Thomas Tidbits...: Sonoma

Justin and I had the most amazing time in Sonoma with Maggie and Dylan Hale last weekend... beautiful weather, delicious food and wine, and all without schlepping baby paraphernalia. It was our first time leaving Ellie, and wouldn't you know, she got sick for the first time just 36 hours before we left. Needless to say, I was a total wreck. After a middle of the night call to the doctor and a doctor's visit the next day, we found out that Ellie's 102 fever was due to a virus.

Lucky for us, we had Nana to watch after Ellie while we were away (but that didn't keep me from crying the entire ride to the airport). Once we arrived in San Francisco, though, we immediately relaxed.

We stayed in Healdsburg in the Sonoma Valley, which is a quaint little town with a square that anchors the town. We stayed at The Healdsburg Inn, which was right in the middle of it all. We were able to walk to shops, restaurants, tasting rooms, and even some wineries.

A brief overview of our lineup:

Thursday:
Lunch at Healdsburg Bar & Grill
Shopping
Seghesio Winery
Dinner at Barndiva

Friday:
Tour of Michel Schlumberger and Harvest Lunch afterwards
Dutcher's Crossing Winery
Dinner at Campo Fina
Shuffleboard at the "towny" bar

Saturday:
Breakfast at Center Street Bakery
Driver Sid navigated us through Medlock Ames, Jimtown picnic lunch at Robert Young, Starlite and Hawley Wineries
Dinner at Dry Creek Kitchen

Sunday:
Shopping around the Healdsburg Square, a little football at Healdsburg Bar & Grill, then back to our favorite 6 month old!

Now, enough about us... onto the important stuff! It took Ellie a few days to recover from her virus, and once she was over it, she was back to her regular, silly antics.

What a lucky girl - Ellie had back-to-back grandmother weekends. Bama was in town this weekend so that Justin and I could go to Austin City Limits Music Festival. We had a great time with Clark, who was in town from KC. Meanwhile, Ellie was spoiled rotten with Bama love, song singing, and dance parties.

New happenings with Ellie:

: She is ON THE MOVE now... she army crawls like a pro, and can sit up on her own with very little support.

: She now knows when I leave the room (and doesn't like it one bit). This just started over the weekend, so we'll see how me leaving for work goes this week. I have a feeling it'll be a repeat performance of our drive to the airport last week:(

: She also threw her first temper tantrum. Ellie was obsessed with our laundry basket, so we thought it would be cute to put her in it. We soon realized how unsafe it was as it tipped with her wild movements. We took her out of it, and put it away. Cue the outburst.

: After a 3 day food strike (refusing to eat any solids), Ellie is back on track and eating like a champ. So far, she's had sweet potatoes, peas, green beans, black beans, carrots, peaches, mango, berries, bananas, pears, apples, and avocado. She's not so keen on green beans, but she's pretty open to everything else.

: Ellie was a great pupil at swim class this week. She barely sucked her fingers, engaged in all activities, and even acknowledged everyone around her. She seems way more comfortable in the water... all in all, I was a proud parent and impressed with her improvement.

: Ellie has a myriad of facial expressions now. Some of them are so strange that we don't even know what they mean.