Dragon-weenie got all costumed up and we headed to the Tompkins Square Halloween Dog Parade! I’ve seen write-ups on the event the last several years but this was the first year I’ve gotten to go see it in person.

I have to be honest, I couldn’t stop laughing walking down the street with Scoots dressed up in his dragon costume. Just on my way to the subway I got stopped by 3 guys asking if they could take pictures with him. If nothing else, Scooter helped put smiles on a lot of people’s faces!

When we got off the subway we headed east to the park. Like many things in the city, it was PACKED! There were too many people to really get very close to the actual judging portion of the event but we had a lot of fun walking around looking at the other pups’ costumes. Scoots loved feeling like a little celeb getting his picture taken by a bunch of people too!

Is there anything better than quality girl time?! One of my best friends visited the city recently and we got to do just that! We did a lot of exploring, and even more walking throughout the weekend enjoying the uptown scene.

We even stumbled on a German parade as we were adventuring around!

Even better, she absolutely loves New York, which makes it so much more fun to go out and explore the city.

After a girls weekend filled with some good food, laughs and definitely a cocktail or two, we headed out to Brooklyn to check out an event her boyfriend works on, the Dew Tour.

I’d never checked out the event before even though my friend had worked on it in the past so it felt kind of like things had come full circle. I actually got to see what it was all about! The New York event took place at the Vans center in green point Brooklyn. It’s a neighborhood I haven’t explored much so that was another exciting part of our adventure.

It was a really awesome event to check out! My friend’s boyfriend hooked us up in the VIP section too so we had a nice view from the rooftop of Northern Territory plus some food and drinks!

So many great memories!

I am so excited to finally tell you guys about my trip to Napa! So let’s do it!

This trip has been a long time in the planning for somebody’s fabulous monumental birthday, Kathy! I’ve been so lucky to have her as a second mom in my life and when she invited me to come to California and celebrate with her and her friends I could not wait! 

Before I made it to Napa I took a little stop in Seattle (only for an hour) but it was a nice little start to say hey to the home state! Oh yeah, and all of the Seahawks gear ;-)

From there WA, I hopped on another jet plane and headed south to good old San Francisco! There I met with one of Kathy’s wonderful friends Nicole and we took on the next leg of our trip, driving to Napa! Lucky for me too, Nicole grew up in the area and took on the driver’s seat ;-)

We had some great views on our way out of the city and it was pretty cool to drive over the Golden Gate Bridge! I visited the city once when I was in middle school, but it’s definitely somewhere I need to come back and explore!

A nice drive later we arrived to our home for the weekend, which was absolutely beautiful, inside and out!

I could seriously get used to the life in wine country.. oh yeah and this view! :)

Once all of the lovely ladies arrived we headed downtown Sonoma, which is totally cute btw, to this amazing restaurant called Harvest Moon.

It didn’t take too long of getting to know everyone before we were exchanging stories and laughs. If dinner was any indication of how the weekend was going to go it was going to be epic, and spoiler alert, it totally was!

The food and wine was the perfect way to kick-off the weekend too. I’m not normally even a shrimp kind of girl, but their shrimp they had on their menu for the night was to. die. for. I absolutely love farm to table style restaurants. Fresh and seriously delicious.

The next morning we were greeted at our house with our driver for our wine tour party bus with a day full of fabulous wineries to visit!

First stop, Frog’s Leap Winery in Rutherford!

This location was beautiful! The perfect place to start off our tour and day of tastings!

Next we headed up a long curvy road up some hills to our next stop, Clif Family Winery, which just so happens to be from the same people behind Clif Bars.

This place ROCKED! It was just our party and our guide for the day, Jeff, who also seriously rocked!

For this tasting we had pairings with fresh cheese from Cowgirl Creamery with fresh preserves and then also some nuts, bread, and olive oil with seasonings. It’s pretty amazing how much of a difference food pairings can make on wines and this pairings were truly impeccable.

Their wine was so fantastic too! I’m pretty sure we all went home with a bottle or two… plus most of the ladies joined their wine club. It was that good! Clif, you’re going down officially as my favorite winery. If you get a chance to go to Napa, check this place out!

To close out our day of tasting we ended at Sinegal Estate. It just so happened that a lot of the women on the trip work at Costco and this winery had ties to Costco so we headed there to check it out!

Beautiful grounds.. the estate was postcard pretty. Bonus, there was a winery weenie dog!

Here, we got to see some of the behind-the-scenes of the wine making process.

We closed up our tour with some more tasting and there may have been a gondola ride gone wrong in the pond ;-) That story is for another time though!

For dinner, the ladies cooked up a mexican feast and we laughed the night away with some Cards Against Humanity and some other games!

For our last full day in the Napa Valley, we started it with some sweet delicious scones and then off for a little more wine tasting!

This time out to Dutton-GoldField in Sebastopol. It was a little bit of a drive from where we were staying but the drive in was really pretty. A little different scenery than the other parts of wine country we had been through too.

We had a yummy lunch and then stopped by some fun shops in town.

On the way back we saw a sign for In-N-Out Burger and decided we had to stop since I’ve never been to one before!

Had to go all out with the animal style fries too. Of course!

And with one more final evening our trip came to a close… SUCH an amazing and memorable trip! :)

And while I was sad to head home.. I still had a little something to look forward to on the trip back. Kathy spoiled me and upgraded my flight back to first class.

American Airlines means serious business with their first class too. I had like a whole row, pod thing to my self. Pop-out TV, unlimited movies and like a 6 course meal? Traveling across the country isn’t so bad when you fly like this!

Farewell Napa trip, you’re definitely one that will go down in the record books..