Meg{Moir}

So, any big plans for New Years Eve?  The mister and I are throwing a little shindig at our house, so we have spent the last few evenings in a purging, cleaning, stuffing-things-into-the-attic frenzy.  We are only expecting around 10-15 guests, which will still be a test to see how many people we can fit into out cozy little home.  While we are waiting for guests to arrive the sausage dip is cooking, the bar is stocked and the wii remotes are fully charged and in their upright and locked position.  Party time!

In totally unrelated news, if your new year resolutions (or goals, or life plans or whathaveyou) include simplifying your life, then I have a great resource to get you started.  Knowing what I do about the year ahead for Patrick and I, it would be silly for us to proclaim 2010 “the year of the simple,” but freeing up time, living in the present and cleaning your counters are even more important when your world is spinning at a million miles a minute. 

What I’m trying to say is, you should read Zen Habits.  Here, let me help.

Breathe.

Do interesting things.

Your life, simplified.

The Sound of Silence: How to Find Some Quietude in Your Life.

A Simple Guide to Being Present for the Overworked and Overwhelmed.

A Simple Guide to Keeping Your Counters Clutter Free.

Peace out, 2009.

photo credit: www.cupcakejones.wordpress.com

Well, were you able to guess why Patrick and I were so excited the day before despite our incredibly long day on the road? Here’s a hint:

If that plaque has no significance to you, we probably can’t be friends. We were in Disneyland, and we were PUMPED!

Since it’s our last “day” of the honeymoon (it was a day in a half in real time), I thought I would do something a little different. I’ve been to the Magic Kingdom at Disney World about a million times (close enough), and couldn’t help but make mental comparisons through out the day. It became a bit of a game between Patrick and I, rating things “thumbs up” or “thumbs down” based on a totally subjective comparison to WDW. Here are our ratings:

Castle: Thumbs Down

Don’t get me wrong. The castle is the original, and that absolutely means something. But come on, this is a castle. Size matters. At almost half the size of the Orlando castle, this one does not stand up. However, the Sleeping Beauty walk through is fun, but it’s not enough to put it over the edge.

Walt Disney’s presence: Thumbs Up

You can feel Walt Disney’s presence when walking through Disneyland. This photo is blurry, I can’t take a night shot to save my life, but any Disney fan should immediately recognize it. Walt’s lamp was a sign that he was in the park to cast members when we was still alive, and now the lamp is perpetually on. Disney is always there in his park. I’m not tearing up right now. I promise…

Matterhorn Bobsleds: Thumbs Up

The Matterhorn was our favorite ride at Disneyland. Patrick enjoyed laughing at me jump when the Abdominal Snowman appeared out of nowhere (!) and I enjoyed getting to snuggle in on the ride.

Cute, huh?

Holiday Overlay: Thumbs Down

I get why they did this. Disneyland is mostly a “locals park” with the large majority of guests being annual pass holders who live in the greater Los Angeles area. They do things over the year to keep those frequent visitors happy. One such thing is the Nightmare Before Christmas overlay on the Haunted Mansion and the Christmas overlay on its a small world. Well, that’s fine for those who get the opportunity to see it multiple times a year, but I hated it. I just wanted my regular, old school Master Gracey. Not Jack Skellington.

On another note, I was also a notfan of the Halloween fireworks. I wanted to see the whirly white fireworks and the big chandelier explosions and hear a happy Disney medley, not some pop version of ‘This is Halloween, this is Halloween.’

Fantasy Land rides: Thumbs Up

The Magic Kingdom Fantasy Land is pretty lame, to be honest. I’ve never been a fan of the Medieval Fair feel of the place. The Disneyland Fantasy Land is the absolute opposite. The architecture here is a mishmash of European styles. It feels a little Tudor, a little Swiss Alps, a little Barvaria. It feels like Fantasy.

The Disneyland Fantasy Land also has a number of great immersive rides that the Magic Kingdom is lacking. Mr. Toad (see above), Pichnoccio’s Daring Journey, and Alice in Wonderland are all missing from MK. Point, Disneyland.

