Halloween!

Another year, and not one trick or treater. Oh well! More candy for me! Here is a pic of me in the Juno costume.
I don't know what it is about the bump, but it makes me make STUPID faces when I'm getting my picture taken. It's like I figure people are looking at my tum rather than my face and forget to smile or even try to look presentable. I have Mike take like 50 pictures so I end up with ONE that I'm not making StupidFace in. Oh well.

Check out this sexy beast

Check out this picture of Mike in his flag football shirt... aren't these the most hilarious uniforms?Arrrrrrrrrrooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Weekend recap!

So this past weekend had a couple fun outings.... Friday night I went to the Bulls vs. Pacers preseason game with my friend Stacy, and Saturday we had a wedding!

Friday, I picked up Stacy and headed downtown. As I told her, "If I have to be sober, I might as well also be convenient and drive." Parking around the stadium was $20 and we split it - and it was the only $10 I spent all night really (aside from the $10 I threw in for pizza with Mike beforehand....hmmmm, Pequod's) - so it was super reasonable considering a cab one way would have been $12-$15. The owner of her company is obviously really important because they had a skybox on the first skybox level right in the middle of the court. It was awesome. I could get used to that kind of treatment! The skybox didn't have food because they just do the full service food for regular season games, but there WAS a dessert cart that came around and a fridge stocked with all kinds of beverages (adult and otherwise). Stacy opened a bottle of Cakebread Chardonnay that I'm sure was awesome and we sat in nice cushy chairs and watched the game and chatted about everything under the sun. When the dessert cart came around Stacy got massive pieces of both carrot cake and brownie cake (I don't even know what this thing was, but it was HUGE and covered in caramel and chocolate). I opted for a chocolate sundae with vanilla ice cream and a huge sugar cookie shaped like a bull. I helped Stacy a bit with the carrot cake and once I was all sugared up, Dos started his/her Tiny Baby Party dance. I took the cookie home for Mike, who loved it. I also may have had part of the cookie for breakfast on Monday. So good! Check out how awesome the cookie looked -

Saturday the wedding we went to was downtown at 1, then the reception was out in the suburbs starting at 6:30. It was nice that the wedding was downtown, because I had a couple hours at home in between the two events. I took Milly out and headed to pick up Stacy, another friend Amy, and then Mike from downtown (where he was studying) and got out there right as cocktail hour was starting. The wedding was at this really nice country club and was really well done - the food was good and the music was fun as well. Although I sat at my table alot of the night (being on my feet is not so fun with Dos!) I had a really good time. There was a fun photobooth and we ended up staying until the end. Bonus part of staying until midnight - almost no traffic the whole way home, so we were at home in bed by about 1. Still, that's later than I usually stay up so there were copious naps on Sunday. But that seems to be pretty par for the course these days for Sundays. In a couple weeks, after his test, Mike can join the Sunday Me/Dos/Milly nap party. I can't wait :)

I took some pics of me and Mike on Saturday on a friend's camera, so I'll post those when she uploads them. But until then here is our photo strip from the photobooth!

Funny conversation.....

The other day I was walking back from lunch with a friend and saw some of the guys who work downstairs outside having a smoke break. So I stopped to talk to them. The one guy asked if I was bringing in my kid for Trick or Treating at the office on Friday.

I was like "Um, I think it's not quite old enough for that."

He replies "How old do kids need to be to dress up and trick or treat?!"

I say, "Maybe.... born? haha."

He says, "You don't have any kids yet?"

To which I reply "My doctor tells me there is one in here" and pointed to my belly.

There was a chorus of "Congratulations!!!" and "I didn't know you were pregnant!" pretty enthusiastically. Fun and funny :)

Random notes

I feel like I haven't had much to write about lately, but I've still been doing some fun things.

