Palo Alto/Bay Area

You know you are in Cali when you see a car like this at the red light next to you- 

Signs, signs, everywhere signs!

i have a couple friends who sadly never make our summer curcuit when we come home because they are far off our beaten path, and Tori is one of them. Because she lives in Montana. 

When we realized that she would be running the SF marathon at the same time I was in the SF area, we made a plan to meet up and I was so giddy to see her! We hadn't seen eachother in 10 years.

Brian and I took an uber from Kristen's house to meet with with Tori and her daughter Taylor for an early morning breakfast. Having just run the marathon yesterday, Tori was such a good sport to hobble her way to see us!

We had a 2 hour breakfast that was entirely too short. But it happened and I was so grateful for this bonus meet up!

Chris and Kristen picked us up and we headed to the Russian River to go wine tasting at a few of their favorite places. California wine tasting was on Brian's bucket list for this trip.

It's always a treat to cross the golden gate bridge!

The first winery was really wonderful- Hook & Ladder, owned by a former SF firefighter. 

Second winery, Hartford Family, was fancy-shmancy

Then we headed to Santa Rosa to check out the Russian River Brewery-

Why the Jeju grandpa? Santa Rosa is a sister city to Jeju South Korea-

This brewery is famous for making Pliney the Elder & Younger beers, which people will wait in line for up to 6 hours to get this limited edition beer!

Coming home, the bridge was covered in fog-

The next day we went to Mountain View to check out the Google Headquarters-

They have an amazing outdoor art gallery-

This bear was made entirely of pennies-

The campus is so large that employees can grab a bike to get to where they need to go next. So off I went-

Next up- a campus tour of Stanford. Macy maybe?

The campus was so unique. The architecture was fascinating. 

We went into the iconic Hoover Tower and Brian quickly recognized one of his longtime AF friends, Jason/Shrek Terry, who was a Stanford student a few years ago-

Next up- Deadpool.

Months ago Tate asked Kristen to please build seeing Deadpool together into our itinerary, to which she did! I wasnt going to go. But a ticket was bought for me. So I went and planned to take a lovely nap. BUT- instead I watched the whole movie and LOVED it!

Vietnamese spring rolls for dinner took us right back to being in Hoi An last spring break-

Lunch in beautiful Portola Valley at the awesome Alpine Inn-

We finally got to go to where Kristen and Chris got married back in 2021, at the Neely Winery in Portola Valley-

Riley taught us all a new game, Egyptian Solitaire and the kids got shushed for playing it tooo loundly at the winery!

Brian planned to meet up with Scott for breakfast one morning and Riley asked us all to go along to surprise her dad.

It was such a fun meet up and I was so glad Riley came up with this plan. Who would have thought that when Brian told Scott back in 2002 "I'm going to marry that girl," that our lives would still be connected?

We dropped the kids off for some fun on the Santa Cruz pier. Not only did the ride rides, they also found some amazing face paint-

Our last dinner together-

The obligatory oldest to youngest picture-

And our Goddaugher & Godmother picture-

One last night of Olympic watching and game playing all together-

Kristen made this trip so very special for us! The itinerary was amazing, but I mostly just loved seeing her new life finally. Walking around her town and hanging in her beautiful home.