01 July 2009

Start of NTC and wine tasting in Napa...

Michael has arrived in California, so we are back in the same time zone! We've certainly learned to appreciate every little joy when it comes to the ease of our communication. They arrived Monday afternoon and have been working their tushes off since. Apparently their company's food & water supply has yet to arrive, though, so thus far they have had to buy all of it! Michael was telling me how yesterday morning they were called out to fix a truck at 9am and were there until 12pm...without any water. I found that pretty unbelievable. Well, I find that they have to buy all of their food & water unbelievable, but Michael says they've told them they will be reimbursed. Not to be the skeptic, but I will believe that when I see it! When I spoke with him last night, him and Jon Pratt, his Sergeant, were starting from opposite ends of a long line of trucks and making sure they all started - many of them didn't. They are all supposed to leave this morning, so I asked him what they would have to do with all of those ones. "We'll have to fix them." Oh, right. Just a minute, let me go fix these fifteen trucks while you have a cup of coffee...ha. "We're good, babe!" Anyway, I know they are good, but still...and when I said that to him, his reply was, "We just stay up all night if we need to." There we go...while that isn't cool, it makes more sense! So he is already up to his neck in work, but I think that that is a pretty positive thing, since before I was always feeling bad that he was alone at our apartment :-( Hour-long conversations are few and far-between again, but we've dealt with lots and lots of times like these before, so it's just a matter of readjusting again.

We've had unbelievable weather. Sunday we ended up going wine tasting in Napa Valley, which is about an hour away from her house, and it got to 108 degrees! We had a great time anyway. Here we are in front of one of our favorite wineries, Folie à deux, who make a fabulous wine called Ménage à Trois that everyone should try once!

We also went on a tour of Sterling Winery, which is built in Greek-style architecture and beautiful. Their wines are expensive but not really worth it - but we really enjoyed seeing the wine process in a big winery...which, much to Michael's chagrin, no longer involves the smashing of the grapes by human feet! Here we are on the tram up to the winery from the office at the bottom of the valley. We're also sporting some pretty fab faces.

So we had a great time even though we went through about 6 bottles of water each in the short car rides inbetween wineries! Jes' dad, Rich, was nice enough to drive us out there since he knew the way better.

Monday we went out to Jes' sister's apartment to babysit her month-old nephew, Dominic. I'm still afraid of breaking every baby I hold under 2 years old, but I did get him for about 40 minutes while we were there and he survived, so I guess I'm okay! Yesterday was pretty relaxed; we've been walking down to get tea/coffee the last couple mornings and it's starting to cool off so that is nice. I'm looking forward to going home, but it is really fun to just relax and hang with Jes here. We had a fun game of Trivial Pursuit (which I'd never played before) on Monday night, which I barely won...and only because I'd landed on easy questions for each qualifying one!

I've been getting up each morning and sitting outside on their back patio with my tea to enjoy the fresh air, read and pray. I love that time of day when you know the only people up are the ones who go in to work each day - and when you don't have to be one of them! I know that in a month and a half, I will be, so for now I'm enjoying vacation while I can.

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