I love my wife!

It was my birthday this past Friday. I turned 32 but I still feel 28. 28 is a good age I think.

My wonderful wife Chrystal (and my parents) surprised me with an iPhone. This is my 3rd PDA phone and it is by far the best. I'm a recent mac convert (switched when they went dual core processor) and I love the experience. Apple knows how to deliver an unparalleled experience.
Thanks sweetie for the best phone ever made!

Reunions Are Awesome and The Great Experience

This past Saturday my friends Ryan and Chase got married. I love weddings because marriage is awesome (I may be partial since I'm married to an awesome woman) and because when good friends get married it generally means a reunion with lots of friends.

My best friends in the world were at the wedding and we had such a great time. I should have taken more pictures but we were having such a great time hanging out. Our little house was packed out with DocRoc and Weir sleeping on the couch, and the Wold family in the upstairs bedroom. Paul and family also spent most of the day time hours with us so it was a blast. I feel so blessed to have such good friends that will always be there for me if I need them.

The wedding was also fun because we had such a great time with the wedding photographer. I know some pretty awesome wedding photographers and Josh Gruetzmacher was awesome because he helped personalize the experience for the guests as well as the bride and groom. Most weddings I've been to have a photographer that stays behind the scenes to do their job. Well Josh was going far above and beyond by trying to hook Weir (a guest) up with the table of single girls. He put it best when said it was "a land of milk and honeys" over there. If you can quote scripture, make it so the person saying it and receipient was the same name as the guy who first saw the land of milk and honey, and create an innuendo all at the same time you have creating a memorable experience to an art form.

Josh (the wedding photographer one) is awesome and for someone so young could teach a lot of seasoned photographers what it means to create a remarkable experience. I'd recommend him now and that really is the point isn't it?

I did get some pretty good random shots through.

Andy's GQ advertisement (I think Lisa may have actually taken this picture).
The evening sky was a perfect shot with these cool Japanese lanterns
There was a beautiful sunset that night.












They had really great all white table settings.

Five Years of Wonderful

Five years ago yesterday I married my best friend!

For our five year anniversary I surprised Chrystal with a trip to Santa Ynez. We stayed in a quaint B&B called Meadowlark Inn and went wine tasting for the first time. Both of us thought it crazy that we have lived in Santa Barbara so long and never gone wine tasting.

When we arrived I was a bit disappointed because the B&B was not what I expected. I was expecting something a bit nicer, but the old adage “don’t judge a book by it’s cover” definitely applied. Upon arriving, the inn keeper welcomed us by name and was so friendly we immediately felt at home. We stayed in the Cabernet suite, which has a funny hot tub on the patio (check out the video). There was a mix up with our wine tour schedule where I thought it was Saturday, but it was Friday. The tour started at 11:00 but we were not able to get there till about 1:30. The staff was super accommodating, and adjusted our wine tour to start at 2:00 by picking us up half way through the tour and then took just the two of us for another two hours to complete the tour.

The best part about the tour is that the inn owner does the tour personally. We were told that she was a former restaurant owner, so she new all of the places to go that had great wine versus just popular wineries. To our delight, our tour guide was Brigitte (pronounced bri-gee-ta) of Brigitte’s restaurant fame in Santa Barbara (now Opal). We heard wonderful stories of her move to the United States from Germany and how she has been involved in starting multiple restaurants in Santa Barbara (Brigitte's, Downey’s, and Norbert's).

My favorite tasting room was Artiste, which is a tasting room and art gallery. The featured artist’s medium was wine! Chrystal and I both thought it was so interesting. All the wine labels are featured artists, and the name of that wine is the name of the painting.

At the last winery which was my favorite, Rusack, we just sipped wine and talked with Brigitte about the restaurant industry. The winery manager finally had to come and kick us out because they were closing.

What really made our stay, other than it being with my best friend, was that we were treated like family. It is not the nicest B&B I have stayed at, but it is definitely my favorite experience at any B&B. Brigitte and her staff staged a great experience that we will forever correlate with wonderful memories. As a business owner Brigitte really understands that hospitality is about staging a memorable experience for the guest.

We definitely plan on doing future wine tours with Brigitte, and hopefully she will be a future client of kevin sturm Consulting as she is going to open a restaurant at her other B&B Story Book Inn.

If you would like to contact Brigitte directly to inquire about a customized wine tour you can reach her at info@meadowlarkinnsolvang.com.