Our Weekend Dash to Napa Valley

Like I said before, over Memorial Day weekend Brent and I made the seven hour dash up to Napa to visit some friends.

I said that, and that I'm a bad blogger...Forgive me for the two week break!

Anyway, a major feat was accomplished on the way up to Napa....I did not sleep a single minute of the seven hour drive! Not only that, but I drove for the first four hours! This may not seem amazing, but it is. I am infamous for not only for not getting behind the wheel on road trips, but

also for sleeping during the entire trip, like I did last November on our way home from Napa, leaving Brent to the company of his iPod.

This time I was good company for Brent. On the way there, at least.

Here is one of the memorable views of the trip up:

Brent knew the windmills were coming and was excited to get some good pictures of them as we drove by. He was in the driver's seat as we sped through them, so I had control of the camera. I must have taken hundreds of pictures as we zipped through hundreds of windmills, and two of the pictures turned out cool and only this one turned out worthy of playing with in Photoshop. I am quite proud of this photo.

We arrived at Wyn and Chelsea's home at about 7:30 pm. They had a nice warm dinner of stuffed bell peppers and some fancy-schmancy rice waiting for us. Other than eat and laugh together, we didn't do much with them that night because we were tired from our drive and Wyn was exhausted from his day at work. Right after dinner we curled up on their comfy couch and watched The Three Amigos and ate Oreo ice cream until we couldn't keep our eyes open any more. (About halfway through the movie.)

Before I continue narrating our trip, I need to take a break and let off some steam about how much I love Wyn and Chelsea's (from here on referred to as 'WynChels') decorating style! There home is not only warm and inviting (as I would describe mine, I think), but also supremely artistic and BEAUTIFUL. Wyn teaches art for a living and Chelsea is naturally artistic, so their home is a haven for their creativity to run wild. Take a moment with me to admire their style.

Guest bathroom.

Guest bathroom.

I love this countertop display. The picture was taken the moment WynChels were getting engaged at the beach, you can just barely make out the two of them in the middle of the picture. Every room in their house is filled with pictures of the two of them and their memories together...it makes the house feel full of love.

More guest bathroom.

That is a hand-painted, uh, painting, by Chelsea. I just love the contrast in color between the bathroom walls and the shower curtain! So bright and cheerful!

More guest bathroom.

(What can I say? I spent a lot of time in here, got to know it well.)

I love the modern-yet-elegant accent of the chandelier type thing above the toilet.

This is in their living room. She's a natural at adorning flat spaces.

This is what you see when you first walk in their front door. A mural of a tree painted on their wall, and...

Adorable hanging picture frames made out of twigs! (Brent and I both made it onto this wall of photos, btw. I think that makes us famous.)

I just really admired what she did with this shelf.

WynChels are experts at garage sale shopping. A TON of the furniture in their home was purchased at garage sales for crazy low prices, and then with just a bit of touching up and replacement of a knob or two, each piece of furniture was turned into an Anthropologie-esque item. Like this side table, for instance.

Display above the fireplace.

On one wall in their tv room, they have these 8x10 pictures of WynChels at different stages of their growing up years, before they knew each other. I love the idea!

Chelsea painted these birds.

So cute.

Wyn painted the motorcycle specifically for that wall.

And the two of them made the broken ceramic inserts for this coffee table. Creative, huh?

This is in WynChels' bedroom. Chelsea put cute mismatching fabric on that entire wall. *sigh* Love it Love it Love it.

Oh and their bed and headboard are just adorable.

More bedroom.

Wyn painted their bedroom doors to look like Medieval era castle entrances.

Their backyard is even full of innovative creativity.

And innovation in the works. (One of their) current projects: a mosaic backyard dining table.

Thank you for joining me on that tour through creative inspiration.

Back to our time in Napa. The above picture pretty much says it all.

CHELSEA HAS A LATTE MAKER. She made one for me everyday. Each one made me smile.

In addition to serving me a latte the first morning, WynChels went all out and made us french toast, turkey bacon and pineapple for breakfast. Yum yum.

After cleaning up breakfast and getting ready for the day, we prepared a picnic lunch to enjoy out in the vineyard country of Napa Valley.

We made a tourist stop in Yontville where there were fancy art galleries, wine stores, olive oil shops, and expensive boutiques.

I bought these adorable Holly Yashi earrings in one of the art galleries, having seen them featured on Pioneer Woman's website only days before. Needless to say, I wore them the rest of the trip.

Inside one of the olive oil stores there was this awesome table made out of bar soap. It was, of course, an advertisement for the bar soap that was being sold there.

I just think the next string of three pictures is so funny. Throughout all three, I have a run away piece of hair that I had no clue about. For the first picture, I thought I was making a great pose by holding up a bottle of olive oil. For the second, I decided the best way to show Brent my displeasure for him telling me to put down the bottle of olive oil would be to make a frown. For the third, I obliged him and smiled, without a fun pose.

We found a cool photo-taking bridge.

Cool dudes.

Studs.

I practiced my picture taking skills by taking portraits of flowers.

Chelsea was doing the same thing.

Oh, Napa. These sites are just like a ten minute drive from where WynChels live.

This was where we picnicked.

Later that day, we drove 40 minutes to Berkeley to watch one of Chelsea's friends play a gig in one of the restaurants there. These sunflowers were painted on the wall right outside the public garage where we parked. We were in a hippy-ish town, it was kind of a hippy-ish wall, I had a pretty hippy-ish hair-do...hence, the picture.

When we found out that Chelsea's friend wasn't playing a gig that night afterall, we goofed around on the Berkeley campus just for tun.

We had dinner at a really delicious Italian place that decorated the interior of the restaurant with white undergarments.

Brent and I pride ourselves in being tirimisu connoisseurs, so when the waitress told us the tirimisu was "out of this world" - or something to that effect - we had to try it. It wasn't the best tirimisu we've tasted, but I enjoyed that they didn't skimp on the liquour.

The next day, Sunday, we got to hang out with the Van Straatens too! Anton, Marietjie and the girls came to WynChels' after church and hung out the rest of the day with us. It was a delightful time of laughter, Wii Fit, backyard fun, and good food.

The next morning the Van Straaten family came to WynChels again, and Brent and I made everyone egg and canadian bacon sandwiches for breakfast. A couple of hours later Brent and I hit the road, already missing our dear friends in Napa.