A Perfect Weekend

Don't you just love those?

We really did have one of those perfect weekends.

Perhaps we cheated a bit, though. We both took Friday off, and planned a mini-vacation around it. Last Wednesday night, we booked a room for Friday night at Harvest Inn in Napa Valley. We also made dinner reservations at the The California Culinary Institute for dinner Friday evening.

We slept in on Friday morning, did some stuff around the house, got Dick's new phone set up, then headed out the door in the mid-afternoon. I always forget how easy and pretty the drive to Napa Valley is from San Francisco. We arrived in just over an hour.

We checked into our hotel, and unpacked in our sweet room - which included an huge brick fireplace. NICE! We drove around the valley for a bit, then returned to the hotel for some wine and cheese before dinner.

My parents had given us a gift certificate to use at Greystone Restaurant (at the C.I.A.) and we've been meaning to make the trip up to use it. We had a really nice selection of wine, and a delicious dinner. (I had trout, stuffed with crab!)

The weather was really amazing all weekend. Rain was in the forecast for Saturday, but it turned out to be gorgeous and sunny! We drove around Calistoga, and stopped to see the Geiser! That was pretty cool. We then drove around and enjoyed tastings at several different wineries, including a great picnic lunch at V. Sattui.

We also made our usual stop at Dean and Deluca for some pasta sauce, then did a bit of shopping at the Napa Premium Outlets.

On our way home, we phoned in a take-out order to my favorite Chinese Restaurant, U-Lee. (Best Chinese Food in SF - I even took my Grandparents there!) We swung by the restaurant (in Nob Hill) and brought the piping hot food back home to eat. It doesn't get better than this!

The weather was absolutely amazing today - clear, sunny, and warm (well, warm for February) and we took a HUGE walk! We walked to the other side of Noe Valley, went into whatever open houses we passed by, and were out for almost 5 hours. It was fantastic.

Tonight, Christopher treated us to a yummy meal, which we ate with one of the wines that we brought home from Napa yesterday.

It was such a beautiful, and relaxing weekend, and we both really felt like we were on vacation. It's so nice to be on vacation mode, without have to go far from home.