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Anniversary and 40th Birthday Celebration in Sonoma with The Wine Road, Day 2

September 6, 2013 by Laura Lohr Leave a Comment

I posted about the anniversary and 40th birthday celebration we had in Sonoma on The Wine Road back on this post HERE. Today, I want to continue sharing our adventure on day two. We had such a great time and one blog post just wasn’t enough to cover all the fun we had!

On day two, we woke up and had breakfast at the Hilton, where we stayed. After searching for the best online deals, we used the hotel shuttle to take us back to the airport to rent a car. We picked up a Ford Focus and headed to our first winery of the day—The Francis Ford Coppola Winery in Geyserville. The winery was over-the-top awesome! The grounds are beautiful. We felt like we had arrived on a Las Vegas casino property, with the beautiful grounds, the resort-style pool and all its grandeur.

Entrance to Francis Ford Coppola Winery. We decided to call our Ford Focus rental car, Francis Ford, after seeing the winery. From there out, our little rental was Francis Ford. (We’re nerds!)

The beautiful Francis Ford Coppola Pool, which you purchase a day pass to swim in

When we arrived at Francis Ford Coppola Winery, we went to the concierge to find out where we should go to redeem our three day pass to The Wine Road, which entitled us to complimentary tastings at over 80 different wineries. We were directed to the inside of the main building, where we found a friendly wine host that was more than happy to share the lovely wines that FFCW had to offer. We fell in love with several wines and had a lovely chat with our lovely host, who was a Southern California transplant to the area. She was informative about the area, attractions we should not miss and we had a great conversation.

Mr. Bear standing in front of the concierge at FFCW

This was one of the prettiest bottles! I loved the bottle and the wine!

This was the bottle we settled on. There were so many great wines, but this was the one we liked the taste of best.

After our tasting, we walked around the grounds and got to see some awesome memorabilia from several of Francis Ford Coppola’s movies, including:

The desk from the movie, “The Godfather”

The car from the movie, “Tucker”

Memorabilia from the movie, “Apocalypse Now”

It was a great day and we were so impressed by the grandiosity of the winery. It’s definitely a “must-see” for anyone visiting Sonoma. It was our first winery we visited in Sonoma and it left quite an impression. LOVED IT! I think we could have spent all day at Francis Ford Coppola, enjoying all they have to offer, nevertheless there was much more wine tasting ahead of us!

Next, we visited Quivira Vineyards and Winery in the Dry Creek River Valley of Healdsburg (Pronounced heels-berg. It would take 4 days for us to master the pronunciation!). The location was recommended to us by Mr. Bear’s step-brother and it was a fabulous recommendation, indeed!

We spent some time sampling the amazing wines and learned about the various varietals that Quivira has to offer. The Dry Creek River Valley is beautiful—as is all of Sonoma.

The breathtaking vineyards of Quivira

Mr. Bear at Quivira

Selfie of Mr. Bear and I at Quivira

The grapes were very close to harvest everywhere we went. We would have loved to be there for the Sonoma Valley Crush Festival that is happening at the end of this month.

Unfortunately, it was getting late, as the wineries usually close at 5:00 p.m. daily. We cut our visit much too short at Quivira to squeeze just one more wine tasting in. We found our way to the Raymond Burr Vineyards. It was equally beautiful, driving around the Dry Creek River Valley. The vineyards were especially gorgeous, with the grapes so ripe on the vines. The weather was perfect!

They were getting ready to close, so we didn’t have as much time as we liked to visit, however we got to see a lot of Perry Mason memorabilia. Like this:

Raymond Burr’s awards for the television series, “Perry Mason.”

Mr. Bear, holding one of the many awards Mr. Burr won for his role as Perry Mason. It was extraordinarily heavy!

Before we left, I caught one last view:

Beautiful!

We went back to our hotel to get changed for dinner and came home to:

Milk and cookies from the Hilton!

…and lastly, we enjoyed a fantastic dinner at Monti’s Rotisserie and Bar, courtesy of The Wine Road.

Monti’s is one of five Stark Restaurants in the Santa Rosa area. There food is delicious. The atmosphere is amazing. The service is phenomenal. Did I mention the food? Because, nom, nom, nom, nom:

Mr. Bear ordered this delicious dish.

While I, on the other hand, opted for the mussels and fries. The food. Oh, the food!

