Fall Visit

   

While Ed and I have lived in the Bay Area together for 3 years, the sad truth was that my parents hadn't visited our apartment together since the weekend after we moved in. They've visited a few times on separate trips, but it was hard to find the time for a planned visit (and we went down to visit them pretty often, so we still saw them a good amount). 

So, it was with much happiness that we set up this visit, when my parents mentioned they were hoping to spend a weekend with us in the Bay Area. This weekend was both to visit with us, but also to celebrate their 32nd wedding anniversary. 

After spending a day in beautiful San Francisco, my parents arrived Friday afternoon (before me, as my commute home seems to be increasingly full of other commuters). After some resting and catching up, we whipped together dinner - an easy and tasty lasagna (that was a test run for my dinner get together next week) and some salad. 

While our little kitchen is a bit crammed with 4 diners, it still was a lot of fun to use our new fall place mats and napkins, and to be sitting at our dinner table with my parents. 

After dinner, Ed was inspired to make us dessert - an amazing pumpkin Bourbon milk shake, courtesy of Sunset recipes. I'll have to post the recipe later, because it was spectacular!

The next morning, we had our go to "special" breakfast of french toast, made with thickly sliced panera's sourdough bread, and topped with bananas. It is decadent and delicious and perfect for a lazy Saturday morning. We did balance it out with some healthy grapefruit, which made us feel just virtuous enough feel totally justified taking that second helping. 

After taking care of some errands, we headed out on our "adventure" of the day, taking my parents hiking at one of our favorite spots - Skyline. This is one of the closest places to us, and reminds us of Mt Tam, with it's rolling hills, gorgeous vistas, lovely trails. We hiked for about an hour, and loved every minute of it. 

After our hike, we did something Ed and I have been meaning to do since we moved to this area - go wine tasting at the local wineries!

Our first stop was Savannah Channel, which we pass every time we drive up to Skyline. It was a lovely winery, with the tasting room inside a 100 year old wooden building. The wine itself was quite tasty, and we ended up buying a bottle of red to have with lunch (our very fancy subway picnic), 

After finishing the bottle (good thing we shared our tastings and Ed didn't have much of the bottle), we hopped in the car for the windy backroads drive to our next winery. We were going through roads we'd never been on before, and it was beautiful. Unfortunately, we got a little turned around and had to do some backtracking. 

Eventually we made it up to Ridge Winery, apparently the wine my parents drank on their first date! The drive up made me a bit nervous, once we got down to a one lane road with some substantial drop offs, so I was surprised by how crowded it was. I suppose when it's really good wine, people will find it. 

(source)

After our tasting, we walked the grounds a little, taking in the beautiful fall colors. 

That night, we went out to Forbes Mill Steakhouse, which was delicious as always. 

Unfortunately, the next day I woke up pretty darn sick with a cold, so we kept it low key, going out to Scrambl'z for breakfast

and then went to see Puss in Boots (very cute). After that, we had time for  quick game of Dominion, and then it was time for them to leave!

Hopefully it won't be another 3 years before they come a visit again!