July 4th

I know it's kind of late to be posting about July 4th, but here goes. We actually had nice weather for the long weekend, and were fortunate to have our good friends, Scooter and Dee, visit us from San Diego. We had a great time with them, as always. We started the lovely weekend out with a trip to Golden Gate Park. As we were walking into the park, the first thing we saw was a little gopher.

I never saw a gopher in Texas, but we see a lot of these Pocket Gophers out here for some reason.

We meandered through the Dahlia garden at the Conservatory of Flowers.

Tom decided to do some yoga moves. (Just kidding. That's not really Tom, although I'm sure he could do that if he wanted to.)

We then visited the Japanese Tea Garden. We had some tea and snacks,

and explored the beautiful gardens.

After the park, it was off to the Tonga Room for tiki appetizers and drinks. (That's Tom sharing a romantic Scorpion Bowl with Scooter.)

Dee loved it!

During the weekend, Sonny and Yvette met us up in Sonoma for a picnic at Benziger.

We had a great tasting at Benziger, and got talked into buying a few bottles of wine.

Scooter wore his wine tasting shirt.

Tom eyes the color and clarity -- or is that for diamonds?

Brotherly love.

We then headed over to St. Francis for another tasting.

We ended the day at a winery I simply cannot remember the name of.

The owners invited us on a carriage ride, but it was just too hot outside. Sonny told the guys how to cool down the horses -- I'm sure they didn't already know -- and we headed inside for a tasting.

We finally braved the traffic back into the city.

We spied a few bursts of fireworks from the apartment, but were too worn out to make the trip down to Fisherman's Wharf for the big show. We had another great weekend with Scooter and Dee and look forward to their next visit!