• This past weekend on Friday I hit up dinner with the ladies. We have been trying to do a monthly girls' night out, and this month we hit up Las Palmas. It was pretty good, but next time we're going to have to go somewhere with less intricate tastes and more carbohydrates... if I am going to eat that is! The girls seemed to enjoy the margaritas and the chips and guac were super tasty. I had a good time regardless of whether Dos would let me eat or not!
• Saturday Ronda was in town and we went to see Michael Birbiglia. He was super funny and the Vic was great! I had never been to the Vic even though it's within a half mile of my place and super easy to walk to. I'll have to hit that up in the future - it'd be a great place to see a concert b.c it's super small.
• After the comedy show at the Vic we headed to The Crossing to meet up with my friend Peter who was in from out of town. It was pretty nice, but started to get crowded around 11, so we bailed. I am totally fine going out all preggo, but when I start to get weird looks from 25 year olds or have to wait a long time to go to the bathroom, it's time to go! I turn into a pumpkin at midnight :)
  
• A couple weekends ago I visited some friends in Indy and they entertained my Olive Garden craving by heading there for lunch. What can I say, there isn't one anywhere near me! I wish I could have their breadsticks (with alfredo dipping sauce) and salad for every meal. Heaven. I could take or leave the soup, although the chicken gnocchi soup is pretty tasty. That night we ate at the Cheesecake Factory and OMG their pecan pumpkin cheesecake is awesome. The first layer is a pecan pie which then had pumpkin cheesecake added on top. It was amazing.
  
• A group from my Dad's church came up last week and we hit up Pequod's and the Million Dollar Quartet at the Apollo. He had a coach bus full of like 60 senior citizens. It was so much fun! The music during the show was so loud that Dos decided to have it's own Tiny Baby Party and was kicking super hard. At least we know that Dos likes Johnny Cash, Elvis, Carl Perkins, and Jerry Lee Lewis now. Duly noted!
• Last night I had a full-fledged craving and talked Mike into driving me over to North and Western to procure some Pizza Hut. OMG so good. Did you know that they have garlic dipping sauce like Papa John's now? Not exactly the same, but a good enough substitute (no Papa John's in the city makes me a very sad panda). And lo, it was good. Most I've eaten for dinner in a while. We left Milly at home while we went to pick it up so we could eat some pizza in the car without a beagle snout in the pizza box. Poor Milly got some pepperonis when we got home, don't you worry.
  
• As you've probably gathered from a few of these comments, dinner (and eating in general) is still pretty hit or miss for me. I can eat like 1/2-1/3 of what I used to be able to eat. Breakfast is pretty reliable, but lunch is shaky and dinner is usually only barely tolerated. I'm making it through with plenty of snacks and have finally gotten back to my pre-pregnancy weight. It's not so much nausea anymore, as I feel like I had a lap band put in with the addition of a giant gag reflex. Too much food makes me feel like I am going to die. Oh well. This, too, shall pass.... right? I guess if it sticks around it will be much easier to lose weight in the future. Haha....
• This weekend I'm heading to a Bulls preseason game with a friend on Friday, and then a wedding on Saturday. Should be good times! I'll have to post pics of myself in my maternity dress on Saturday - dresses make me look humongo!
  

I think it's official...

Dos has popped!
El bump is definitely out. I'm still able to wear some of my pre-pregnancy tops, and those hide the bump a bit more. But it's definitely crossing over from "Is she just getting fat?" to "Oh, THAT is what is going on...."

I like my little bump :)

On related note, buying maternity clothes is more fun that I thought it would be. I'm finding good stuff at the Gap, Target, and online. Did you know Forever 21 has a maternity line now?

Groupon thoughts

Yesterday my friend Emily and I took a Knife Skills class at Kendall College using a Groupon. And this got me thinking about Groupon (the class was awesome by the way, would totally recommend Kendall College for this kind of stuff).

I used to buy Groupons all the time. Until I got pregnant, I bought one for about everything I was interested in. Any restaurant that I wanted to try, anything that interested me. Since I got pregnant, even thinking about food sometimes made me want to throw up. So I pretty much stopped buying the things because I didn't want to look at the offer of the day and possibly get nauseous just looking at the picture on the thing. Today's is for Erwin, which is a pretty good restaurant. But still I hesitate.

Firstly, there has been all this stink about Groupon hurting businesses. Like, if the Groupon is worth 20K, then Groupon gets like 10K of that and the restaurant gets 10K to serve 40K worth of food. Since restaurant markups are so big alot of the time, sometimes they can still cover their costs. But sometimes they can't. And that's where the drama comes in, b.c people say they hurt restaurants more than help. Which, in my opinion is a pretty dumb argument. I mean, if the restaurant is going to make poor business decisions, this just speeds up the Darwinism component to owning a restaurant. If you are going to go out of business you are going to do so with or without Groupon in my opinion.

