication with space. The transmitter can travel light years through stars and bad weather but trips out over a silly building. Don’t you love technology?

‘Cinnamon’ would be saying, ‘At the next intersection turn le…’ then the satellite would cut out. I was getting kinda upset but when she abandoned us in front of Macy’s… I took it as a sign from God.

Thank you Lord again.

On the other hand, when she abandoned us in front of health food stores, men’s shoe stores, or investment firms… those were accidents - NOT divine interventions.

We drove over to the House of Nanking (Hays tradition - or a James tradition that we all copied because he IS the coolest). We looked at the menu (silly they even have a menu since they tell you what they are going to bring you) and the owner stopped by our table to ‘recommend’ (ie: order for us) some yummy dishes.

We arrived at our hotel in Santa Rosa (which I booked on a website that will remain unnamed) that we paid, well, let’s just say I bought a gallon of milk at Target and it cost more than our room. On the outside, our hotel was nice. On the inside… well, let’s just say I wouldn’t bring my kids here unless they had fully developed immune systems and were up to date on their shots… measles, mumps, HPV, HIV, PBS, QVC, HSN, and Hepatitis A – Z.

As we opened the door and flipped on the lights, they flickered for a good 60 seconds before giving in and turning on. I smelled the comforter and immediately decided… nope, not washed… and threw it on the floor (fortunately the sheets smelled clean). The box spring, which had been artfully covered by the comforter, had a huge streak of a dried brown/red fluid across of the bottom that was far too much to be blood – unless someone was fully stabbed to death. I told Chris I guessed it was someone who died and started decaying but since they change the sheets so infrequently (changing sheets is a $10 fee according to the plastic sign in the bathroom), the body wasn’t found for ages and the blood and guts slowly leaked out for weeks!

By the look on his face….someone doesn’t like my active imagination.

But most important, I discovered something important about myself…

I am VERY, VERY, obviously not high maintenance.

Thank you Lord again!


OK, well, that’s enough for now. I’ll update you on the rest later. BUT, here’s the mattress photo. Any guesses as to what exactly that is???!!??