7 years...

Today, John and I are celebrating our wedding anniversary! It's been a great 7 years and we had a VERY nice weekend-long celebration in Santa Ynez with Aaron and Sarah. Over the years, Aaron and Sarah have been our traveling companions and have actually helped us celebrate a couple of anniversaries. We always have a lot of fun together and this weekend was no exception. It took much persuading, but John was finally able to talk me into leaving the kids home this time so we could spend some real quality time together and even though I missed Kate and Luke terribly, I'm glad we had that time to relax. We packed our 2 1/2 days away with lots of activities we could not have done with little ones in tow. On the way up the coast on Saturday we stopped in Goleta at a ranch called Circle Bar B to go horseback riding. John and I haven't been horseback riding in so many years and it was SO fun! The weather was perfect for a ride and we had a really nice guide, Clay, who kept us informed and entertained. I highly recommend this place to anyone traveling up in the Santa Barbara area. After our ride we check out the grounds and decided it would be worth going up and staying at the ranch sometime.

John and Aaron on Trapper & Muffin

My horse, Smokey, and Sarah's horse, Wiley, competed the whole time to be in front of one another. It was pretty funny when they would take off trotting and we were bouncing around in the saddle. =)

After we got to the Hertzog's house in Santa Ynez and got settle in, we went to the famous Hitching Post for dinner. Here we are in front of the house on our way out.

On Sunday, we headed out to visit some of the local wineries. The grounds are so pretty but it was really cold and windy. We stopped for lunch at the Firestone Brewery restaurant and then headed to Los Olivos for a little tasting. One of the tasting rooms we stopped by belongs to some friends of friends, the Saarloos'. They just opened their tasting room and it was beautiful. Keith Saarloos, the owner, was there pouring and gave us a great tasting lesson. We went out that night for a delicious Italian dinner at Grappolos. This morning, after a Solvang breakfast we made our way home to our babes. It was a perfect weekend full of great fun with great friends!

In front of the vineyards at Melville Winery.

Aaron and John at the Saarloos tasting room.