I Love You, California!

It's hard to believe that we've been living in The Bay for over a year now and we are starting to repeat some of the things we did last year! Last year we attended the Urban Wine Experience which was held on Alameda Island. This year it was relocated to an even better Jack London Square location in Oakland! The event is presented by the East Bay Vinter's Alliance and features over 18 local wineries from the East Bay. The wineries also team up with a local restaurant to pair food with their wines. This year we went with our friends Katie and Alex. Despite suffering Justin Timberlake hangover, we had a wonderful afternoon tasting wine and food along the waterfront. Fantastic band!

I've been waiting SO LONG for this day to come! Thanks to Will's hotel points from traveling, we treated ourselves to a free stay at the Holiday Inn-Civic Center and made the night into a little stay-cation. We checked into our room and Will finished up a little work before the events began. View from our room. We went to The Cheiftain Irish Pub for fish and chips and some beverages. "After Work Guinness!" We also stopped at the Mikkeller Bar for some specialty beer. Then it was time to get to Candlestick park! The concert was amazing. Everything I was hoping for, except that it was only a little over two hours, which to me felt short since there were two headliners. Nonetheless, Will and I had a great time dancing the night away! Super cool light show. Playing the piano . . . For the last song they did JZ's "Forever Young" and dedicated it to Trayvon Martin. They asked everyone to light up their phones, and this is w...

Since Will broke his wrist, I've been dropping him off at his office on my way into work, and then picking him up on my way home. We stopped to try a new place for happy hour after work. By the time we were done it was still only 6:30 so we had a lot of time to do something! (Usually the both of us aren't home until 7 or a little after and then still have to make dinner, so it was exciting to have a little extra time on a week night.) There was some leftover pie from Will's birthday in our fridge that I had recently pulled out of the freezer, so we took that, some ice cream, and a bottle of wine to one of our favorite places in the area - Panoramic Hill - where you can see beautiful views of the bay, and it's only about an 8 minute drive from our home. It was a gorgeous evening for a sunset dessert.

This morning I was getting ready for the day and Ava hopped up and curled up in the sink, which she never does! Had to share this with you . . . So cute!

Surely you've heard me talk about our new dear friends Katie and Alex that we met here in our apartment building (they moved to Cali from New York around the same time we did!). Well, this past weekend they got MARRIED!! We were honored to be invited to their intimate party with a guest list of just 60 of their closest friends and family and had been looking forward to this weekend almost as much as the bride and groom! Thursday, July 4t h   Our journey began Thursday morning as we flew out of Oakland, through Denver, and then off to Philly. Of course we had to start our trip with some bloody marys at the airport! We arrived in Philadelphia around 8:30pm and checked in to our beautiful room at the Hotel Monaco. Thanks to my hotel room picture obsession, you can see what it looked like! Pretty swanky, huh? Looking at the hotel restaurant's menu. We were starving, so we headed down to the hotel restaurant for dinner, and two complimentary glasse...