While we’re talking about Fantasy Land…

Peter Pan’s Flight – London Scene: Thumbs Down

The scene where your ship flies over London is my favorite scene. However, in this version of the ride it’s totally 2D. What gives?

Peter Pan’s Flight – The rest of the ride: Thumbs Up

That being said, this ride is mostly better than its Orlando counterpart. It is longer and had additional scenes. We especially loved the star field that you fly through on the way to Neverland.

Toon Town: Thumbs Up

Like Fantasy Land, Toon Town in Disneyland is rockin’. I have been known to call the Magic Kindgom Toon Town my worst nightmare, but I really enjoyed playing in the Disneyland version. Plus, they have Roger Rabbit’s Toon Town Spin. Plus Plus Plus!

Characters: Thumbs Up

We saw characters everywhere! They seemed a lot more accessible than WDW characters, out in the open and not hid in Toon Town tents.

Indiana Jones: One of Patrick’s favorite movies. We couldn’t wait to get on this ride since it is a Disneyland original.

Scheduled Maintenance: Thumbs Down

However, that was not mean to be. It was closed the whole time we were there, we never saw past this sign. The Storybook Land canal boats were also closed for scheduled maintenance. Boo.

Quick-service food: Thumbs Down.

I don’t know what is up with work flow processes in the counter service restaurants. We waited for 45 minutes in a line that was less tha
n 10 people deep. The problem was that the person taking your order and handling cash was also the person fixing your food. It took FOREVER. This just isn’t the way that things worked at WDW. I know, I because I did it. When guests were lined up for chicken nuggets and french fries before Illuminations, I wasn’t handling their money. I was up to my elbows in grease. That’s how it is supposed to work.

We had a BLAST in Disneyland. We had a BLAST on our whole honeymoon. It was the perfect trip for us, we had just enough planned and we left just enough up in the air. I will have wedding pictures soon and I’m sure I will recap that in even more excruciating detail. Excited? I am!

If you have been to Disneyland and the Magic Kindgom, I’d love to hear how they stacked up for you!

On our last day in northern California we loaded up the Camaro and headed out of the city. Our plan was to drive down Highway 1 to Big Sur, turn around and come back. For the uninitiated, this may sound like a strange way to spend a precious honeymoon day. But you just wait and see, because it was one of our favorite days of the trip!

First we stopped for breakfast in an adorable cafe on Main Street in Half Moon Bay.

We soon stopped again (we stopped a lot) at the beach to get a taste of what was to come.

We don’t have nearly enough pictures of us together from this trip, but here is a good one with an epic background.

The famous Bixby Bridge. Absolutely beautiful, and I only freaked out a teeny bit driving over it. Both ways.

Patrick at the Monterey Bay Aquarium, another stop on the road.

And here I am on Carmel Beach. See that bluff in the background? That would be Pebble Beach. Yes, that Pebble Beach.

I can not figure out for the life of me why we don’t have any pictures of Carmel by the Sea. It is the cutest town in the world, it looks like a fairy tale. Needless to say, I’m ready to pack the bags and move there today.
After watching the sun set, Patrick and I settled back into the car for a 3 hour ride back to San Francisco. We were super tired from driving all day, but ridiculously excited. Bonus points if you know why.

On Friday, it was time to leave our lovely room at the Sonoma Fairmont and move to a new lovely room at the Fairmont San Francisco. I’m not sure how we will ever stay in a normal hotel room again. We took our time checking out, and when we could linger no more we packed the Camaro and began the hour long drive down into the city. Well, according to our GPS it only took an hour, we managed to stretch it out for most of the day.

First stop, Muir Woods, which I have heard described as the back yard of San Francisco. I’d take it!

I felt like I was walking through a fairy tale forest, like Little Red Riding Hood could come by carrying her basket, or we would stumble upon Hansel and Gretel’s crumb trail. The light drifting down through the canopy cast a dreamy haze on the forest, and we couldn’t help but talk about how much better our pictures would be if Cheyenne and Geoff were taking them.

