Julie and I met when we were on the same soccer team back when we were 11 or 12. We also went to high school together and have been friends ever since. She has been a special education teacher in Sacramento for some time now, and is great at it. Jules is getting married next month; her shower was planned for this past Saturday afternoon, and her bachelorette for the rest of the holiday weekend. I was incredibly excited for all the weekend celebrations, because Julie is one of the most carefree, generous, loving people I have ever known.Two of our other very longtime close friends, Maya (whom I met in high school) and Liz (whom I met in elementary school), were also coming to the shower, so I was doubly excited when I flew to California on Friday evening. I flew into the bay area and Maya, who now lives in San Francisco and is an internal medicine doctor at UCSF, picked me up. Liz (now a political attorney down in L.A.) flew in to Sac the same night. Maya and I drove to Sacramento (chatting with Liz on the phone along the way), and she dropped me at my mom's and went to stay the night with her parents.
The Shower: The next morning, Maya and I met back up and headed to Julie's shower, which
was thrown by her bridesmaids Nikki, Liz and Maya, at Nikki's house. There were about 14 women there, including many of Julie's close friends; Julie's mom; Raul's mom; Julie's grandmother, and Julie's mom's best friend. It was a great group. The bridesmaids planned a nice lunch, fun games, and beautiful decorations, and Nikki was quite the hostess. It was lovely, and Julie received some wonderful presents. She had a great time, and so did all of the other ladies!The Bachelorette: After the shower on Saturday, six of us had plans to party away the long weekend at the first of Julie's two bachelorette weekends. [Julie is so loved, that Nikki and several other girls are taking her on a second bachelorette weekend to Tahoe in two weeks!] Julie, Maya, Liz and I hopped in the car, with plans to meet up with Melanie and Christa. Mel and Christa are friends of all of us since college days, when they were roommates with Julie, Maya and Liz at UC Davis. [I'm the only Bruin, but the Aggie girls still let me tag along. :)] Julie, Liz, Maya and I
picked up Melanie at the airport (she is now living in L.A. and working as a litigation consultant), and the five of us drove to the Russian River Valley in California's wine country (click for link) for a weekend of fun and relaxation. We stopped at a winery along the way, and eventually made it to the house that we rented for the weekend. Christa (who lives in San Francisco and does marketing for Skyy Vodka--cool job) was already there, with all the sassy bachelorette decorations up, drinks chilled, and food ready to go.We sat out on the redwood deck and caught up, and then made our own pizzas, which we had with delicious wine contributed to the festivities by Liz's brother Thomas. Later, over a delicious cake provided by Maya's mom, we each gave Julie a bachelorette gift-- everything from lingerie, to a beautiful wedding handbag. We listened to music, played bachelorette party games, talked about the old days, went in the hot tub, and had a great time.
On Sunday, we woke bright and early and headed to the river for a day of canoeing. We rented
two canoes and paddled down the river all day. [For the record, I'm not a very good rower. But I am a really good drink-hander-outer and DJ, so it's okay.] We would all like to thank Liz's parents for the drinks on the river! The weather was gorgeous and perfect, and we all had a great time. Julie became something of a celebrity as a bachelorette on the river. Our canoes, outfitted with pink and white balloons a la Christa, and Liz's Lifepod (a waterproof camoflauge cooler/stereo with IPod hook-up, providing music to the river) helped with that. We were surprised to see that, even though we did not hire a stripper for the bachelorette, some random man on the bank of the river decided to give us a show anyway. It was kind of revolting, but funny.We followed up our river day with a stop at two wineries on the way home, which was a lot of fun. Once home, we all showered and enjoyed a terrific tri-tip dinner (thanks to the fabulous cooking of Melanie and Christa) with a bottle of wine from one of the wineries. While hanging out on Sunday night, each of us separately slipped out of the room and made scrapbook pages of full of old photos that we had brought, and letters that we each wrote to Julie. Then we hit the lights, turned on fake candles from Skyy Vodka (thanks, Christa) and got mushy as we presented our scrapbook to Jules. We spent the rest of the evening going through old photo albums, talking about old times, playing games, and just having fun.
On Monday, we packed up and headed home. Christa drove back to San Francisco. Melanie flew out of Sac. Julie, Liz and Maya went shopping before Liz flew out of Sac as well. I went to visit my mom for a few more hours; we went out to dinner and frozen yogurt. Then Maya and I drove back to the bay area, rehashing the weekend and promising that Julie's wedding weekend will be an even bigger blast! I took a red-eye home, and then -- BAM!-- reality hit, and I was back at work. Photos from the event, taken by Liz and Christa, can be seen by clicking here. I haven't uploaded mine yet due to technical issues, but I'll note in a later post when they are complete, so you can check out ALL the photos, rather than only 2/3 of them.
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