Paso/SLO Getaway & The Best Souvenir EVER

Last weekend, despite the busy-ness of moving, we were able to take a quick overnight trip to Paso Robles & San Luis Obispo with some friends. Our mission: wine tasting, great food, coastal air, and relaxation. We managed to hit up 4 wineries in Paso (before we just couldn't. take. any. more): Daou, Justin, Opolo and Jada. From there we drove to San Luis and checked into our favorite B&B, The Sanitarium. We all took a snooze before dinner, which was at Ciopinot (delicious!). After dinner we relaxed at The Sanitarium in front of a fire while sipping port and nibbling on Hershey's Kisses. It was pretty much the perfect day, followed by an amazing night's sleep! On Sunday we slept in, enjoyed a late breakfast, and headed over to SLO for some shopping before we headed home. 

 

The highlight of the trip for me (besides ALL of it) happened during our stay at The Sanitarium. Chad and I have been staying there for years, and one of their rooms had this beautiful painting that I just loved -- in fact, we always tried to get that room because I loved it so much. Upon making our reservation, I was sad to hear that our favorite room wasn't available AND that my painting was gone.... Until Sunday morning, when I discovered it sitting all alone outside in the back of the property! I quickly inquired of the owner about purchasing it, and she agreed.....WOW! So we came home with the best souvenir EVER -- a 4'x5' painting from my favorite room at my favorite B&B. You'll see it at the end of the slideshow below -- there's a picture of it when it used to hang in the room we love, and a picture of it by itself. It's the PERFECT size to hang above our stairs in the new home. It needs some TLC from having been outside too long, but even if it's not in perfect condition, I am just THRILLED to have it!

Mini Staycation...

Sometimes you just need to get away.....even if it's for 24 hours (or less) and even if it's in your own backyard (almost). As much as we wanted to take a full weekend and go to the coast, we managed to coordinate a quick overnight getaway last weekend -- in Reedley, of all places! We had wine tasted at Cedar View Winery before, and decided to give their B&B a shot. After a long, leisurely, and super-satisfying dinner in Fresno at Parma Ristorante, we headed to the countryside for a night of quiet, restful sleep -- and sleeping in -- and a delicious home-cooked breakfast. We owe a BIG "thank you" to Tess's Grandma and Grandpa in Reedley for keeping her overnight for us!

 

SLO Weekend...

We escaped the busyness of life this weekend for 2 days and nights at our favorite B&B near the coast -- The Sanitarium in San Luis Obispo. It was a wonderful time of no agenda, no plans....and yet somehow we managed to fit in everything we wanted to do. For me that included sleeping in, taking hot baths in our "Moroccan soaking tub," reading an entire book, napping, catching a movie ("Life As We Know It"), enjoying great food (including a delicious 3-course meal with wine pairings at Buona Tavola), photography, and wine tasting at Opolo. We made it home on Sunday in time to get the car washed, get groceries, get unpacked, and spend the evening relaxing on the couch after enjoying a yummy, homemade meal. We couldn't have asked for anything better! Below are some of my pics from around the B&B, which I spiffed up using my favorite apps on the iPhone.

Weekend Trip To Pasadena

This past weekend we drove South to visit our dear friends the Pikes - Tom, Jeannie, Amy, John & Reid. They have a lovely 1920's home in beautiful Pasadena, with a cozy loft bedroom above the garage that we got to use a our "bed and breakfast" for the weekend. The Pikes are just so fun and lovely, all of them. I'm sure Reid (age 14) does not appreciate being called lovely, but he's a great kid and they're all just so NICE to be around. We're so fortunate to know them and call them our friends!

I'll try to explain here how we know the Pikes.... We're connected to them through our small home fellowship group, which Chad blogged about in December. We met the Pikes through our friends Ray & Jan Kent, who have known Tom & Jeannie for ages and ages. Tom & Jeannie (along with their extended family) are part of another small "home" fellowship that meets in City of Industry (I say "home" because their group is larger than ours, and they don't meet in a home anymore -- they have a small church building -- but it's a very grassroots, community-oriented group like ours). Tom & Jeannie's daughter, Amy, just graduated from the master's program at Fresno State and has spent the last 6 years as part of our group here in Clovis. We saw a lot of the Pikes when Amy was living here -- she's since moved home to Pasadena to start her physical therapy career.