A fallen branch was just my height.

Nice belly shirt!

We walked the 2 mile loop through the forest and headed out. We decided to stop by the beach, because my grandmother had requested a pebble from the Pacific Ocean. Once we got to the ahem, ‘beach,’ I realized this could be a problem. On this part of the west coast, this is what the beach looks like.

Right, so no pebbles from the ocean, a problem that plagued me the rest of the trip. But isn’t it beautiful? I can honestly say that I’d never seen anything like it.

Hey, there’s San Francisco! I still haven’t figured out what that thing on the top of the hill is.

By now it was pushing 3pm and we still hadn’t eaten. After a bit of a wild goose chase, we arrived at this California staple. I had high hopes since everything that I had heard about In-N-Out burger was something along the lines of,

“OMGBESTBURGEREVERCRAVINGITSOBADMUSTHAVESOMENOW!!!!!”

Well, I don’t know what kind of lame burgers those poor Californians are being fed, but I can think of at least 3 fast food burgers that I would rather eat. Now, it wasn’t that I didn’t enjoy the In-N-Out burger, I thought it was pretty good, I liked my toasted bun and definitely appreciated the pared down menu. It’s just that if I had the choice, I’d rather eat:

1) Cookout burger cheddar style
2) Hardee’s Thickburger
3) Five Guys Bacon Cheeseburger

Afterwards, we stopped in Sausalito. Love. And look, there’s San Francisco again!

Finally, we were ready to get to the whole point of visiting wine country, wine DRINKING! We stopped by the Concierge desk of the Fairmont for all the free tasting cards we get our hands on. You only get to honeymoon once, might as well make the best of it.

Mmmmm…vineyards.

Our first stop was Imagery, which was highly recommended by the guys at the Sonoma Wine Shop. We enjoyed a few different pours and walked out with a bottle of Cabernet Sauvignon and a bottle of White Burgandy to call our own. The Arrowood winery shared a driveway with Imagery, so naturally that was our next stop.

We thought the wine there was “eh” but, this is the view from their front porch and it does not suck.

Our next stop was a place called Ledson and this is where things get interesting. First I want to mention that this was originally built as a private home. Over the top much?

Here we didn’t get a free tasting but an “upgrade” to their standard tasting flight. This consisted of oh…15 different wines? I don’t remember exactly, but we were bellied up to that bar for a bit. Long enough, in fact, to hear about the wine from the $175 million dollar vineyard. Apparently, the Mondavi estate had just paid that amount for a particular vineyard that the Ledson winery was currently buying grapes from. They were currently selling the bottles for $90 a pop and once Mondavi got a hold of the grapes it would go for around $160.

Once we had our fill from the reds and the whites and the ports and the orange flavored wine (do I remember that right?), we walked through the gift shop (yep, it was set up just like the Magic Kingdom). I noticed this chocolate wine sauce and lots of tiny little spoons to tase it with. In my slightly hazy state, I begin pumping the chocolate sauce in to the tiny spoons and tasting with a fury. I look over my shoulder and see Patrick in the check out line. Yep,$90 wine. Want to see what buyers remorse looks like?

We finished up at Chateau St. Jean with a few more tastes, but nothing struck our fancy. We did love the grounds though, seriously, how beautiful is this place?

Wineries are interesting places. They are built to look like castles, barns, Italian villas. They try to feel grand, or cozy, welcoming or elite. There has to be one for everybody, to suit every taste. At the end of the day, I felt sort of like I wished we sampled more, sort of like one more glass of wine would cause me to lose my mind. Luckily we hit the perfect balance. Here’s to the rest of our lives together always doing the same.

Yowzers, its already Wednesday? I have a million good excuses as to why the blog has been silent, but no one wants to hear them.

