Vicki & Steve visit the “three” of us (May 2019)

Hi everyone!

It’s been a while since my last post. That’s because I was trying to survive the many trips to the toilet throwing up and the extreme exhaustion. For those of you who don’t know, Josh and I are expecting a little addition soon:

We have affectionately named him Peanut. ANYWAY, Vicki & Steve had already planned to visit us before the announcement and Josh & I were looking forward to entertaining guests while we could still move around relatively easy. As always, when there’s a visitor from home, they have to pay a price for staying with us:

On our first night together, Josh and I decided to show Vicki & Steve one of our favourite restaurants: The Rockin’ Crawfish. This place serves classic Cajun-style seafood, they lay the tables with butchers’ paper, give you bibs and then expect you to eat with your hands with no cutlery or bowls. It is awesome!

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The next day, Josh and I set about giving Vicki & Steve a taste of American life. First up: Target

Next up: In ‘N’ Out! A classic Californian institution.

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Once we’d experienced our fill of grease, we all headed back home for another big undertaking: decorating Peanut’s room. At the beginning, the room was bland.

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With artistic direction from Vicki & Steve and patience from Josh:

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And then voila! Decorated baby room.

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With our jobs done for the day, we got back to showing Vicki & Steve another favourite place: Kontiki (our favourite tiki bar)

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You just can’t ever be that sad when you have an umbrella in your drink.

For our next outing, we planned another classic American activity: going to the baseball!!

We made sure to get Vicki a foam finger:

And you can’t go to a baseball game without getting a hot dog!

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All-in-all, a great day for experiencing quintessential American culture. For our final finish, Josh and I decided to treat Vicki & Steve to a trip out to the wine country. Cue a selfie to start the trip:

And of course the obligatory picture showing you how much of a nightmare Californian traffic is even though it’s not peak hour.

On our way to the wine country, we always drive past this ominous place which I point out to tourists:

If you look at the left side of the picture, there is a group of buildings. This is San Quentin which is the oldest prison in California and is also where all the death row inmates are kept. Not great to drive past when you’re on the way to picturesque wine country. Also, you have to keep an eye out for hitchhikers, and you know, NOT PICK THEM UP!

Moving on to something more pleasant, after a 2 hour drive, we finally got to our accommodation: Big Bertha’s Redwood Retreat:

Big Bertha’s was so cute!

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In the morning, we visited Healdsburg to get some brekky at the French Bakery Costeaux.

Steve really wanted some good simple bacon and eggs:

While I went all out with their French Toast made using their homemade walnut bread:

After that we had a wander around Healdsburg. It is a really cute town with art galleries and a heap of tasting rooms from famous wineries. While we waited for Steve to have a gander at some art, Vicki took a lovely picture of Josh and I …. and a big red American truck (or ute for the Aussies).

At this point, it was time to start drinking (for those of us who could). First stop: Foppianos

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Although we have been here many times, this is the first time I’ve seen the vines with green leaves. It is usually bare or red leaves. Very pretty! From Foppianos, we went to another old favourite: Grasiana

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We took advantage of the glorious weather to do our wine tasting outside. Now when Josh and I visit the wine country, we always like to discover one new place. Based on a recommendation from a vintner we saw that day, we headed to the Thomas George winery.

While the tasting room was in a lovely building, the real attraction was the cellar that the winery had cut into the hill facing the tasting room.

Yup, that’s Vicki and I in front of the mountain cellar (me sporting a 5-month baby bump). And because the waiter serving us was so nice, he kindly took a family photo in the grounds of Thomas George.

And that marked the end of our winery touring. We all headed back to Big Bertha’s to enjoy some nibbles and the atmosphere before dark:

And that’s it. Another successful visit from family.

Talk soon,

Sim & Josh