#sendingourbridehoff

With impeccable planning as only the Breihof’s can do, Katie organized many a woman to meet in Temecula for LB’s bachelorette. In flight we spread ourselves across the aisle with Mck behind, stuck in middle seat turmoil, trapped by the conversation of a booze-sweating, strip club pushing, socal middle-aged dad, who was trying to peg each woman with an over-arching archetype. It was the strangest flight. This flight attendant was on a different planet. Entirely different. Like pill different. Like if she wasn’t all there and I’m thinking it was pill planet I’ll feel bad, but that’s not likely right-planet? 

We got to our mansion, because onelifetolive, which was expansive & perfect & decorated in starfish & mermaid sea thematics and family travel. The backyard palm encircled hot tub, pool & bbq were quintessential. There was a movie room, thematically decorated bedrooms, a big, bountiful kitchen with center island, which is gathering gold, and wine and crack Chicago popcorn from the host. Glass-lidded rosé stickered in “Cheers” and “I Do’s.” Pink glasses for champagne pong, celebratory signs and glitter and pink feather boas. The best pool floaties the likes of diamond ring, perve dolphin too slippery to ride, a pineapple, mini pink flamingo floating drink holders, and my personal favorite, a mini blowup man-doll with erect ween as ring toss. It was an instagram lifestyle model’s palm springs concert weekend wet dream. 

Our first night’s dinner was in, gathered around the kitchen island, chopping capsicum (as the New Zealander’s say), onions, mushrooms, disrobing the corn and buttering their bodies, flavoring the chicken in bowl of hand-fondle. Skewering kabobs. Put on the grill by Katie in the good Levi’s. And the best - many many bottles of rosé - pre-race drinking, my favorite. We shared our meal together around an iron wrought table baked by the setting sun outside. Our night ended with a bevvy of squeals around a monsterspider in the corner with Usain legs. 

The following morning we drove out to Butterfield Country, to Vail Lake Resort for the 7th Annual SoCal Wine Country Women's 5k, as the hot air balloon festival was going on - the bulbous blimps against a hazy sky. Team Bridin' Dirty took 1st Team and swept 1st through 3rd, pouring sweat and baffled by the affect of minimal elevation. The best part about the 5k is that you get vino post race. And sandwiches. And can sunbathe. We accepted our goods, standing on the 3-tier, and headed back to the house for a pool party. This gorgeous soul, Leila gave each of us a tarot & spirit animal reading, each chiming in affirmative mmhmms. We played undergarment games over more pink, got ready in a flurry in all the bathrooms, with wands and powders and sweat. Uber'd to old town Temecula, to Goat & Vine for dinner. Goat & Vine had incredible wine (as it should) - Steele, Coeur de Terre. With ambition we ordered 4 bottles - Robert Renzoni's Prosecco in toast, Innocent Bystander's Sauv Blanc from NZ, Wiens' Pinot Grigio, Steele's Red Hills Cab Sauv. A serious ambition, one which left me trying to finish Steele as we were walking out the door, afraid to miss one sip. For dinner - shared apps of popeye & olive oil and sun-dried tomato hummus, cucumbers, bells, olive tapenade, grape tomatoes, house-made pita and crustinis, plus fennel sausage, roasted crimini, marinara and mozzarella pizza, plus Smokey the Pear with caramelized white onions, roasted chicken, smokey blue cheese, Asian pears and caramelized pecans drizzled with cinnamon honey and finished with arugula, and on.

Old town Temecula is really pretty, buzzing, lit up. There's wooden boardwalks and rustic western-era buildings and antique shops. There's a big focus on farm-to-table dining. We danced for hours in plastic firefighter hats over bad booze & bj shots in a room which bellowed in smoke machine, the dance floor wet in spilled drinks & spilled bodies.

Sunday was a waltz down the staircase to a kitchen filled in pan-fried peppers, scrambled eggs, avocado, toast, sliced fruit, coffee. We put on our matching outfits and climbed into our silver limo, popped champagne under the virulent blow of air conditioning, toasted over mimosas en route to our winery - Danza del Sol - a 40-acre vineyard on the De Portola Wine Trail in Temecula Valley. Rustic. Authentic. Bold. Shared tastings in the tasting room, of the '16 sauv blanc (white blossoms, white peace, melon, citrus), '15 & '16 reserve chard (favorited - green apple, boxwood, vanilla & the '16 - tropical pineapple, guava, supple, creamy, spicy nutmeg, toasted vanilla), '17 tres rose blush (peach blossom, melon, candied ruby grapefruit, nectarine), '14 super tuscan, '14 meritage (full bodied, dried cran, nutmeg, red currant, cinnamon). Sipped a glass on the patio, baking brown tinged in red. Limo'd to Lorimar, which we fell in love with and couldn't leave. As soon as we walked in, a band was all embracing, called LB up, played Ho Hey for her. Inside we tasted on the '16 vineyard blend (off-dry grenache, viognier, roussanne blend of peach, pineapple, honeysuckle on the back end), '15 zinfandel, a bottle of '14 syrah (ripe plum, leather, tobacco, black peppercorn, sassafras. Has a wonderful label description - "Riding on horseback through shootouts with bandits and rescuing a southern belle or two; stopping the adventure for only one thing, to sip this syrah by the campfrie...These violent delights have violent ends indeed. Perfect for...sifting through the reveries." We danced and sipped and sang and LB did a toss into the crowd and we took snack breaks in the limo and the limo overheated and we got a new one.

Back at home we prepared a taco feed. Pans sizzling in meat, sliced radishes, tortillas warming in the oven, the blender braiding limes and tequila. The sun set bluepurplepinkyellow against the blue-bulbed palm trees, and we began to pack, to deflate. We gathered in the movie room for a viewing of Ibiza, and fell into our beds exhausted.

Monday morning LB, Mck and I went back and forth on the hot hot highway roads for a shakeout run before driving back to San Diego. Had lunch in a little naval hub. Walked to the lip of Rosehill Fleet Ridge to see the palms and a little of that Californian wet. We returned our cars, boarded our flight, and were connected. A sudden weekly check-in in group text about friendship, traits, Pottermore, and rememberwhens?