Here’s all you need to know about my weekend: Patrick is home, and I couldn’t be happier. Sadly, he is flying back to California on Sunday for another two week stint. I have been attempting to spend as much time as possible with him before he leaves again, he is lucky that I haven’t followed him into the bathroom, yet.

Ok let’s make a promise to not read this post before, during or after eating, or while thinking about eating. Alright then, away we go…

So, the wine train. I know, I know, that already sounds bad, but the thing is, it wasn’t bad at all. Except for the dining car. But I’m not ready to talk about that just yet. No, no, first I am going to tell you about the train.

The train! I love trains (I thought I loved trains) and when I read about the Napa Valley Wine Train I knew we had to go. Sure, it was going to be the most touristy thing we did (besides tour wineries, the Fishermans Wharf and oh yeah, DISNEYLAND) but how often do you get to ride an honest to goodness steam train (except for maybe when you are at DISNEYLAND)? We had to ride.

So basically what you do is you go to this building where they try to sell you all sorts of little knicknack crap, then you have a 2 glass wine tasting (weak). The waitress will try to make a joke about seeing your ID because you are the youngest person in there by about, oh…30 years.

Finally you get on the train after posing for one of those pictures in front of a barrell of grapes (later you will be expected to buy this picture on a keychain, as a Christmas gift, and hey honey should we get the canvas size to go over the fireplace?).

Sorry, where was I? Oh yes. After our whole lives of waiting, we finally get on the train, and we are in the caboose. There is a joke in there somewhere I’m sure. No matter, we’re on the wine train after all. Let’s get this party started! Actually it was only about 10:30 so Patrick and I drank Coke like good Southern children. That didn’t stop others around us from putting down bottles of Champagne.

Here is Patrick in the caboose. I won’t show my corresponding picture here because I already showed it to you for the before/after hair comparison. See, same background. Sneaky.

You know me, I love lanterns.

Patrick at lunch. I am also not showing you my corresponding picture here because I was turning a bit green. While the food in the lunch car was pretty darn good, the hard rocking motion was confirming that I am in fact, just like my dad. Prone to a little motion sickness. After fighting it for as long as I could it became obvious that 1)seafood bisque was a terrible idea and 2)this crap was not getting any better on its own. Action had to be taken.

Carefully I made my way to the front of the car so I could cross over to the next with the bathroom (where, mercifully, no one was eating). I forgot to mention earlier that a local PBS station was shooting a show aboard the train highlighting its vegetarian options (my filet, what I could eat of it, was wonderful). As would only happen to me, they are shooting in the front of our car, and until they finish the segment I am forced to stand there and watch PBS hippie man go on and on about flavors exploding in his mouth. Hey buddy, you and me both, so why don’t you shut it or you’ll be wearing some cow parts on your 100% sustainable organic locally grown non-hydrogenated hipster ironic tshirt. And thanks.

So, I must say, there is really nothing quite like it. “It” of course being trying to keep all your projectile vomit inside the toilet and off the seat and floors (always considerate, I am) while riding a violently rocking train. Not just any train though but one that has served copious amounts of wine to the early bird supper set, who were decidedly less dedicated about keeping it all in the bowl. Ahem. What’s that all the teenagers are saying now? Oh yeah…fml.

Well, that was lovely. Back at my seat, Patrick was surely grossed out but did a good job of hiding it, the perfect new husband. We finished the trip much less eventfully than we began it, watching the sun dance across the vines. We decided against the canvas.

In the battle between the valleys, I think that Sonoma beats Napa hands down. Patrick and I fell head over heels for the town square at Sonoma. It still feels very much like an old Californian town to me (not that I am an expert), with the park and its fountains, the old hotel, the soliders barracks, and the hidden courtyards.

Mmmmmm, cheese!

We loved the Cheese Factory, the Candlestick shop, the kitchen store and the tasting rooms sprinkled around the square. The number one place not to miss on the square? It’s got to be the Sonoma Wine Shop. Now really, we loved the wine shop. While there are as many places to buy wine in Sonoma as there are grapes on the vine, the atmosphere and value of this place had us from our first sip.

