My excellent three day adventure

Too much fun was had this past weekend! It feels like I have been gone a week and yet, as I glance over at the three Italian calendars I have strategically placed on my office wall for confirmation, I see that it is only Monday. What did I do that could cause me to loose sense of time and place. Well, let me tell you!

Day 1: It all started Friday at 7 am, when I went day tripping with some girlfriends to pick up kids from summer camp. Stacy, Lunette, Bridget and I decided, that as long as we had to drive four hours north of San Francisco to pick up our kids and bring them home for an early Saturday morning swim meet, we might as well make it a girls' day out. With Starbucks coffee in hand we headed up highway 101 and arrived in Healdsburg, a quaint town near Napa/Sonoma just in time to do some serious damage to our pocket books. We shopped and enjoyed the views and lunched in the shady backyard of a restaurant converted from an old house called Ravenous. The falafel and yogurt sauce was delicious as was the chocolate torte served with coffee gelato. After lunch we headed up Dry Creek Canyon road to visit several of the wineries located in the hills north of town. We stopped and sipped wine in the wine caves of Bella Vineyards and then again on the lovely estate of Ferrari Carano. I couldn't resist the Zins and bought a couple of bottles to bring home with me. We arrived at camp around six, loaded up our two cars with seven stinky boys, no worse for ware, having spent the last six days roughing it in the wilderness. And that, was just the start of my excellent weekend....

Day 2: Saturday 6:30 am. Rise and shine and head to the pool for the afore mentioned swim meet! But, the swim meet wasn't the hightlight of this day...oh no! What we really were looking forward to was the Gator swim team camping event and beach day scheduled for the remainder of the weekend. Once done with the meet we packed up the car with towels, wetsuits, blankets and most importantly sticks to roast marshmallows, and headed out to Santa Cruz and the KOA (camp grounds of America) located near Sunset Beach. It is a tradition for the Gators to camp together every year and this year about twenty-five families joined together for this communal celebration. Kids were running around playing in our little tent city, while parents were strolling from tent to tent, socializing and celebrating with margheritas.

Day 3: Beach Day Sunday. After a hearty community breakfast cooked over a camp stove, the Gators headed out to the beach. We parked ourselves under umbrellas and easy ups and we didn't leave until late afternoon. There was a lot of sand castel building, and burying of kids in the sand (my son was turned into a giant mermaid and the girls took great care to make it an anatomically correct with a large bosoms) but the best part was riding those wonderful waves on a boogie board. Such an exhilarating thing to become one with a huge wave! I must admit, that I abandoned myself to the sea for an entire afternoon of playing in those waves. We came home covered in sand, a little roasted and red from being in the sun all day, but what a fabulous time we had!