Secondly, the other thing I've noticed is that alot of establishments that use Groupon are freaking MOBBED after the promotion. I mean, how could they not be? They just sold like 4,000 coupons. Oy. One of our favorite brunch places participated (in a very intelligent way I might add, but selling a $15 coupon for $7, which is only an $8 discount on what is surely at least a $35 brunch), and I can hardly bring myself to go back there after 9AM because it is so freaking crowded. Plus I bought a massage on Groupon, and the soonest appointment open was three months from when I called (and then the massage therapist called in sick and I had to reschedule for three months AFTER THAT, it was so freaking annoying). So now when I think of buying a Groupon for a restaurant I factor that into the cost. As in "Is this $20 discount enough to deal with massive crowds and stressed waitstaff?" Alot of the time it just isn't. Because again, it's probably not somewhere I would have gone ANYWAY, so it's probably not that much of a deal. It's not a good deal if the coupon encourages you to go to a dinner you probably wouldn't go to in the ordinary realm of your life, spend $70 you wouldn't have anyway, and also makes you have to deal with five million yo-yo's crowding the place.

Anyway, what do you think of Groupon? Have you had good or bad experiences? Or both like me? I like it, but I think I'll be a far less quick to pull the trigger on buying Groupons in the future.

Pie, take 2.... a better result!

This week another sugar/pie pumpkin was delivered in our CSA share. It was mocking me. "Make me into pie," it said. "Pie that doesn't taste like baked squash," it said.
Since I clearly let myself be bullied by pumpkins, I had to take on the challenge.

First I pureed the pumpkin according to this recipe. Then I used something similar to this recipe to make the pie (the actual recipe was from my Better Homes and Gardens basics book, which I can't find a link to online. The only main difference was that it called for 5 oz evaporated milk and 1/2 cup regular milk instead of the regular milk that the link indicates).

It took ALOT longer to cook than it should have... cooking time was 50 minutes, and it probably took closer to an hour and a half. But it was a "deep dish" pie and homemade pumpkin puree has more water content than the regular canned stuff (because of this, I left out half the regular milk to make it less watery).

But it turned out OK! Better than OK even. So good that Hubs stood over the counter, eating pie and letting Dog have some scraps too. She was going crazy over the pie. Milly loves pumpkin, as we put some canned pumpkin in her food as a natural remedy to aid digestion when she is having problems.... so now she thinks that anything that smells like pumpkin is beagle food.

Let's just say it was hard to not have pie for breakfast! Thank goodness there wasn't another pie failure. I would have just caved and bought a frozen pumpkin pie and called it a day!!

Tip from Dad

On Friday, we had plans to have dinner at Deleece once my parents got into town. My brother picked the place and I'd never been there. So I pulled up the menu quickly to see what they offered.

"Oh no..." I sighed, as I noticed about four dishes immediately with truffle oil in them.

Truffle oil is my pregnancy kryptonite. The smell of it turns my stomach and even thinking about it makes me want to puke. If someone at the next table has something with it on their dish, that's it, I'm done. I won't be able to eat anything the rest of the night.

A bit dramatic? Maybe... But it's not like I have alot of choice in the matter. My eating weaknesses are one thing I've had to come to terms with in carrying Dos. I've NEVER been a picky eater before, so it has been super hard to deal with. And no, it doesn't always go away after the first trimester!

As I explained this to my Mom and Dad, my Dad piped in with a tip: "Do you have any VapoRub? Bring it to the restaurant with you."

I was a bit puzzled, and he explained further.... "It's a trick I learned when I was a cop. When we had to carry or deal with dead bodies. You just put some VapoRub under your nose and that's all you smell. Nothing else!"

Genius. So now I have VapoRub in my purse. And am cracking up that my Dad gave me a tip to stop the nausea that he learned from being a cop!