There are home fellowship groups like ours all over the country, both big and small (although ours seems to be the smallest), that are informally connected with each other (i.e., not through any formal alliance or organization). How they all met each other, many many moons ago, I have no idea.... But over the past 10 years, as we have grown into our spiritual "family," we have been privileged to meet more and more people who meet and fellowship like we do. There are groups in L.A., San Diego, Bay Area, Arizona, Richmond, Memphis, New York, etc. who hold various conferences and retreats throughout the year, and people from all over travel all over to see and fellowship with each other. One such conference we have attended a few times is the "West Coast Christian Conference," held at Westmont College in Santa Barbara every July. Some of you may have heard us talk about it. This year the conference will be held at Biola University because of the fire damage that was done to the Westmont campus in 2009.

Anyway, the weekend in Pasadena was a good one.... We saw so much beautiful architecture (love the craftsman style!), ate delicious food, and spent time with wonderful people. Saturday was wet and rainy -- we visited The Gamble House, had coffee at Jameson Brothers, and watched their friend Evan Chambers work in his glass blowing studio. Chad and I had a "date night" at Morton's Steakhouse, which was a very FUN experience -- they bring the raw meat to the table for you to "preview," including a live lobster! (We decided we like Ruth's Chris MUCH better.) Sunday was bright and sunshiny, and we got to attend their church meeting for the first time ever. We were blessed to see many familiar faces. See below for some pics of the weekend.... I'm still going crazy with the iPhone pics and using the "Tiltshift Generator" app to give everything a vintage feel, so that's why the pictures look a little different lately.

2010 Update

We have totally eased into this new year, and wow -- January is almost over, it seems! We had a relaxing New Year's weekend: we spent January 1st with the extended Unruh family at my Aunt Debbie & Uncle Jim's house (an annual tradition -- so great to have the entire family together!) and then hosted our Fullerton Parental Unit (plus Uncle Richard) at "The Oxford House" for the weekend. This past weekend (MLK Day) was the annual Logan Invitational speech and debate tournament up in Union City, CA. Chad has tournaments every weekend going into February, culminating in the Berkeley Invitational over Valentine's Day weekend. By then we'll be super-ready for our annual February getaway weekend. This year we're considering a visit to our dear friends the Pikes in Pasadena, CA. If the Pikes aren't free, we'll throw a dart and see where we end up, I guess! We've talked about San Luis Obispo (we love the Sanitarium B&B), Monterey (maybe the Portola Hotel?), and recently I tossed out the idea of Ojai (apparently up-and-coming for wine tasting and resort-y hotels). Wherever we end up, you know I'll blog about it!

A Getaway Weekend...

After an extremely busy January, we decided to get away for a weekend of R&R. For this trip, we decided on some wine tasting in Paso Robles and a few nights the Asuncion Ridge Bed & Breakfast.

Well, the weather wasn't the greatest -- lots of rain, fog, and even some hail -- so we were grateful for the fireplace and high thread-count sheets at our B&B. On Saturday we napped and read after breakfast and didn't venture out until 3:00. We tasted at Turley and Opolo, and hit up a fun/quaint restaurant in Templeton called McPhee's. We were back "home" by 8:00 and curled up on the couch to watch....of all things....Scarface. Hey, we hadn't seen it before and we both love mobster movies. "Say hello to my little friend...."

On Sunday the weather wasn't much better. We took our time getting ready to head out and hit the road around 1:00. On the way home we hit up Linne Colado (super cute labels but really expensive wine), Clautiere (very fun and whimsical tasting room!), and Eberle. We made it home by 5:30 and topped off the weekend with a fun dinner at Yosemite Falls Cafe with Chad's parents Geoff & Toni.

