Sonoma/Napa Valley Trip - Part 1

Date: Sept 14th

Last night at 7:30pm I was with the church youth at an activity.

Ryan texted me, "CALL ME NOW!"

I hurried and snuck away to call thinking one of the kids must be hurt.

Instead he proceeds to ask me what all we have going on this weekend.

I started listing all the events.

Then he asks if we can cancel or postpone or miss everything.

Uhhhh well probably everything except Taylee's birthday party.

But why??!!

Then he proceeds to tell me that the owner of his company just invited him and I

to join the owner and his wife at a company retreat in Napa Valley California.

And our flight leaves at 8am.....yes hours away from that very moment!

Are you kidding me?!

Did they forget we have 4 young kids??! lol

He then proceeds to tell me that even the owner said we have to make it work somehow

because this yearly retreat is completely amazing and we have to go!

I couldn't talk longer since I was at a youth conference.

So I told him well I guess if you can magically come up with a sitter,

then yes I'll rearrange everything somehow and we can go!

I got off the phone chuckling at how random that was

and the fact that it would be cool but we could never pull it off this quickly.

Well he texted me 10 mins later saying his mom was coming up tonight

and was gonna stay all weekend with the kids.

WHAT?! For Real?!

Ok now the excitement and panic set in on how the heck I was going to pull off

rearranging everything on such short notice!! lol

Miraculously we did it!!

I got home at 9pm from the activity.

We got everything ready for the weekend for Grammie

and got ourselves packed

and were in bed at 2am.

Then were back up at 5am
and off to the airport at 6am!

This must be a joke.

There's no way we pulled this off!

Maybe he was just taking me on a breakfast date after all! lol

But nope we really did it!

The hardest part was convincing poor Taylee to postpone her party for a week.

She was SO bummed

but didn't want me to miss her party also.

And likewise I didn't want to miss it either!!

After texting all the parents late that night and explaining the situation,

they all were able to make it for next week.

That made Taylee feel better and she was now on board with waiting.

But that meant on the way to the airport, on the plane, etc

I was still calling the party venue, restaurant, etc and rearranging the reservations.

Parked at Sky Harbor and rushing to our flight.
Oh how easy this is without grabbing 4 kids and loads of luggage with us! lol

And boom we're off!!

San Francisco here we come!

10 mins later...

How does he instantly fall asleep?!

My mind is always racing with everything I need to do!

So instead I added to my to do lists of things that still needed covered for the weekend!

Soon enough we were ready to land!

Ahhh was a peaceful flight! lol

As soon as we walked into baggage claim there was the classic guy in the black suit

holding the "Ryan Taylor" sign.

When I told Taylee later she was like Mom that's EXACTLY like the movies! lol

So off we were whisked in the fancy black cadillac 

for a couple hour drive up to Sonoma/Napa Valley.

We made it to the hotel and got settled in for a bit.

Then Ryan had a round table with their vendor Alarm.com that was hosting the weekend.

After that we got ready and were all chauffeured by a fancy limo bus to dinner at Morimoto. 

We were in a private room with open bar, open food, free everything.

However they quickly learned that we're the wrong people to take to wine country! lol

Non drinkers with free wine everywhere...hhmm odd combo!

But the menu was absolutely amazing!!

The food just kept coming and coming and coming!

The menu isn't pick one of the above...we literally ate all of that food! haha

They basically had to roll all of us out of there after that 50 course meal! lol

Then we headed back to the hotel (or out on the town for others)

to get ready for the big day of events tomorrow!