Random updates

• One of my favorite food bloggers posted about how to make homemade pumpkin puree the day AFTER I needed it. Oh well, now I know. And knowing is half the battle right?
• I went to Tampa last weekend to visit a friend. We went to the outlet mall and I got all manner of cute maternity clothes and bought a couple sets of tiny onesies. I figure I'll pick up a few basics when I can for good prices, right? But OMG the newborn ones are SO SMALL. It's hard for me to realize that I'll have something that tiny in February. Well, husband was 10 lbs 12 ounces when he was born, so let's HOPE that Dos is little enough to fit into the newborn onesies! For my sake!
  
• This weekend we had the fam up to visit for my brother's engagement party, and my Dad installed a new light fixture in the kitchen. The previous fixture, one of the tiny glass shades on the mini pendant fell down and broke. Do you know those tiny shades come with either a .75 inch hole or a 2 inch hole? Mine required a .9 inch hole. Finally I gave up and bought a new light fixture. It's soooo much nicer-looking than the last one. Love!
• Dad loves to go to the diner up the street for breakfast when he is here. I love that he loves to go, because I get to have a Country Skillet. Hash browns, covered in cut-up country fried steak, eggs, and sausage gravy. Oh and with a side of biscuits and gravy. I split one with my mom and we still had 1/3 of it left to bring home. So tasty. Let me just formally recommend S&G if I haven't already. It's been around forever and it's a Chicago classic.
• The brother's engagement party was a ton of fun. We had dinner at Pequod's, our favorite pizza place in the city and then headed to Zella's. Don't go to Pequod's if you don't want to split the bill evenly between all the people there, because the bill came and it was just a strip of adding tape with a bunch of numbers and no descriptions regarding what was what. I crack UP that we have ordered pizza there hundreds of times and they ask for our phone #, name, and address Every. Single. Time. Only pizza place on the planet to not have a computer system, but the pizza is so tasty I could care less!!
• On Tuesday of the pumpkin pie disaster, I also made a pretty tasty butternut squash soup. I would probably make it with 4 cups stock next time, as it was a little soupy. But it was good! And very simple.
• I've started feeling Dos move around the past few weeks and it's bananas. Shim likes to party right after I eat. I figure my stomach must be kind of loud in the digesting and wake Dos up. That's right, wake up during the day, baby! Day is for being up, night is for sleeping!
• Milly has been such a good little puppy. Yesterday she curled up next to my mom on the couch and took a good little beagle nap. Such a cutie!

Hmmm, that's it for now! Hope you all had good weekends!

Disgusting

Dudes, I made the two worst pumpkin pies on the face of the planet last night.
DO NOT USE this recipe. It is partly my fault b.c I totally didn't read the reviews. But it was one of the only recipes I could find that started the pie from an actual pumpkin.

They look pretty though don't they?

Darnit, now I'm craving a pumpkin pie. A not-disgusting one.

Updated to add - they were awful b.c they tasted awful. The recipe didn't include any sugar or cinnamon, and it just tasted like baked squash. Gross!

Snickers cupcakes

Tomorrow is my coworker's birthday, and you know what that means... CUPCAKES!!

I found an amazing recipe for Snickers Cupcakes and sent it to to the coworker along with links to the cupcake sections of a bunch of other websites (my go-to's are Smitten Kitchen, Annie's Eats, and Martha Stewart). Luckily she picked the Snickers cupcakes! I was so excited to try them and I'm pretty sure they won't disappoint.

First I baked the cupcakes. As I took them out of the oven, I smacked one against one of the wire shelves in the oven. Of course since that one was messed up I HAD to eat it. Even without the frosting or filling, it was amazing. This might become my fallback chocolate cake recipe... even if it's a bit on the complicated side, I think it would be worth it.

After letting the cupcakes cool, I made a hole in each one with an apple corer. I chopped up Snickers bars, made a homemade caramel sauce, and mixed those to make the filling. Here are the cupcakes all filled.

There was a little filling left, so Mike and I had some out of the bowl with a spoon. OMG, good.
After filling, I whipped up the frosting and iced them, then topped with more chopped Snickers bars. The frosting looks a little janky, as my icing tip and I got in a fight. I think I need to buy more large tips - I lost my tried and true guy, and the other ones I have are for more detail. Here I come, Joann Fabrics, for more icing accessories. After seeing the cupcakes all gussied up, I am looking forward to trying a finished one tomorrow!
As an aside, I know alot of people diss on the KitchenAid mixer, but I know for a FACT that I would not cook 90% of the things I made if I had to mix manually or with a hand mixer. There is just something about being able to toss ingredients in the stand mixer as it works that is awesome. If any of you are on the fence about a stand mixer, I say go for it!

