Smurfy's Blog

Here is Nathan playing with my nieces and nephew….

Nathan dancing to Madonna’s music

I just found out that my new home in Napa will be at Castello di Amorosa! New Home? Yeah right… just kidding…

Pixar’s next wrap party will be held at Castello di Amorosa this June 9 for their upcoming movie Brave.

I have been to this place twice already and this wine place is very special and unique simply because the winery has a castle (yes there is a castle in Napa). My husband and I took a wine tour of the castle back in 2008. The tour took us underground where they store all their barrels of wine. In another room, they had a bar of course and we tried all sorts of red wine. My favorite red wine from Castello di Amorosa is the Sangiovese.

Since we live in Napa County and depending on the winery, we can taste the wine for free or pay at a discounted price. We have been to different wineries in Napa but my favorite winery is actually Castello di Amorosa. Being there really makes me feel like I am in medieval or renaissance Italy.

Below are pictures I took back in 2008 when we first visited Castello di Amorosa. Second time I visited this place was probably same year or 2009. The castle probably looks a little different by now.

Wow it will be very interesting to have the Pixar party there. Nelson tells me that the movie will be shown outdoors. Gee hopefully it will be a warm night!

Lately, Nathan likes pulling one of his chairs around the family room

He likes hiding under his table

Nathan learning how to brush his own teeth

He likes to read his magazine (Babies R Us ads) in the morning…

He is in a deep thought… ‘hmmm, which toy should i get next?…’

Nathan riding inside a shopping cart

Nathan laughing while watching Sprout

Rolling and rolling and rolling

Today, we went to check out Oxbow Market in Napa. It is a nice place to eat gourmet food, chocolates, ice cream, etc. But from my point of view, it isn’t really toddler friendly. Inside the building there is a big crowd and there aren’t many seating area to sit and eat. So this place is pretty much for older kids and of course adults.

This place definitely has a mix atmosphere. It reminds me of the stores inside the SF Ferry Building.

Inside Oxbow Market, there is Hog Island Oyster Co. I love raw oysters smothered with hot sauce!

This is a spice store

A guest chef is showing people how to make gourmet pizza

Three Twins ice cream

This place also sells live lobster

Of course there is a cupcake store… Kara’s Cupcakes

We didn’t have lunch here, but I bought some gourmet chocolates from Annette’s Chocolate (milk chocolate truffle and mauna kea caramel which is a Hawaiian macadamia nut caramel chocolate sprinkled with salt) and Kara’s cupcakes.

I would definitely come back to visit this place again and next time I will try their food and Three Twins ice cream.

While in Ikea, I saw this desk that would be perfect for my nail spa accessories. I wasn’t even looking for a desk but sinice this desk only cost $20 I decided to buy it.

I rearranged furniture in our guest bedroom downstairs so I can have a place for the desk. Color of the $20 desk isn’t bad at all.

Now there is a place for me to keep my paraffin bath as well as my nail polish, nail polish remover and other nail accessories. The best thing about the desk is the sunken tray behind the desk. Also there is a slot for the paraffin bath cord to go through.

There is a shelf below the desk which I use to store the box of paraffin wax.

When I was cleaning the guest bedroom, I found some other spa products that I haven’t used in a long time. I forgot about the foot bath. I am not sure if I bought it or borrowed it from someone. I also have a heating neck pillow which is supposed to relax your muscles. I think I got the neck pillow as a gift.

Inside the guest bedroom, I also have my foot massager that I bought from Costco years ago.

Out of all the spa products I use the most are the paraffin bath and foot massager because there’s less preparation and less messy.

Nelson’s coworkers like this burger joint called Happy Dog in Sonoma. Since it was a nice day and Happy Dog got very good reviews from Yelp, we decided to drive to Sonoma and have lunch at Happy Dog.

When we got inside, I was surprised to see a Japanese or Chinese old couple running the burger joint. They have been in this business for 24 years! I was expecting to see fat dudes in white aprons placing burger patties on the grill.

We ordered two cheeseburgers, two milkshakes and two fries. The sauce they use for their burgers is BBQ sauce. I am not a big fan of BBQ sauce, but the BBQ sauce in the cheeseburger was really good. Their fries is simple. I wish they make garlic fries. Their milkshake was pretty good too. I got strawberry milkshake while Nelson got cherry milkshake.

Usually, when I eat cheeseburger, I can’t finish it at all even the small cheeseburger at In and Out Burger. But after trying Happy Dog cheeseburger, I actually finished the whole burger.

Happy Dog has indoor and outdoor seating. Inside, they have plenty of tables. When we arrived at Happy Dog, we were the only customers sitting inside. But after 15 mins, more customers came in. I think most of their customers order take-out because the phone kept ringing and the old Asian lady was taking orders while her husband cooked the burgers.

After eating their cheeseburgers, we were ‘Happy’. 🙂 We would definitely go back to this place again.

We drove to old downtown Sonoma after lunch. Near Sonoma City Hall, there is a park with two playgrounds (one for older kids and the other for smaller critters). We decided to let Nathan play at the playground for a bit. While walking to the playground, there were these bushes of yellow daisies. I decided to clip out one for Nathan.

Why did I give him a flower? When we adopted Nathan, his orphanage gave us a photo album of him when he was less than one year old. In one of the pictures, he was in this garden holding a flower in his hand. I thought it was cute.

Here is Nathan on the swing

Nathan going down the slide

Notice that while playing or on the swing, he never lets go of the yellow flower. 🙂

He is making sure the flower is still in his hand

More pics

We couldn’t stay at the park that long. Of course Nathan cried when we told him we had to leave.

