Random April Photos

These are just a few photos I took in April of little Miss Z that I liked.  Here she is running around the neighborhood in the new princess coat 

Miss Kelli brought her.

 This is just a sweet photo of those Blue Eyes I love so much!

 And here she is saying "I LOVE YOU THIS MUCH"!!!

Water Puddle Fun in Hurricane

It's very hard to keep a high energy 2 yr old pinned up inside, even on a dreary day following some nice April Showers.  So after dinner, Zoey and I went for a walk and I just let her have at it in the puddles in the neighborhood.  You can see she was having a ball and no body part was spared a good soaking!

Last Day in San Francisco

So after being spoiled in Wine Country for a few days we spent our last afternoon/evening back in San Francisco and spent a little more time on the warf.  Jay and I decided to take a boat tour of the Bay.  We got to cruise under the Golden Gate Bridge and past Alcatraz and hear lots of great history.  Before we ever even made it away from port we caught site of all the Sea lions sunning on the docks at the Warf. 

Some photos of the Golden Gate Bridge. 

Some photos of Alcatraz.

Chateau St. Jean

We made a quick stop at Chateau St. Jean, but it was close to closing time and I think they were in a rush and in comparison to our experience at Bella we weren't very impressed!

Bella Vineyards

I think the four of us would all agree, probably one of the best times we had on our trip was at Bella Vineyards.  We had a tour of the Vineyards via a circa 1970's Swiss Army Vehicle and then a private tasting in the wine cave.  The wine, the views and the tour itself were all spectacular.  Here is a picture of our ride and the entrance to the Wine Cave. 

A picture of the happy couples once we were all loaded up for the ride to the top of the hill. 

Some views from the top!

The cousins finishing up the tour in the wine cave!

So after a day in the city and then a day hiking in the Redwoods we decided to get down to the business at hand and start tasting some wines in Wine Country.  Our first stop was Ledson Vineyards.  They call it the "Castle" and you can see why.

Here is a photo of the cousins with our Sommelier.  We tried a lot of fabulous red wines and had a great time clowning around.  We never learned the art of taste and spit, so one vineyard was about all we could tackle in a day it seems :-)

Here are some photos in front of the fountain behind the main house.

Hiking in the Redwoods - Muir National Forrest

So after a great Day 1 in San Francisco, we drove across the Golden Gate Bridge and stopped in Sausalito for dinner en route to Sonoma - Wine Country.  After a wonderful first night in Sonoma we got up and made our why back towards San Francisco to Muir Woods, part of the Redwood Forrest.  

You can tell from the photos that the Redwoods were amazing.  They are on the order of 3000 yrs old in many cases.  We actually picked a trail that climbed 3.5 - 4 miles down through the Redwoods to the beach. Luckily we had packed lots of water and lunch because it was a tough trek down.   

These were the views when you first come out of the Redwoods and into the open for the rest of the climb down to the beach. 

 The views down at the water were gorgeous.

On the way back we decided to take a slightly longer trail and it worked out well.  we climbed about a million of these stairs up and out, but it was over quickly and the footing was pretty good compared to the hike down.  

 This was the clearing and views once we got back up to the top.