Dreaming

Pregnancy dreams are super awesome. I keep having variations of the same dream - I go out, get drunk and then realize at the end I'm pregnant. Oh noes, what do I do?! Obviously this is not something that is going to happen but it’s still funny that is shows up in my dreams so often.

Last week I dreamed I was in Bloomington, IN, where my alma mater (Indiana University) is located. I dreamed that for some reason I was there with Bill Clinton. So Bill Clinton wants to go drink and I of course want to take him to Nick’s. I mean, nothing says quintessential Bloomington quite like a pizza and a game of “Sink the Bismarck.” But noooooo……. Bill doesn’t want to go to Nick’s – he’s been there before and Obama dropped by his last time in Bloomington so that is SO 2008. No, Bill wants to go to the Bluebird. Which, I can’t really argue with – it’s not like Bill is demanding that we go to the Vid or some other such hole in the wall place that I didn’t frequent in college. The Bluebird was definitely a favorite – live bands all the time and 15 cent drafts on Wednesdays add up to a ton of great memories. I remember thinking in the dream there was a good band on that night but can’t remember who. Maybe Dave and Rae?

Regardless, Bill and I walk over to the Bluebird from the Nick’s area/IMU (walk! Bill Clinton!) and proceed to get hammered at the Bluebird. There are shots and pitchers of beer and general college shenanigans. But at the end of the night I remember I am pregnant. In the dream, I was about the same amount of pregnant that I am now – showing just a little but I could have also just had a big meal or too many burritos lately. So it wasn’t like anyone noticed that I was pregnant.

I am still trying to figure out why Bill Clinton showed up in my dream and why we drank in Bloomington. I will probably never know. But I do know that Dream Bill was a darn good partier. Plus, how many times will I get to party with Bill Clinton? Since pregnancy dreams are so vivid, I feel like it’s more of a memory than a dream!

Happy Birthday, Dad!

Today is my Dad's birthday. I've posted these ten things about him before, but they stand reposting again. My Dad is the bomb dot com, and I hope he realizes how special he is to us all!

1. His laugh. When my dad really cracks up, he rocks back and forth and scrunches up his face, just laughing really hard. It is funny, it's like his whole being is laughing
2. He knows how to do everything. I swear to you, he does. I can call my Dad and ask him anything from investment questions to how to anchor some mason screws in a concrete wall. I am not saying this in the typical little girl "My Dad can do anything" way. He really can. Go ahead, ask him!
3. He also knows everything. Closely related to #2. But seriously, it blows my mind how much this one person can cram into his brain. He knows everything from which little old ladies at the church need their walks shoveled during a snowstorm to how to whip anyone at bags (ahem, Calbert Cheny, ahem).
4. He is super sporty. My Dad can pick up almost any sport and win at it. It makes me feel hopeful that my athletic non-prowess is a dominant gene, and somewhere there is a recessive gene for athletic ability that my kids may someday inherit.
5. He more gets along with Mike. I have never had a problem with the typical "Girl marries someone like her Dad" stereotype because mine is so great, but it really delights me that they look forward to seeing each other.
6. His committment to my mom and our family. We've been through rough times but I have never once doubted that we wouldn't get through those times as a family. He has set such a great example for my life and my marriage.
7. He's not afraid of anything. He'll jump up and defend me in the middle of Kilroy's when some 6'5" chick threatens me. And he'll order a shipment of stone crocks from China to start a new business.
8. He helps so many people. Whether he's going to Mississippi to rebuild or evacuate a town, heading the relief efforts after a tornado, or just visiting people in the hospital, he is constantly leaving a real imprint on this world in a positive way.
9. He supports everything I do. He may play the devil's advocate with me sometimes, but he is proud of me and supports everything I do in life. It's amazing to really know, deep down in my soul, that kind of support.
10. His big heart. He cares about everyone and everything, and loves me and the rest of our family so fiercely that I cannot even describe.

For all these reasons and more, I love my Dad so much! I am a total Daddy's girl, it is no lie. My hope is to spend many more happy and healthy birthdays with my Dad.