It has been a long while since we were in Sonoma. Last time we were here, Nathan wasn’t even born yet. While walking around, we took a look inside some historic buildings (built around 1800s).

How do you suppose to get down from second floor? Notice the door on second floor. Behind the house, I assume there used to be a staircase that was taken out.

The mannequin looks creepy

The little girl standing in front of the painting is actually a real person. Not a mannequin! 🙂

Old style bar

The stairs looks so claustrophobic

Sonoma City Hall

Old theater and hotel

Ticket booth at the theater. If I walked to the ticket booth at night and see this mannequin, I’ll get freaked out!

Old downtown Sonoma seems to attract a lot of Ferraris like this one

When walking around Sonoma, it felt like I was on vacation… yet I only live 20 mins away.

Back at home, Nathan helped me with laundry

After helping me with some chores, he sat on the couch and read his Lego magazine

It’s Nathan’s second Christmas! He’s grown a lot in one year.

The Alvarez family gave Nathan an alphabet train floor puzzle for Christmas

Inside Nathan’s Christmas stocking, I bought him this mini abacus toy which he loves playing

I also got him a numbers book. Hopefully this book will last long because right now all Nathan wants to do with his books is step on them or tear them apart! :-0

For Smeagol, I got this laser light pointer.

Seems like Nathan liked the laser light pointer more than Smeagol 🙂

Another toy I got for Smeagol was this feather wand toy

Since Nelson mentioned about wanting to play with remote controlled helicopter toys, I decided to give him that for Christmas.

Our living room is a good place for him to fly his helicopter toy. Whenever Smeagol gets a chance, he likes to run after the helicopter.

Nelson needs more flying lessons.

For Christmas dinner, we went to Nelson’s parent’s house. His parents cooked prime rib and served chocolate fruit cake for dessert. While at his parent’s house, 6 of us played some very old game from the 90s called X-men. Nelson needed 6 players so he can get some virtual trophy. Because of graphics and sound, you can really tell this game was from the 90s. After playing X-men, we played MJ. I won twice but I didn’t get any points due to the MJ tiles I got.

Today, we went to my family’s place for dinner. We don’t do a lot of family gatherings but it was nice to spend time with them on Christmas Eve.

During the day, we pretty much stayed at home and cleaned up a little (or at least I cleaned the house) before going to my family’s house. As usual, Nathan spent most of his time playing. Here he is playing with his toys inside his play area while wearing his helmet!

Nathan’s and Smeagol’s way of relaxing at home. Here is Nathan sitting on his daddy’s legs…

Here is Smeagol lounging inside a basket… perhaps hiding from Nathan 🙂

At my parents house, we had Chinese food. My mom loves buying the food from this local restaurant called Annie’s Panda. Glad she didn’t cook turkey because I am not really into turkey.

My nephew Ben loves playing with Nathan. Since Ben has three older sisters, I am sure he is glad to have Nathan to play with. My nieces and nephew couldn’t wait to open their Christmas gifts. So after we finished having dinner, it was time to open up the gifts!

I gave my niece Jewel baking accessories. She loves baking. Her desserts taste very good and I am not just saying that because she is my niece. She is a better baker than me. So far, she knows how to make cupcakes, pies, cookies and chocolate truffles. She bakes everything from scratch. She wants to be a pastry chef. It is great to see she is starting her dream at an early age.

The President of my company gave all employees a gift money for Christmas yesterday. Instead of spending the money on myself, I decided to donate the money to an animal shelter where we adopted our cat Smeagol 9 years ago. It’s not my first time donating at this shelter. I made donations at this same shelter in previous years.

Here are some pictures of cats hoping to be adopted by a loving and responsible family:

Here’s one that wasn’t as shy as the other kitties.

Today was pretty much about a holiday gathering for me.

My company had its Christmas lunch at Skates on the Bay. Before heading to the restaurant, we had a Secret Santa at the office. My Secret Santa gave me a $25 Peets gift card! My Secret Santa must know me very well. Whenever I go to the office, I always go to Peets to get my coffee. Also, I received a gift money from the President of the company. All employees got it.

Speaking of coffee, whenever I go to a coffee shop like Peets or Starbucks, 99.99% of the time the barista never gets my name right! When they ask for my name for my coffee order, they write down Susan, Suzanne, Suett or one time I saw ‘Size-It’ written on my cup!!! What’s even worst is that when I spell my name for them, they still spell it as Susan or Suzanne. Is the espresso machine that loud for them to hear me well or are they just deaf?

There was this barista guy at Peets who took my coffee order for like hundreds of times. Whenever I approach him for my coffee order, he always tells me he can’t remember my name! Funny thing was that one day he will shout ‘Hello Suzette’. Then next morning, he’ll ask me what my name is! This guy isn’t 100 years old. He is between 25 – 30 years old. Boy he has very bad memory. He reminds me of some of the characters in the movie 50 First Dates where one of the characters only remembers today and will have no memory of you tomorrow.

To all baristas at Peets and Starbucks… this is how my name is spelled!

This is the view from Skates on the Bay

Pictures of some of my coworkers

At Skates on the Bay, I had pasta. I wish I ordered something else because I forgot that I was going to Buca di Beppo for dinner. Along with pasta, I had red wine. One of our coworkers just felt like having red wine and bought a bottle to share it with everyone. After our lunch, we had a cake which was just Ok for me. I prefer not to eat cake that had just come out from a fridge. I don’t like eating cold cake.

For dinner, I met up with friends and colleagues for a holiday gathering at Buca di Beppo in San Francisco. We were seated in the exact same room where Nathan had his 2nd birthday dinner.