Hi friends! How was your weekend? I flew to Las Vegas yesterday for a work trip and will be in Sin City for the week. But today, I want to back it up a few weeks to my vacation road trip up to Sonoma wine country. I already recapped my favorite eats and reviewed my Sonoma hotel, so today I’m chatting about my favorite wineries of the trip! Whenever I visit a wine region, I like to do my research to find wineries that I want to visit beforehand. During this trip we did a nice combo of tasting at smaller establishments and larger productions. It’s always kind of fun to compare and contrast, and I tend to gravitate towards smaller wineries. While I love wine and obviously appreciate the wine itself, what I also love is meeting the people behind the wine. I’m the same way with food: ... [Read More]
California travel
Inn at Sonoma Review + My Favorite California Road Trip ’16 Eats
As a California transplant, I'm always in awe of how vast and beautiful this state is. Having been born and raised in New Jersey where you can drive from the top of the state to the bottom in a couple of hours, it's amazing to me how massive California is. There are so many awesome places to visit and explore, and we've gone on many weekend getaways and vacations without even leaving state lines. This was the case two weeks ago, when my hubby and I set off on a California road trip vacation. We traveled from San Diego up to San Francisco to meet my parents, who flew in from the East coast, stayed there a night, then headed into wine country for the remainder of the week. We elected to stay in Sonoma at the Inn at Sonoma, which I was excited about because while I had wine ... [Read More]
Palm Springs Trip Recap: Where We Ate, Drank & Explored
Hi there! After a long weekend full of Miami sun and bachelorette festivities (and perhaps a few too many drinks!), I'm back home in SoCal. I think it's going to take me a few days to catch up on sleep and recharge from all of the fun, but it was an awesome girls' trip celebrating my best friends' upcoming nuptials! I'm going to recap some of the awesomeness of the weekend soon, but today I want to share with you guys a post about some of the spots I visited during my Palm Springs weekend getaway with my hubby a few weekends ago. Let's get to it! Where We Stayed Palm Springs is a desert vacation town about 2 hours from my house. We wound up visiting the area for the weekend when the company we own a timeshare with, Welk Resorts, offered us a complimentary villa for a couple ... [Read More]
Wine Tasting in the Santa Ynez Valley
Happy Friday friends! Since the weekend is almost here, I thought that today I'd talk about one of my favorite weekend activities: wine tasting. Besides just loving to try new wines and compare and contrast different varietals and vintages, I enjoy visiting wineries because I like to hear firsthand the stories behind the wineries and their products. There tends to be so much passion put into winemaking, and I love hearing about it. I also am in love with the beauty that typically surrounds wine country. This love affair first started when I studied abroad in Italy in college, met a local restaurant owner who offered to take two of my friends and me on a winery tour, and spent a day in the Italian countryside sipping wine with winery owners who spit their wine out in a seemingly ... [Read More]
Skiing for the First Time in Lake Tahoe
Hi friends! Recently I recapped both hiking at Emerald Bay State Park and eating & drinking in South Lake Tahoe, and today I have my final trip recap to share with you all: skiing for the first time there! I'm not really a big winter sports person...or winter in general person for that matter. I don't love snow, and while I did go sledding and tubing here and there in the winter growing up in New Jersey, I had never had a big interest in skiing. Don't get me wrong, I wouldn't turn down a chance to try it, but if given the choice between a tropical vacation or a winter wonderland to go skiing, I'd choose the former every time. But last month when I got obsessed with the Olympics as I usually do when they're happening, the idea of being around snow and surprising my hubby with a ... [Read More]
Exploring Catalina Island for the First Time
Last weekend I got a chance to drive down to Southern Cali to spend time with my parents in the Anaheim area. Coincidentally, my hubby and I had flown out of New Jersey on the Sunday after Christmas, and my parents flew into L.A. that Tuesday for my dad's work. He's a football coach and was one of the coaches for a football game sponsored by the Marines Corps, called the Semper Fidelis All-American Bowl. Since my dad was busy during the days with game preparations, my mom and I did some exploring of the area together. One day we went to Disneyland to walk around and check it out. I've been to Disney World a bunch of times, but this was my first time to Disneyland. They still had the park all decked out for the holidays, which naturally, I loved. We both love the It's a Small World ... [Read More]