Oh and here is another point, #11. My Dad is the best Grandpa ever! He loves Gracie so much and I know he is going to be a great Grandpa to our little one. He was so excited about us having a baby he might have let it slip a couple times before I was really ready to tell everyone. Now he is so funny, going "I'm not telling ANYONE until it is born now! I don't want to get in trouble!!" Lol. You can tell people, Dad. I swear I won't get mad! Happy Birthday!!

It's about time....

To tell you guys why I've been a bit quiet for the past few months....











Some of you may know already.....







Not there yet..............



















Keep going!












I've been spending all my time feeling like I was going to throw up and/or fall asleep!

Yes, that means that all the trips lately have been alcohol-free for me (Vegas was super annoying sober, mostly because everyone there is hammered all the time, but Napa was actually still awesome!) but you really don't miss drinking when you feel hungover all the time because you are nauseous and exhausted.

I'm about four months along, due Valentine's Day 2011, and we are unbelievably excited!

Retrieving Milly from daycare

This is how Milly leaves daycare every.single.time. She is such a spaz!

Girls+Jay Weekend August 2010!!

This weekend Mike headed to an Roast for an old buddy as part of the other guys' wedding festivities, so my Mom took the opportunity to come up for the weekend. And she brought my sister and niece with her! Jay was in town so all the siblings got to hang out with Mom and little Gracie. It was an awesome weekend.

Friday they got there around 8. Katie had forgotten her and Gracie's suitcases at home! Luckily Katie could wear my clothes, but Gracie is not so lucky. So we headed to Target for some Gracie duds before eating a pizza with the fam and then going to bed.

Saturday Grace woke up bright and early and immediately set about making friends with Milly. This included feeding Milly multiple chicken liver treats (those little discs that are spread about on the floor around her).

Then we headed to the Lincoln Park Zoo, which has no fee to get in! She thought the monkeys were pretty cool!
But the cows were definitely the coolest!
After some lunch and quick naps, the fam headed down to the Millennium Park. We got in a picture of us with the bean. I love this pic!
Gracie took a few "pictures" herself with her play pink camera. Jay proclaimed "I've got doubles!" and we all laughed that Gracie wouldn't even know what that meant when she got to be our age.
Then we headed to the big fountains with the faces for some toddler and Jay play time in the water.
Gracie was digging it to say the least. We didn't think she would get into the water fully, but the water that spits out of the faces' mouths gradually tapers off at the end and she was under it when it happened once. So she got unintentionally soaked. After that she was all about running through the water!
I've just got to say - these fountains are a GREAT thing to hit up with little kids. They love them, and besides paying to park, they are free. After fountain time, Gracie was DTS, as Jay says (Down To Snuggle). Look how moody-Abercrombie-model Jay looks in this shot!
Katie went out with some girlfriends from college, so Jay and Mom and I got sushi and stayed in that night. The next day we went to Bakin' & Eggs for brunch. So tasty. Gracie really loved my eggs from my Southern Comfort bowl, and powered through a ton of them.

Once we got home she wanted something sweet so I gave her a plastic cup with some Captain Crunch in it. Milly figured out begging with Grace is a million times more productive than begging from adults.
Oh, and this is what happened when we asked Gracie to give the doggy kisses and Milly was too far away. Milly got pulled a little closer by the ear. Poor Milly!
I think Milly had fun chasing Gracie around, as did I. But she was a little more glad to see Gracie go than I was. I had so much fun with Mom, Katie and Gracie here, and it was good to have all three siblings in one place for so long! I wish we all lived in the same place!

