sisters weekend (part 1)

my sisters and my mom came to the bay for a quick sisters weekend. it was the best. i can’t even believe how blessed i am to have my sisters and my mom.

they picked me up from the guy fawkes party and we went to a hotel in burlingame. within a few minutes of being together, we were laughing so hard there were tears streaming down our faces. and since the hotel wouldn’t give us a roll-away bed, saren and shawni and i got to sleep three-deep!

the next morning we went to breakfast at a cool place i’d been wanting to try in the city. we came across a graffiti wall on the way and had to take a couple of pictures. aren’t my mom and sisters the cutest!?

i took them to the golden gate lookout in the marin headlands on our way up to napa valley. everyone quite liked the view.

pretty much a majority of the time we had together over the weekend was spent eating and/or talking about food. my boss gave me some fantastic restaurant recommendations in napa and we spent hours swooning over our meals. our first stop was bottega in the cute little town of yountville.

after lunch, we rented some bikes and headed out on a 16 mile loop through the vineyards. i have done this ride every autumn since i moved to the bay, and it is one of my very most favourite experiences.

there’s just something so enchanting about that slanty fall light, the foliagey straight rows of grape vines, the soft mountains in the distance, the blue sky and warm sunshine. i loved sharing this with my sisters, the only people on the earth i know that understand and reciprocate my depth of appreciation and enthusiasm for beauty.

we stopped for cookies at a cute gourmet grocery store and biked up random paths to see bed & breakfasts and vineyards snuggled into the flora.

we made a lot of stops for photo-ops and balanced the camera on the bike seat or wherever else we could find…

we finished the loop right after sunset and returned our bikes right as it was getting dark and chilly. the last twenty minutes were outrageously beautiful as the streaky clouds lit up pink and the earth shined golden and the night descended, slow and kind.

we got macaroons and other treats at the famous bouchon bakery back in yountville and talked and talked…

and went to our hotel and talked and talked…and talked. there’s nothing better than those long discussions with my mom and sisters.

to be continued…