Meredith Visits!

I was so excited that Mere's visit finally worked out! She had been so busy with school and as you all know I had an extremely busy summer. It just so happened that I had a four day weekend from work because of Columbus Day and another day the schools were closed, so it provided for a perfect time for Meredith's visit. We had some great girl/sister time together, but enjoyed having Will around at times, too! We were so busy and couldn't wait to come home to cozy up at the end of each day. This visit will also be known as the time when Meredith got me hooked on The Big Bang Theory TV show. Luckily there were many episodes on as re-runs and our On Demand provided many episodes to watch as well!

Thursday, October 10th

Meredith arrived at the Oakland airport around 5pm. Will, being the best husband ever (and thankfully home despite his busy travel schedule!), picked her up from the airport. They then came over to pick me up from work, and I was able to show Meredith around Girls Inc. We came home to have dinner and catch up around the dining room table; my favorite thing to do! The Bears were also playing in Thursday night football, so we watched that, too!

Making Dad's famous tuna casserole!

Friday, October 12th

Friday we woke up ready to explore. We needed to stop at the CVS, so went over there and then grabbed Jamba Juice since it was right there. We seem to have a tradition of Jamba Juice when we're together!

I've told my family stories about our nearby CVS. It's more like a KMart than CVS. In fact, we're pretty sure it used to be one. It's the strangest place on Earth, and needless to say this isn't the one where we normally shop! Mere thought it was great, so here I am in the beer section!

Jamba Juice!

After our errands we went for a brisk walk around Lake Merritt.

We came home to shower up before going down to the Jack London Square area. First we PSLs were in order (Pumpkin Spice Lates!) Some of our plans were dampered by the government shutdown, so we were sure to sign the petition at Starbucks.

  

We walked through the Old Town Farmers' Market, World Market, and a few other shops in the area. Next we visited Will's office and Meredith got to meet a few of his co-workers. It was a beautiful afternoon, so clearly the next stop was drinks along the waterfront! Bocanova's patio provided the perfect setting for the afternoon.

"Having wine by the ocean," to which Dad replies, "We usually have wine by the glass." Haha.

As we waited for Will to finish up in the office we walked along the boardwalk.

Shortly thereafter Will joined us as we were walking toward the tasting room of the winery we belong to! Mere enjoyed the wines and even got a bottle to take back to share with David. We missed him! After a busy day we headed home to cozy up and of course, watch more of The Big Bang Theory.

Saturday, October 13th

Our original plan for Saturday night was to attend the Alcatraz Island night tour. The even sells out months in advance and I was able to snag us some tickets back in August! Much to our disappointment these plans were kiboshed thanks to the government shutdown. However, we didn't let that bring us down! In fact, it provided the perfect opportunity to take a road trip around the Bay Area!

We started our day driving over the Bay Bridge into San Francisco, then over the Golden Gate Bridge.

Foggy Morning! Yes, this really does all burn off in a few hours!

From there we drove through Sausalito as we headed toward Sonoma. We went to Downtown Sonoma and enjoyed a delicious lunch on the beautiful patio of the El Dorado Kitchen.

We walked around the square and visited a few of the shops. We even found a place where we could drop off Will if necessary!

Now that we had an amazing lunch, it was time for wine tasting! Our first stop was the Kunde Family Estate winery, a sustainably farmed estate in the Valley of the Moon area of Sonoma. 

On our way to the next winery we happened upon an olive oil tasting room, which Meredith was especially interested in, and so were we since we had never been to one! We pulled in and were quite surprised with what we found! Figone's had an extensive selection of olive oil and balsamic vinegar. I'm pretty sure we sampled every single one, which had to be about 15 or 20 different types! We all walked away with a few small sample bottles of olive oil and balsamic vinegar, and Meredith may even join the olive oil club if David likes it as much as we did!

 

Our next winery was Chateau St. Jean. Will had visited this winery about a year ago when he came with Terviva for their offsite meetings. He raved about it and I still hadn't been, so we thought it would be a good one to visit with Meredith. There wasn't too much time left before the tasting room closed, and the bar was packed, so we opted for ordering wine by the glass and enjoying it outside in the rose garden.

Since it was so foggy earlier in the day, our thought was to get back into town before sunset, when the fog would have burned off. So we made the drive back down to SF. We wanted to take Meredith to another lookout point, only to find that it is in fact part of the National Park located on the North end of the Golden Gate Bridge, so we were turned away by park security. Darn government got us again! But, we weren't going to let that get us down! So we drove into the city to stop at Ocean Beach for sunset!

 

 Phew! It was a busy day! It was back home for dinner and The Big Bang Theory!

Sunday, October 14th

Sunday was our day to explore San Francisco. The Packers played early in the morning, so we decided to watch the game in the city at a bar in Hayes Valley that we visited a few weeks ago when the Badgers played Saturday night football.

We stuck around for most of the game, but then we didn't want to let the day get away from us, so we went on our way to explore the city. We took Meredith through the Cow Hollow, the Marina District, Marina Green, Pier 39 to see the Sea Lions, and we walked from there toward the Ferry Building along the Embarcadero. We took BART back toward Rockridge. When we got there, we poked our heads into a few of the boutiques along College Avenue on our walk home. Mere found a couple cute things! Boy were we excited to cozy up at home after today!

Monday, October 15th

We had a little bit of time in the morning before I had to take Meredith back to the airport. There was one store that Meredith really wanted to look at, but they were closed by the time we got there on Sunday, so we went back today! We walked around the neighborhood a little before coming home. We hung out around home a little more until it was time to go to the airport. It was sad to see her go, but OK only because I'll see her again next month for Thanksgiving!

I had such a nice time with my sister on her visit! She is an amazing person and I'm so lucky to call her my sister! I can't wait until her next visit, when she will hopefully bring my awesome brother-in-law with her!