Napa, Day 3

Everyone was pretty slow-going on Saturday morning after the events of Friday, but we got up and made it to our first appointment at Honig. Honig is also a small winery and are very ecologically conscious - they had several displays about their energy use and environmentally conscious winemaking practices. Very cool, in my crunchy hippy opinion. While were there we made friends with a group of vacationers from New York that were hilarious (Major Accents) and our server was from Iowa, so we talked some Big Ten fun for awhile. We sat outside in the courtyard, which was pretty well sized and so cute.
After that we headed to another smaller family-owned winery called Arger Martucci. We were literally wine-tasting in someone's backyard. I want this to be MY backyard. Our server was very diminuative and sweet, and we tasted all kinds of yummies.
After this tasting, we were all hungry and were a stone's throw from Gott's Roadside (formerly Taylor's Automatic Refresher) in St Helena. We got there just in time, as we only had to wait in line for about 15 minutes. Once our people got to the front, the line wrapped around the entire yard and had to be closer to 45 minutes long! This place is a fancy (and pricey) hot dog/hamburger stand but it is SO AWESOME. I got a chocolate milkshake that was to-die-for and also scored a chili dog and some onion rings. I totally couldn't eat it all. They do have more sophisticated dishes like an ahi tuna sandwich or fish tacos (which Meghan got). Jay got a double cheeseburger that was as big as his head.
My chocolate shake. So YUMMY.
After Gott's, we stopped by an Olive Oil store, which was pretty cool, then headed to Del Dotto. Around this time, Kimmy was a little broken. I bet she didn't think she could have too much wine, right?
Before a tour, I took a pic with my little brudder, Jay!
Del Dotto's thing is that they give you a tour with some wine background (here the tour guide shows the various types of toasting that they give barrels by firing the inside of them. This affects the "oakiness" level that you taste). Then they lead you into the wine caves and let people taste directly the barrel (well they use a fief.... I think that is what it was called.... to take it from the barrel and put into your glasses).
The wines are pretty good but they are pricey. The first location has a wine cave that is over a hundred years old and you can still see the pickax marks in it. The new location is opulently (to say the least - some might argue the word is more "gaudily") appointed with Italian marble and is Over The Top decorated (complete with Italian opera music in the background). Everyone we talked to in the region called it "Del Blotto" because everyone gets so wasted there. We ended up tasting 11 different types of wine, but the whole tour only took about an hour and the group DEFINITELY wasn't wasted! We did the tour in the old location on our honeymoon and it was way more of a party. We had a nice dinner planned for that night though, so no one minded too much. I doubt it was really worth the $50 tasting fee though, like the other location was. Regardless, I think everyone liked the wines (they only do reds and our group was a fan of the BIG reds!).

After that we headed home to get ready for dinner at Cole's Chophouse. Mike and I had eaten there on our honeymoon and it was super tasty, so we definitely wanted to try it again. Plus everyone we'd talked to over our three days in Napa said it was the best steak in the valley, so that was also encouraging. Dinner lasted almost three hours and was a pretty hefty bill, but was totally worth it. I loved loved the hash browns, my lobster tail, and especially the desserts. If you like steak, this is definitely a great place to hit up in Napa. Plus it's in the downtown area which is SUPER cute!

Well, that's it, that's our time in Napa. It was another amazing vacation and I think it secures a spot in my list of Happy Places. I would move there in a second.

Hey Napa, WILL AUDIT FOR WINE!

Napa, Day 2

The name of the game Thursday was to see a ton of wineries, so we packed sandwiches in the morning and headed off to our first winery appointment at 10:15 AM at Cakebread. Brett and Meghan had wanted to hit up this place the last time they were in Napa but never made it. It was such a gorgeous property.
We tasted some whites and some reds and Mike and I decided on a bottle of Cabernet to bring back to Chicago with us. It was so yummy. We got in another group shot as well!
After Cakebread, we headed to Rubicon. We belong to the wine club there, and so do Brett and Meghan so we got a complimentary tour and wine tasting. This place is GORGEOUS and massive and has a long history.

Our tour guide, who was a mix of all the Golden Girls.
On our tour, Jay found an olive tree and picked an olive. He said it was the most disgusting thing he's ever tasted.
After the tour, we had our wine-tasting in the members-only lounge. It was so cool! We love it at Rubicon, and we were the only ones in the members lounge. It was huge and really nice and our serving guy was really friendly and outgoing. We spent alot of time just chatting it up with him and quickly killed the baskets of bread and cheese he brought out for us.
We spent so much time at Rubicon that we were 35 minutes late for our next tasting, at VineCliff. They had set up the tasting in their wine cave, which was a really cool experience.

