Napa

Joe and I had the privilege of living in Napa, CA for two months and we absolutely LOVED it there! The weather was perfect, the people were friendly, everything was so pretty and green, and Joe didn't have to do much work for about 3 weeks!=) It was so much different than living in Houston, which for a few months was nice. I felt like we lived in such a small little town being in Napa. There weren't very many stores that we were familiar with. People recycle like crazy. In our complex, at the mall, and lots of places we went to they had recycle garbage cans. Joe said when we got back to Texas "I just feel like I'm being so wasteful now." ha ha! Groceries were close to the same prices, (as long as we didn't go to Whole Foods) but eating out was more expensive. We did find an organic store like Whole Foods, called Trader Joe's and their prices were reasonable. We found the best marinara sauce in a jar there! I should have stocked up!=) There were just a couple of chain restaurants (McDonalds, Burger King, KFC, and one AppleBees) so we got to eat at a lot of new little locally owned places. I wasn't feeling well, and even the smell of Joe cooking chicken made me so nauseous that I would have to go sit on the patio until our apartment aired out. So, needless to say we ate out quite a bit. I didn't take too many pictures at the restaurants but we went to Sonoma one afternoon for lunch at a place called..........

and this is what we ate! YUM!!!

Couldn't ask for a better lunch date=)

We ate on the patio and this was what we were surrounded by. SO pretty!

They don't call it "Wine Country" for nothin'!

There were vineyards everywhere! I can't describe how beautiful it was! The pictures don't do it justice either. It's absolutely breathtaking!

There were a couple of days that I felt well enough to go out for a walk to get some exercise. They had a really pretty park about 3 minutes from our apartment that had walking trails past some vineyards. Joe and I really enjoyed the days we got to go there! The people we'd see were so friendly and always smiled and said hello. There's just a different vibe there. People are so relaxed and friendly and don't seem to have a care in the world.

If I could have this view every day when I exercise......I don't think I could complain!=)

I have several pictures from little day trips that we took, and things we were able to see so I will do a separate post. I should have taken pictures of the downtown area of Napa, and of our apartment but I didn't. All I can say is if you ever get the chance to visit Napa and the surrounding cities, I would highly encourage it=) I told Joe I could live there forever! Besides everything being so laid back and gorgeous, one of the things we loved about Napa was our ward. We LOVED our ward. We love our ward in Pearland, but the ward in Napa was completely different. In Pearland, we feel like we're in a huge Utah ward. There are a LOT of families from Utah, tons of medical, dental, and law school students so it consists of mostly young families. There are about 150 kids in primary (we have 3 sunbeam classes and 4 or 5 nurseries) and at any given time there are at least 10-15 pregnant women. In Napa, we met in an older building, the ward was much smaller and consisted of mostly older people. The average age we guessed was about 65. The primary kids got up to sing on Father's Day and we counted 3 boys, and about 12 girls! Crazy!!! Everyone was SO welcoming and so sweet! When we stood up in Sunday School and announced we were new, everyone's heads turned around and people were so excited. They don't get too many new move-ins. It was fun to be so welcomed and loved and be the young little couple in the ward. =) Too bad we didn't get to stay longer and get to know them better. If anyone wants to plan on retiring in Napa with us, we'd love to see you there!=)