Weekend in Napa Valley

Even though our ten year anniversary is not until next month I surprised Jeff with a weekend trip to Napa Valley Wine Country. We arrived on Friday morning to sunshine and blue skies and drove out to wine country. Our first stop was to Oakville Grocery for some picnic supplies and sandwiches out back behind the market. After the market we then made a quick stop at the Robert Mondavi Winery to take some pictures of their lovely property.

We then headed on over to Del Dotto Vineyards for a cave tour. This tour was fantastic and we both enjoyed it greatly. Out tour guide for the day was Brandon and he was really great and told us a lot about how they made their wine and especially gave us an education about different barrel treatments.

We then checked into the Cottages of Napa Valley. The cottages were the perfect choice for lodging in the valley and their service was excellent. When we checked in they gave us a basket of smore fixin's since each cottage comes with an outdoor fireplace. They also gave us a complimentary bottle of Napa wine, drinks, and snacks. When staying at the cottages you also receive a breakfast basket every morning that consisted of fresh baked goods from the well known Bouchon Bakery and fresh squeezed OJ.

On Saturday we met up with our friends Jill and Greg for more wine tasting further up the valley. We began the day with a tour of the Castello Di Amorosa. This was a huge winery with a huge castle on the grounds. All of the wine was stored in underground tunnels that seemed to go on forever. They also had a torture chamber and armory and many other hidden gems. This was definitely one of the highlights of the trip and where we found my mom's Chardonnay.

Here are a couple of more winery highlights that we visited on Saturday...

Prager Winery & Port

Heitz Cellars

Peju

Domaine Chandon

Beringer

We also had some fantastic meals at Ad Hoc, The Restaurant at Meadowood, and Gott's Roadside.

Happy Mother's Day!

Mother's day this year kicked off with getting presents in bed, bath stuff and cookie cutters from Ethan and a lovely spa gift certificate from Jeff. Definitely something any mom could use. Ethan picked out a SpongeBob Squarepants card and even signed it himself. I think he did a great job with signing his name.

We then went to Ruby's for breakfast followed by a trip to Flower World in Maltby to pick up flowers for the yard and veggie's for my garden. This year we planted peas, snow peas, two different types of tomatoes, lettuce, acorn squash, and mini jack pumpkins.

To all of you mom's I wish you a very happy Mother's Day. I hope that your day was as great as mine. :)

Easter hopped on by...

This last weekend we celebrated Easter with a neighborhood egg hunt followed by Easter egg coloring and painting. Grandma Mary was able to come down and join in the festivities as well.

On Sunday morning the Easter bunny made a special visit to Ethan bringing him a basket of Thomas toys and fun things to play with. He also dropped off some goodies for Jeff and I too.

Ethan's daycare also sent home trees with each child for Earth Day this year to plant in the yard. Ethan got to pick out the spot and he chose the side of our house in our vegetable garden. Let's hope that it grows into a big tree.

Puyallup Spring Fair and Demolition Derby

This past weekend went by way to fast but it was filled with lot's of fun activities. On Friday we got our new bed delivered. I was a little worried that it was not going to fit up our stairs but thankfully all was good.

On Saturday I was able to head up to Mt. Baker with my dad to get in some Spring skiing. Unfortunately there was no sign of Spring up there, instead it was a winter wonderland but it made for some good powder skiing. We were even able to stop at Graham's on the way home for some well deserved ice cream.

Since Sunday started off with some sun we headed down south to Puyallup to hit up the Spring Fair. Ethan had seen an advertisement on TV for the demolition derby and so we decided to go watch it. We got in a few rides, ate some bad for you fair food, and watch cars crash.

My Oh My!

Continuing with the family tradition we made it to another Seattle Mariner's home opener. The weather turned out to be perfect and we actually were able to find parking which was a big bonus. Plus, Ethan got to hang out with his grandpa and uncle Jeff and eat his favorite thing in the world, fries.

And I had to throw in a picture of Ethan on his bike from a few weeks ago since it was so cute not to post. :)

Cake Lollipops

Jeff, Ethan, and I are going to make our way over to West Seattle today to hang out with some of our friends. I had offered to make Root beer Baked Beans. If you have never had these you can find the recipe here. So yummy.

I also decided to try my hand at bringing a dessert along too and decided to make cake lollipops. Jeff had gotten me a cake pop book for Christmas so I followed the directions from there.

I used strawberry cake mix with vanilla frosting that Ethan had picked out while we were at the grocery store. Below are a couple of photos I took of the process while making them.

First you bake the cake using the directions on the box.

Then you crumble up the cake so that is it pretty fine with no clumps.

Then you mix in about 1/2 of a frosting container so that the frosting acts as a binder for the cake and you roll the cake mixture into balls.

You put these in the refrigerator for several hours so that they firm up and then dip them in dipping candy coating (I got mine at Michael's craft store) or you can dip them in chocolate if you prefer. We also topped ours with different kinds of sprinkles that Ethan got to pick.



Everybody shout what's the big idea...

For those of you who have kids you may recognize the above song lyric from the Disney Imagination Movers. It is one of Ethan's go to tv shows and guess what? They came to the Seattle Paramount this last weekend to perform live in concert. Jeff had gone all out for the show and purchased front row seats which included tickets to the after party where you could get your picture taken with the cast.

Ethan was very excited to go see them in Seattle but once we got there he actually came down with a fever so he spent most of the show on mom's lap trying to get comfortable. He did dance a little bit but just was not himself. At the after party and some food in his stomach he started to enjoy himself a little more but still clammed up when we got a picture with the movers. It must have been a good show for him though since he had a good time even though he was a sick little guy.