A Walk in the Clouds

OK, so the title is for Vage, but actually I didn't see a single cloud the entire trip. I just returned from the most amazing trip to Napa Valley, California with my girlfriends. Thanks to a well connected marriage on my sister M's part we had access to a beautiful Spanish villa on the top of a mountain in the middle of a Napa vineyard. To say it was amazing would be a serious understatement. The home is beautiful, with every luxury you could imagine, the view was at least 60 miles out, overlooking San Francisco Bay at it's very edge. The crystal clear pool and hot tub, a measly 30 feet from the house with the most comfortable lounge chairs also included the perfect view. But the thing I'm most going to take away from this vacation would have to be the fun I had with my girlfriends.
We laughed, we cried, we drank wine, we swam naked, OK, so a few of us don't drink, and a few of us swam fully clothed, but I won't be telling which, what happens in Napa, stays in Napa.
Anyway, we fixed fancy food for all our meals and I pretended I was perfectly accustomed to snacking on goat cheese and Bree while sipping Mermosas by the pool.
We talked until four in the morning and then woke up early to gather together over breakfast, cherry tomato and feta cheese omelets with fresh basil and mint, yum! We would lounge by the pool for a few hours then nap on big fluffy blankets in the shade on the lawn. There were seven of us for this trip, one missing due to the fact that she is very pregnant an unable to fly. We reminisced about old times and laughed about the current ones. We had a blast, and you know you're already in heaven when all seven of us whined and complained about having to leave for a few short hours one afternoon to head to the spa for the massages we had scheduled...next time we're going to pay the masseuse come to us and just set up the massage tables by the pool.

We would dine on the patio at dusk and enjoy the tiny twinkling lights of the city far below. Our nearest neighbors were at least five miles away and the city far below our mountain top paradise, therefore we could be as loud as we wanted, we sang all our favorite songs at the top of our lungs...seriously I think we performed the entire score to Disney's Little Mermaid! Even the stereo couldn't keep up, we had it blasting and still could only hear us.

Our last night we swam until nearly three AM, playing "Marco Polo" at the top of our lungs. I still find it amazing that we are all still so close after all these years, we all have very different lifestyles and many of us live in other states but the second we all get together, nothing has changed, we're sixteen again, only better this time because we have more money and no curfew!