Happy 5th Anniversary!

We're celebrating our 5th wedding anniversary this month and decided to spend it wine tasting in the Temecula Valley--San Diego's own wine country. Jon-Paul's parents (my wonderful in-laws) offered to come down for the weekend to stay with Justin so that we could spend a night away to celebrate. It was a very generous offer and one we couldn't pass up! We went on a wine tour on Saturday, touring some of the wine country and getting VIP visits with 4 of the wineries in the area. We visited Keyways, Wilson Creek Winery, Mt. Palomar and Longfellow. We enjoyed each very much and even took home a few bottles of our favorites. After wine tasting we stayed at a local inn and decided too get up very early on Sunday to go on a hot air balloon ride.

A little background on this decision: when Jon-Paul planned out the weekend in Napa where he was going to propose to me, he originally had planned a hot air balloon ride to set the stage. Unfortunately weather conditions canceled the flight and he had to opt for one of the wineries in Napa. So, to celebrate our 5th anniversary, I thought it'd be fun to finally get to go on that hot air balloon ride. For anyone who hasn't done it, I highly recommend it! If you're interested in the Temecula Valley, we had a great time and experience with A Grape Escape.

Filling up the balloons.

Almost ready to fly!

Flying over the vines.

This view is as we're approaching 5000 ft.

The view as we make our decent to land.

We actually had a very interesting landing. Our pilot was VERY calm the entire time, but we almost overshot our landing site. So he used the trees in this orchard to help slow us so that we could reposition to the field. We were even able to pick a few grapefruit! Once we were on the ground, our basket tipped over so that we all had to crawl out. But it was such a fun experience--much more exciting and memorable! It was a great anniversary.