This is a small boutique winery, and the experience was really personal and fun. Below is a pic of their wine cave from the outside. So cool.
A pic of VineCliff's main sales room... love the ivy.
After Vinecliff, we headed to Mumm Napa. Mike and I didn't have time to hang out there on our honeymoon, so I was excited for this one. We scarfed our sandwiches in the car before heading in, then settled on ordered two bottles of champagne for the table instead of assorted wine flights (it was much cheaper, and we'd had a lot of Mumm bubblies before).
And got some more pics....
After Mumm I think everyone was ready to call it a day but I insisted upon visiting one of my favorites quickly before they closed - St Supery. We used to belong to their wine club and their wines are featured on my favorite TV show How I Met Your Mother.

No pictures from St Supery, but Meghan ended up joining the wine club and everyone had a good tasting. Some guy came up to our server and asked if he could pay for the couple standing next to him down the way. Mike was like "Where is that guy standing? I am going to go hang out with him!" It was funny... everyone laughed and the guy goes "I'm not that generous!" Hilarious.

After the last of five (FIVE! Holy cow!) wineries for the day we headed to the grocery store for things to grill for dinner. I'd like to say that dinner was amazing, but since I fell asleep at 8PM I missed the whole thing. Oops.

Napa, Day 1

We only had three full days in Napa, so I ran the preliminary plan by Meghan and Kim on the way to Napa on Wednesay night: I knew Meg loved Domaine Carneros (the quintessential vacation spot that we fell in love with on our honeymoon) and that Kim liked bubbly so I figured we could head there first thing in the AM on Thursday and plot our Napa strategy over morning bubbly. I brought our Frommers book, a list of wineries that Jessica recommended, another long listing that Brett and Meghan have honed over the years, and another booklet we got from the rental car place to aide in our planning.

Our host/server at Domaine was, of course, awesome. The place really knows how to cater to their customers/guests. As he delivered our champagne flights, we asked him to recommend some wineries. Actually, I said, "If you could only go to three wineries in Napa, where would you go?" He brought out this amazing wine weekly magazine with an AWESOME map in it and immediately made 5-6 recommendations. The guy was SO excited about the locations, and several overlapped with Jessica's, so I knew we had to hit those for sure.

In addition, his recommendations overlapped nicely with my sub-plan - to pick a smaller area of Napa and really explore it. The area is so big, with hundreds of wineries throughout Napa and Sonoma that you can spend much of your time just driving around the region instead of hitting wineries. I wanted to cut down on the driving/traffic time and maximize the winery time. And since most of the recommendations we gathered kept us in the Rutherford/Stag's Leap regions, that dovetailed very nicely with my thoughts on reducing time cursing in traffic!

Here is the group after plotting out our strategy and some bubbly. The weather, as is typical during this part of the year in Napa, was idyllic.

After Domaine Carneros, we hit a couple of the Domaine guy's recommendations. The first was Robert Sinsky, where they had food pairings with the the wine. We were under the impression that this would be a lunch-type event. Instead there were 4 pours of wine with tiny little servings of food. As an example, the first food pairing was HALF a mini-quiche. What the heck? Why would you make a mini-quiche and cut it in half?! The food pairings were super yum though - the other ones were herb-roasted almonds, olives, and then a cheesy roll thing. The wine was good but our server seemed a bit uninterested. She was nice, but nothing great!

After Robert Sinsky we headed to Silverado Vineyards with the intention of hopefully finding some lunch. Unfortunately, they didn't have a deli but they pointed us toward the Oakville Grocery. We had a wine tasting flight at Silverado before heading off to lunch.
And took some pics! The views from Silverado were amazing!!
At Oakville Grocery we all got sandwiches except for Brett and Meghan. They got a wheel of goat cheese, a big baguette and some pepperoni/salami meat sticks. They looked super yummy!
After our late lunch we had time for one more winery, so we headed to Goosecross. They had these cool wine bottles dipped in chocolate!
We got in another group shot!
Goosecross is a really small, family-owned winery. The ambiance was pretty nice and everyone was pretty friendly. Plus the guy comped our tastings because Jessica recommended the place!
Tasting room had barrels stacked up to the ceiling.
After Goosecross we headed home for some nap and chill time before our 8:30 reservations at Bottega. I totally didn't take any pics at Bottega but it was amazing - definitely an experience! I would highly recommend. They gave us a huge table in the front of the restaurant and we felt like rock stars. :)