Napa Valley

Last Friday Tim, Jenni, Brandon, Bailey and I loaded up my parent's Expedition and headed up to Napa Valley for their annual Marathon. We signed up for this marathon about nine months ago and the only people capable of pulling off 26.2 miles was Brandon and Jenni. Due to an injury I was out and other's who were up for it were too busy to put in the training. Brandon trained for only two months and had one long run of 16 miles but he is such a stud that he finished and finished well!

Friday night we stayed the in the beautiful city of Modesto (sarcasm). We ate at the local Chili's and stayed at the "Quality" Inn.

Saturday morning we arrived in Napa Valley at the Marriott. The Marriott was the host hotel for the marathon so it was fun to stay there and attend the Expo. We sampled wine and walked around the running expo looking at products and getting our bibs and goody bags. We then went on a family fun run to get those legs warm before the big day. We also went and drove the course. The 26.2 miles went from Calistoga (northern) to Napa's main town.

We stopped and walked around the CIA (Culinary Institute of America). For those of you who read Harry Potter, it feels like you are at Hogwarts. It's a neat place and Brandon and I really enjoyed eating there on our Honeymoon.

The course they ran was beautiful! We stopped for some pictures.

Sunday morning everyone except Bailey was up at 4:45am. Tim drove Brandon and Jenni to the starting line after stopping at Starbucks for coffee and breakfast. It was raining, and it never stopped. They ran the entire race through pretty heavy rain. However, it was fun, adventurous and enjoyable. They both agreed that the rain made the race even better.

Tim and I ran the 5k fun run. It was super fun to run through the rain while pushing Bailey in the jogger stroller. I was worried that she would be scared or claustrophobic with the rain cover but she sang and squealed the whole race and really seemed to enjoy it.

After Tim and I were able to see Jenni at mile 18 which is shown above. Then we saw both of them finish the race. Jenni ran a stunning 2:56 finishing second place for women! She looked so comfortable during the race and she reached her goal of breaking 3 hours. She is amazing!

Brandon ran a very impressive 4:15. I am so proud of Brandon and am so impressed with how well he did! I was expecting him to take longer and be miserably sore after the race but it was quite the opposite. He finished in a very impressive time and he felt great and recovered quickly. Seeing Brandon coming through the finish line made me all emotional and so proud. I really admire his determination and confidence in completing such a feat.

Brandon wrote with sharpie on his arm "I love Sara and Bailey" and "Beat 4:30." In all his pictures the photographers took during the marathon he is pointing to his arm. It looks really funny but I appreciate his fervent love for Bailey and I.

The race was super exciting and the energy of it made us all really excited. Bailey did wonderful and seemed to really enjoy the rain and all the excitement.

I was expecting Jenni and Brandon to be in need of a nap and possibly dinner served in bed that evening but they both felt great and ready to party! We went wine tasting and out to a nice Italian dinner.

We visited a winery which sat up on a hill and had a gorgeous view of rolling hills full of rows of vines and yellow mustard seed.

Dinner was delicious at the Ristorante Allegria.

It continued to rain all through Monday as well. We brought our bikes so we a bit disappointed that we did not get to ride them at all. But it was still very nice and enjoyable. Monday was our day to come home but we decided to spend most of the day in Napa. After a good breakfast we drove around and visited a couple more wineries.

We visited a small winery whose Cabernet won best of 2008. It was really good but I am not enough of a wino to really taste all the flavors of the wine bouquet.

We went to Sterling Wines which Brandon and I really enjoyed on our honeymoon. We discovered one of our favorite wines which is only available at the winery and they have a great educational self tour of how wine is made. We were excited to come home with another bottle of Sterling's Malvasia Bianca. This place is particularly fun because you take a gondola up to the top of a hill and the winery sits on the top with a 360 degree view of mountains and the wine plains. Sterling is in Calistoga which is more mountainous with pine trees.

The last place we visited we only got to walk around the front. From Sterling we had a view of a large rustic castle so we had to go check it out. Unfortunately, it was getting late and Bailey was due for a nap so we just walked around the front and took some pictures. This castle's design was amazing and the designer did a detailed job of making this castle look hundreds of years old but apparently is was finished being built in 2007. It took them 15 years to finish the castle.

We then sadly and dreadfully started the 7 hour drive home at 4:00pm. We decided to try Anderson's Pea Soup for dinner. Apparently, this place is famous for their split pea soup and apart from being cute...pretty sure their soup was powder-based. Plus, this place is in the middle of no where so maybe it became famous because it is the only thing you see after driving about 5 hours through nothing and if you really had to pea and were really hungry-maybe this place is more of a refuge and seems better than it actually is. Anyhow, it was fun.

We spent the next 4 hours in the dark nothing playing a category game. We started by trying to name the 50 states. We took turns naming a state and whoever could not think of one was out. We conquered the 50 states-no one got out. However, we moved on to naming fast food restaurants, cartoons, cereals, and four-legged animals. Tim dominated all the categories but it seriously lasted 4 hours doing just these topics. It was really entertaining and difficult. Jenni surprised us all with claiming a cartoon called "The Snorks." She kept claiming that there was a cartoon with smirf-like creatures that lived under water with snorkels on their heads. We laughed at her and told her she was crazy and kicked her out. Well sure enough she comes over the next morning and pulls up a you-tube video of "The Snorks" opening theme song. We gave her the win. Good marathon, good scenery, good food, good wine, and good people.