Before I start recapping our Portland trip, I figured I should wrap up our journey in wine country.

Our fourth day in wine country started out at Bouchon Bakery in Yountville. They had recently had a fire, so they weren’t offering all of their usual goodies.

However, we did find some yummies like this pecan treat.

Afterwards, we sipped our coffee and crossed the street to shop around at V Marketplace. It’s home to NapaStyle and a few other boutiques.

Then, we drove by The French Laundry and spotted their fresh gardens across the street.

Afterwards, we passed through these lovely yellow trees, stopped by Oakville Grocery…

and headed out to Sterling Vineyards for a tour and a ride in their ariel tram.

The views from the top were amazing. In the background, you can see Castello di Amorosa which we toured a couple of days before.

We finished up the day with lunch at Celedon, a stroll in downtown St. Helena and dinner at Angéle’s.

Read more from our wine country trip –
day one / day two, part one / day two, part two / day three

A couple of months ago, Kacey, Em, my cousin and I took a little day trip to Gruene, Texas. Kacey and I have been before but that was pre-Em and my cousin had never been. I knew my cousin would love the quaint, historical town so off we went.

We stopped in at Got Toys. Em loved it, of course.

We also wandered around The Gruene Antique Company where I spotted these adorable leather baby shoes. Too bad they were too small for Em.

We also discovered this old bank vault in one of the rooms in the antique store. It’s Gruene’s original bank vault fitted with a decorative cast iron door. I don’t know how we missed it the times we’d visited before.

I love having such interesting towns nearby!

My cousin is very special to me. She’s an older cousin – a retired school teacher – who helped raise me. She also watches Em a few days a week which allows me to work on this business. I am very, very grateful.

My cousin loves traveling. She’s been to every state in the US expect one – Oregon. Kacey and I really wanted to do something special for her. So when Christmas came around, we gifted her a trip to Portland, Oregon so she could accomplish her 50 state quest. I designed + printed these tickets to gift her, and she was delighted and so surprised when she opened them up!

Sweet readers this is where I would love your help. Please share your Portland, Oregon recommendations! Places to stay. Things to see. Places to eat. We’ll be joining her on her journey, and we’d love to hear all of your suggestions!

After checking out of the Gaige House, we toured downtown Sonoma and found a little Parisian cafe to stop in for brunch. Then, we drove to the Napa River Inn which was the hotel we booked for the second part of our trip.

After checking in, we headed to the Oxbow Public Market. It’s an indoor market with multiple vendors selling all sorts of goodies. It’s mostly food items. We picked up tea + chocolate.

Then, we went to Del Dotto for a candlelight cave tour. During our wine country trip, we toured several wineries. Del Dotto was by far our favorite. Hands down.

Their tour was really hands on and they shared lots of knowledge about the wine making process. They explained how little subtle differences can greatly affect the taste of the wine. For instance, they let us taste the same wine that was aging in two different barrels made out of wood harvested from two different areas of the world. The two wine samples tasted completely different because of the differences in the wood.

Their cave is one of the oldest in the area. And, along the tour, if you don’t like the wine sample, they encourage you to splash it along the walls of the cave.

After the tour + tasting, we walked around downtown Napa. Then we walked over to Morimoto for dinner. The courses were so creative + yummy!

Read more from our wine country trip – day one / day two, part one / day two, part two

After our lunch at Gott’s, we headed to Castello di Amorosa to see their beautiful vineyard and Tuscan style castle.

After, we headed to Schramberg intending to taste the champagne of the White House but it was closed for the evening. So, we drove on to the city of Castiloga. The downtown area has little shops, restaurants + wine bars. While walking along there, we stumbled upon these wish trees. Each tree had a different theme, and there were containers with tags + pens near the trunk of each tree for people to leave their wishes. We left one wish for us and one for Em.

After our stroll + a stop at Up Valley Vintners, we headed to Bouchon for a very yummy dinner.

Our second day in wine country started out with a fantastic breakfast at our b & b and a relaxing message. Then, we headed out to St. Helena for lunch. Again, we took that crazy curvy road that we took the night before. Since the road had been pitch black with no street lights, we thought we should see what it looked like during the day. I’m glad we did. The views were spectacular. See the yellow patches all the way up in the hills? Those are crops of grapes!

On the curvy road, we also happened upon this beautiful vineyard. I’ve never seen such color! It was breathtaking. Definitely one of our favorite parts of the trip. And completely unplanned.

It was Google’s directions that led us to the curvy road. After driving on it once at night and once during the day, we decided to start taking another route even though it was longer. The alternate route was much less curvy + scary.

Once off the curvy road, we spotted the famous Napa sign.

Then we made a pitstop for lunch at Gott’s in St. Helena. Originally, it was called Taylor’s Refresher.

It’s a little roadside eatery where you can order wine or milkshakes with your burger. The ahi poke crispy tacos + sweet potato fries were SO GOOD! I’m still craving those fries.

We flew into a foggy San Francisco, grabbed a quick lunch, drove over the Golden Gate Bridge…

and headed to Sausalito for a cup of warm coffee.

Then, to kick off our wood + silverware anniversary, we drove a winding + foggy road to Muir Woods to do a little walking tour of the park.

The redwood trees were spectacular + so tall! It was nearly impossible for us to depict their lengthy size.

Afterwards, we drove to Glen Ellen to park our luggage and get settled in at the Gaige House - the bed and breakfast we stayed at for the first portion of our trip.

After getting freshened up, we took a very curvy + dark road through the hills to Yountville to dine at Bottega where we toasted to five years of marriage.

This year for our 5 year anniversary, instead of gifting each other little experiences like usual, we decided to do a big adventure. A big wine country adventure which was perfect for our wood + silverware anniversary.

Kacey’s parents watched Em while we were away. We missed her wildly. However, we enjoyed the extra sleep and savored our indulgent getaway.

I’ve got tons of pictures to sort and edit from our trip. As I go through them, I’m going to share a few here along with a little bit of what we saw, ate + did.