We finished the day with a dip in the pool and jacuzzi, then a nightcap (or two) at the hotel bar. It was a long, wonderful, amazing day. I couldn’t be more relaxed if I tried.

This is Part Two of our Sonoma Wine Trip. Click below read about other parts of our trip:

Anniversary and 40th Birthday Celebration in Sonoma with The Wine Road, Day One

Disclaimer: The Wine Road generously provided us with complimentary three day wine tasting passes and gift certificates to the Stark Restaurants, including Monti’s Rotisserie and Bar. Regardless, I was truly pleased with all the products and services we received and only recommend those that I can honestly recommend to my readers.

Beam Me Up Samsung Galaxy S4 #Verizon

September 4, 2013 by Laura Lohr Leave a Comment

Mr. Bear and I have been loyal fans of the Android operating system on our phones. We’re always excited when the newest features and releases come out. When Verizon Wireless asked me what phone I wanted to review next, the Samsung Galaxy S4 was at the top of my list! Mr. Bear and I had been waiting somewhat impatiently for the release date of this phone.

As it turned out, we bought Mr. Bear the Samsung Galaxy S4 for his birthday and that coincided with the date Verizon sent me the same phone to tryout. This was awesome, because we were able to “bump” our phones, using the S-Beam technology to share photos, files and videos. It was really cool. We were able to discover and learn about the phone together. We sat on our patio one evening, enjoying a glass of wine (okay, a bottle!) and playing with the phones. LOVE THIS PHONE!

Mr. Bear chose the black one and Verizon sent me the white one

There are so many cool features about this phone. One I really like, is when you find a contact in your phone, you simply put the phone to your ear to dial. The Bluetooth connection in the car is so incredibly simple. You can program the phone to automatically connect to the Bluetooth, as soon as you start the car. Easy, peasy!

As a fitness lover, my favorite feature is the Fitness Tracker. When Mr. Bear and I went to Sonoma, he had his phone track our steps, as we spent our days in Wine Country. At the end of the day, we could add in a walk, take a swim, or whatever to make sure we got our exercise in. It definitely made us more aware of our activity.* We always have our phones with us and it was something we didn’t have to think too much about. We got our 10,000 steps in every day! Woohoo!

We took tons of photos on our recent trip. The GS4 was a great camera to use! The Drama Shot and Eraser features. When we were traveling down the road in the car, I could use the drama shot to take a “burst” of photos and I could choose between them to fit together the perfect shot. The Eraser feature was great when someone decided to photobomb our photos when we were trying to get some photos of the landscape.

I still have several months before I can upgrade my phone, but I am keeping my eye on the Samsung Galaxy S4. Mr. Bear loves his and I am trying to not to be too jealous. It is super fast, super light and really the best phone I have had the opportunity to review so far.

*It has a lot of other cool features too, like can be synched by Bluetooth to a heart-rate monitor, blood pressure meter, body scale and S band bracelet.

**I was sent the Samsung Galaxy S4 for review purposes only. I was asked to return the phone after the review period.

Anniversary and 40th Birthday Celebration in Sonoma with The Wine Road

August 29, 2013 by Laura Lohr 10 Comments

Back in June, not only did I turn 40, but Mr. Bear and I celebrated our 10th wedding anniversary. We were trying to choose the perfect spot to vacation, so I turned to Facebook. Sonoma was the hand-down winner for the perfect vacation. The more feedback I got from friends and family, the more I was convinced! A fellow blogger recommended The Wine Road. I contacted them and they offered some complimentary services for our anniversary, including a 3-day ticket to the Wine Road.

We went out LAX, as we had to drop the kiddo, the dogs and the cat off at my parent’s house and it was closer than San Diego. We took a one hour-ish hop from LAX to Santa Rosa. It was so easy! Much better than flying into San Francisco! We flew Alaska Airlines, which allowed for us to bring back a case of wine with us on the return, so BONUS! Please, they were giving complimentary cocktails on the flight. Wooohoo!

We stayed at the Hilton Sonoma Wine Country Hotel, where the service was amazing from the moment we called for a complimentary shuttle from the airport. They did not have a scheduled airport pick-up for another hour after we landed, but came and got us anyway. When we arrived at the hotel, The Wine Road had this amazing package all ready to go for us, complete with maps, a cookbook, a lovely bottle of wine, coupons from various Wine Road participants and we immediately opened the bottle of wine.