Inside the back room of the unpretentious shop is where you can taste wine from many small producers around the region. The bottles here can not be found in stores. The guys running the shop are as knowledgeable and laid back as they come. We spent an afternoon talking shop with the owner, Brian, a gray haired hippie from Berkley who knew everyone in the grape business.

After getting fully tipsy from his picks, we wandered around the square, soaking up the sunshine and taking in the shops.

Patrick couldn’t resist.

I can not say enough good things about the grounds and the staff at the Sonoma Mission Inn.

We truly felt like everyone wanted to make sure that we were happy and enjoying ourselves. When we checked in, it was well after midnight and I was tired. And cranky. After going to look at our first room, I was even crankier. It was a little small for a king bed, had a slight smell and was too close for the road. I trecked back to the front desk and asked about getting moved. Despite the fact that is was so late and I wasn’t the happiest girl on earth, John (the night manager) was super accomodating, moving us to a room with a fire place. He was warm and friendly, never patronizing and we honestly felt like he just wanted us happy.

We were happier, but I still had my eye on the Mission suites at the back of the property. We upgraded the next morning, try and tell me it wasn’t worth it.

Roaring fires morning and night. Yes, please.

Attached to the hotel was the Big Three restaurant. Patrick and I enjoyed breakfast here our first morning. It was the only thing that could have cheered us up after the sad news that our hot air balloon flight was cancelled due to high winds.

Also notable at the hotel was the spa. The Sonoma Mission Inn is one of the only hotels in the country built on natural hot springs. We enjoyed a day participating in the bathing rituals, getting a massage and then hanging out by the pool.

Note: We are going to talk about the honeymoon first since I have pictures already, and I’ll finish up with the wedding once we get delicious photos from Cheyenne.

The day after our wedding dawned just as overcast as our wedding day, but instead of the light rain of the day before, the clouds eventually rolled out to reveal one of those perfect September days that, despite the 99% summer humidity and snowless winters, make you love living in North Carolina.

Patrick and I joined friends and family for breakfast at a nearby Starbucks before heading up to our house (OUR HOUSE!) to relax a little before getting on the plane. After a late lunch with our parents it was time to head to the airport.

We had to make a quick detour to pick up my engagement ring (I had dropped it off earlier that morning, the stone was coming loose and needed to be tightened), and got on the road. It wasn’t long before we realize that…oh crap…we were cutting it close. I tend to not get to worried about things like this since the Raleigh airport is pretty small, but this was one flight I did not want to miss! Finally, we arrived at the terminal, and mom jumped out to take a picture of us headed off to catch our flight.

See, isn’t it cute? Hmmm…so I’ll confess. I accidentally deleted it later in the trip when my memory card was full. I was trying to delete some of the approximately one hundred million photos of Amos on my camera, and this photo somehow became an unwilling victim. Sorry mom! You’ll just have to imagine it: 2 super cute kids with stars in their eyes, posing for a quick photo, still a little dazed from the events of the day before but also terrified that they are about to miss their flight.

After some issues at the Delta desk (they changed out ticket, but didn’t reissue a new one…nice work), we pretty much ran through security to the gate just as they were boarding. It was just like in the movies, only much more stressful.

Once safely on the plane, we settled in. Patrick fell asleep almost immediately, I amused myself with taking pictures. The first flight to Detroit and the next one to San Francisco were just how I like them, nice and boring.

Dear Litigious Society, see what you have done? How stupid as a country are we that we need a warning that peanuts have been processed and packaged in a peanut factory?

After arriving in SFO we made our way to the rental car counter. After finally getting to our car for the next 8 days, we discovered it was a PT Cruiser. You’re kidding me right? Patrick heroically managed to avoid having a melt down (cars are important to him, and a Cruiser was not going to cut it) and we worked our way back to the counter to see what we can do. After a lot of back and forth (a ridiculous amount, considering how tired we were), we were finally on our way to Sonoma in this bad boy.