You know it's a relaxing weekend when you get to read 2 books! I (Sarah) managed to finish The Audacity of Hope and finished Don't Get Arrested in South Carolina (written by our family friend JB Simms), and Chad got a good start on the epic Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett. Some pics from our weekend are posted below:

Summer Vacation ~ Napa & Ashland

After not taking any vacation in 2007, we were in desperate need of a getaway this Summer! During the first week in July we drove north to Ashland, Oregon for the annual Shakespeare Festival, with stops in Sonoma and San Francisco along the way.

Our trip started out with 2 nights at the Trojan Horse Inn in lovely Sonoma, CA. We managed to visit several wineries in the Napa/Sonoma area: Ravenswood, Sebastiani, V. Sattui, Sterling, Cheateau St. Jean, and Ledson. We found Sonoma to be peaceful and charming with many quaint restaurants and shops (including a great used bookstore)... and it was even a little more low-key than we expected for being such a famous area for wine lovers.

On our way to Ashland, north of Napa in a little town called Sebastopol, we stumbled upon Ledson. I recognized their tasting room (aka "chateau") from a picture my coworker had taken while on vacation in the area. This last-minute wine tasting turned out to be our best experience of the trip; so much so that we joined their wine club! They had an "old vine" zinfandel and "ancient vine" zinfandel that were superb, and you can't buy this wine in stores -- it's available to wine club members only.

The drive to Ashland was somewhat of an ordeal....we thought we'd take the 101 to maximize the northern CA coastal scenery. Woops! All it did was add 2 hours to the trip, which included only about 15 minutes of ocean view and all sorts of windy mountain roads going into Oregon. We rolled into Ashland super late, but grateful for our 4 nights at the Mountain House B&B.

We'd been trying to get to Ashland for several years and were excited to have tickets for 3 plays: A Midsummer Night's Dream, Othello, and Coriolanus. All 3 were in different theaters with equally different settings and interpretations. Our favorite was the very fun, modern, and musical "A Midsummer Night's Dream." We spent our daylight hours in Ashland hanging out at the B&B reading and resting, exploring downtown Ashland shops and restaurants, and celebrating July 4th with the locals.

We broke up our the drive home with a stop to see the Sundial Bridge near Redding, CA and an overnight stay in San Francisco at the Omni Hotel. While in SF we saw a great exhibit at the MOMA on the famous model-turned-photojournalist (and first female ware correspondent during WWII) Lee Miller -- what a coup for a former reporter and aspiring photographer like me! We also had dinner at one of our favorite sushi restaurants, and spent some time bumming around the city on Sunday before returning to Clovis.

It was restful and different than our other vacations...we were grateful for the time away and new experiences. But we're ready to go back to Europe!

Trip To Murphys, CA

In February we took a quick overnight trip to Murphys, CA. We hadn't heard of it until Chris & Kristi (Chad's brother & sister-in-law) spent a weekend there and said how charming it was, and then Chad's "Auntie Di" said it was full of yuppies.... so of course we had to check it out!

Murphys is located in the central Sierra Nevada foothills between Lake Tahoe and Yosemite National Park, in Calaveras County, California. Rich in goldrush history, Murphys today is a vibrant, thriving community of approximately 2,000 residents, alive with art galleries and live theatre, eclectic shops, fine restaurants, charming hotels and B&B's, and a multitude of outstanding outdoor recreational opportunities all just a short drive away.

We stayed at a really obscure B&B called "Querencia," which was very remote (at the top of a hill!) and luxurious. The food was the best we've ever had at a B&B and the owners were so hospitable and generous. Except they kept asking us what we'd like to do, eat, see, etc. and then whatever we said they tried to convince us to do something else that they knew was better. For example we said we'd have muffins delivered to our door for breakfast but they had to convince us the scones were the way to go! And we said we wanted to have such-and-such type of dinner but they wanted to call their chef friend at a local restaurant and get us a table there instead! Nice people, a little too talkative for a relaxing B&B experience... but overall it was a lovely stay.