The best way to celebrate your 25th birthday is with your girlfriends in Napa. It was quite the trip but such a memorable (and at times unmemorable) trip. Excited to share a little vlog and recap with you all below!
Thursday: What a travel day from hell for me! I explained the story in the video, but really I just missed my flight out and barely made my next two flights because of the airline being dumb and then being late. Thankfully I made it and all was well. Touched down, picked up the car and went to In-N-Out
After that, we drove up to the house to meet our host and Sydney (who drove in from San Francisco) and we all caught up, unpacked and hung around the house until it was time for dinner. We had originally planned for a full day Friday at different wineries and then a hot air balloon ride on Saturday but the weather was looking pretty shotty and since that was one of the main things I really wanted to do, we switched up our time to Friday.
Which in theory was great but not so much in real life. We had made reservations for dinner to Bottega at 8pm which is a normal eating hour but not for these East Coast girls. We got home a little before midnight and then realized we had to get up and be ready to leave around 4am.
Woot.
Friday: So 4am rolls around all too quickly and we head out to the hotel where we were meeting with our tour. We walk in the front doors around 5:30 and at 5:31 we get a text saying the flight has been canceled. Wut. It was too windy to fly that morning and we were then rebooked on to the original date and time before we tried to outsmart the weather.
None of us wanted to go back to the house just to come back into town so we decided to hang out in the lobby until 1- they kicked us out or 2- Bouchon Bakery opened up. During this time I was able to talk with United for 2 hours trying to rebook my flight home which they told me they wouldn't cancel but canceled anyway. Fun!!
We rose from the dead, went to Bouchon for breakfast and then across the street to Chandon for our first tasting at 11am. You can read ALL about my experience at the tour HERE and see how much fun we had!! This was by far the highlight of the trip!
We *should* have gone home after Chandon but we made our reservations at Frog's Leap (last picture above) and Salvestrin. Not going to lie, Frog's Leap was a big blur with the highlights being a almond was thrown into my mouth on accident, a chatted with Julia from Gal Meets Glam and I somehow took these photos with my sister.
At Salvestrin the sun came out and my sleepiness set in so I enjoyed a nice tasting of a really crisp white wine and then took a snooze on the couch with Sarah next to me on the chair. It honestly was so peaceful and calming --- and the sun felt SO good. After the morning we had, a nice 10 min snooze was needed.
After that we packed things up, stopped at a local Mexican place (where I did not eat) and went home. We all fell asleep around 7pm and that was our Friday!
Saturday: The alarm goes off again at 4am and we all are basically crying as we have to get ready. The weather called for rain and cold temps so we were really hesitant to try our luck again. But once again, this was something I really wanted to do and so we forged on!
Thankfully the flight wasn't canceled this time and we were off! It was SO much fun and you can read all about my time HERE -- bucket list item accomplished!! I believe it was 100% worth the struggle -- it made for a great story!
After the balloon ride we had a champagne breakfast (not as rough as you would think) and went to Del Dotto for our first stop of the day. This was the COOLEST winery I had ever been to -- it was super fancy and every detail was thought out. If you have an opportunity, try and go! It's a really exclusive place but totally worth it.
They also happened to have some of the nicest red wine I've ever tried/had (they score 100 on a regular basis) and I just wished I was in more of a mood to drink some fabulous red wine! Next time for sure.
After Del Dotto, we stopped at Mumm and stayed dry from the downpour of rain. It's a great place to go and have a drink with your girlfriends. Once we were done, we stopped to get groceries for dinner made them at home and just chatted till we fell asleep!
All in all it was quite the eventful weekend but I couldn't have asked for a better one! It was SO much fun and I'm so grateful for friends like these to celebrate being 25 with! What should I do for my 30th!!
