Highly Recommended, Two Thumbs Up

Wow, what a great little overnight trip! We got up really early (5:10 am!), and got to the Clipper for check in with plenty of time. The Victoria Cipper was a really nice way to ride over to Victoria, and we wound up sleeping for a good part of the trip. When we arrived in Canada, it was a quick trip through customs and then out to the parking lot to meet our tour. Turns out that there were only 4 of us signed up to do the tour that day, so they brought the "small" limo:



The other couple on the tour was Annie and Storm. Annie is originally from Virginia, Storm from South Africa. They both work on a private 175 foot luxury yacht. The Battered Bull, based in Ft. Lauderdale, but they travel literally all over the world...France, Monaco, New Zealand, Tahiti, everywhere you can think of. They were such a great couple and we had a blast traveling around the wineries with them. Check out the link for the boat....man what a way to travel.

Our first stop was at a cidery called Merridale Cider House. Our guide was Roz, and she showed us around the estate, how they pressed the apples, and then we had a tasting of their hard ciders and apple wines. They were all delicious, and we bought the Cidre Normandie, a very dry white apple wine, and the Winter Apple, a fantastic dessert port that was wonderfully sweet and buttery, along with a bunch of smaller bottles of various hard ciders which we drank in the limo throughout the rest of the tour. Who could imagine that they could make apples into such yummy drinks! Here's Jay and I posing in front of some of the apple trees:



We piled back in the limo for short ride to the Oceanfront Grand Resort, where we had a lovely three course lunch that included a wine pairing with each course. It was a beautiful day, and we sat overlooking the water while we enjoyed our food and wine. We were a little late getting back to our limo because we spent so much time talking over lunch that eating took a little longer than usual I guess. Once in the limo, Storm opened the bottle of Normandie white that he and Annie had purchased at the Cider House, and shared it with Jay and I while we traveled to our next destination, Cherry Point Vineyards. This was a lovely vineyard with some truly wonderful wines. Here's our tasting host Thomas:



We tasted several whites and reds at this vineyard, all medal winners for them. We purchased a blackberry port, a really sweet dessert wine, and their Ortega, a slightly sweet white that we both really enjoyed.

Next stop was the Godfrey-Bronwell Vineyards. This is a relatively new vineyard, and the most "laid back" of all the places we visited. Bill, the owner, was our host for the tasting. Here he is with Annie and Storm:



We purchased the Colette here, a white that was a mixture of Bacchaus, Chardonney, and Pinot Gris. Not as dry as some of the others, it's a crisp light white.

Our last stop of the tour was Silverside Farms, where they make sweet wines made entirely from berries, no grapes. Bill and Jean Aten are the owners here and Jean was our host for our tasting. We loved this place, not only because of the delicious wines and the lovely location, but because Jean provided a great big bowl of dark chocolate buttons to enjoy with our wine tasting. We purchased a bottle of the blueberry wine, and Annie loved it so much that she bought 4 bottles! It was a nice place to end the tour, as everything was kind of like dessert.

When we got back to Victoria around 6, we made plans to have dinner with Annie and Storm at a restaurant right on the harbor. There was a yacht race the next day, so there were lots and lots of boats to look at while we drank mojitos and ate dinner.



After dinner we walked around the harbor for a little while, hugged Annie and Storm goodbye, and went back to the hotel. We were in bed by 10, tired from the tour, the food and the alcohol, but we had a fantastic day with great weather, great wine, and great people to hang out with. We were back home by 2:30 the next afternoon, so a short but absolutely wonderful little holiday.

Wine for everybody!

Tomorrow morning, Jason and I are taking off on a wine tour of southern Vancouver, and then spending the night in Victoria. We are taking the Victoria Clipper from Seattle to Victoria, which is about a 3 hour tour, a 3 hour tour. Then we'll board a chauffered "luxury" bus (haha) and visit 4 different wineries in Vancouver, have lunch at a resort by the ocean, and get back to Victoria around 6pm. We'll spend the night and come back on the clipper the next day at 11:30. So, just a short break, but one we are very much looking forward to. I'll post pics when we get back.

Kelsey is going to stay home with the doggies, since you have to be 19 to go on the wine tour. I think she'd be pretty bored anyway. Hopefully Ayla can stay over with her so she's not completely alone. The dogs don't talk very much and so are not great company.

Comp time

Jay gets to have almost the whole week off because of the absolutely insane hours they've been putting in at work. He had to work yesterday, but was home by dinner, and now he's off until next Tuesday, Monday being a holiday and all. Of course I put him to work right away on the bathroom :-). Right now, he's busy scraping the door trim. We might actually have a completely finished bathroom by the end of the week. I really did want to start on the backyard this week, but I don't think that will happen. There's just too much to do.

Kelsey is so looking forward to the end of school. One month from today and she's done. They seem like to they have to go so much longer than PA (I think they're done June 6 or something like that), but then again they get much longer breaks throughout the year, so it really does even out. She doesn't see it like that of course, she just sees that she has to go longer.

It's been kind of cool and a bit rainy here the past couple of days so we've been really lazy lately. I have to start cooking again now that the whole family will be home for dinner. Tonight is pork loin braised in milk. With mashed potatoes for the vegetarian.

Time for Meg to leave

I'm taking Megan back to the airport this morning, in about an hour. We really enjoyed her visit with us, but it was way too short. Last night at dinner she talked about how short it was and we had a difference of opinion as to why she didn't stay a week. She claims I only offered these few days, while I claim I asked her if she wanted to go home Wednesday or stay until Saturday, and she said Wednesday. Either way, it's too late now since she has to be back at work on Friday for a mandatory meeting. We all wish she was staying longer though. Oh well, we'll see her again in about 6 weeks when we go on the cruise.

The doggies are enjoying the lovely Seattle spring sunshine. Ignore the backyard, that's next on our list for fixin'.

Bathroom update

Okay, I finally got some pictures of the bathroom remodel to share. Here we have a couple of shots of what the bathroom looked like before we started. Note the very small space between the toilet and the tub....a knee breaker.

Construction time. We took everything out down to the studs, including the ceiling. Yuck!

Here's the finished product. Keep in mind that we still have to finish the trim around the floor and the door, but it's so much better, and we're happy we did it every time we take a shower.

Happy Mother's Day

To all the Mom's I know, I hope you have a wonderful Mother's Day. Both of the girls are home with me today, so I'm already having a great one. Megan was up very early today, no doubt because of the time change and the fact that she went to bed pretty early last night. When everybody else gets up and ready, we're going to the Rusty Pelican for brunch (mmmm, cranberry mimosas), then we're going to go see a movie. This morning is kind of chilly and damp, so a movie will be great today. It's supposed to warm up later so maybe we'll get to go to the dog park.

Yesterday we took Megan around to her old work spots so she could see if anyone she knew was still around. There was one at Zeek's and just a couple at Best Buy. I guess everybody is moving on. I still think she enjoyed talking to those few that she saw. I did get some batteries while we were at Best Buy, so now I can post pictures, so later I'll put up the bathroom picture, I promise!

Springtime in Seattle

We got our new couch on Saturday...but we think it's wrong. We specifically wanted three cushions, but there's only two large ones. Jason hates that, because he doesn't like anyone having to ride the hump in the middle when three people are sitting on the couch. So I called our sales lady from Dania, and she looked it up, and apparently, yes, we did get the wrong thing. She's supposed to let me know tomorrow when we can get a new one. Meanwhile, this was a special order, and she said to just use what we got until we get our replacement, dogs and all.

The weather has been so beautiful the last few days, and we're finally seeing the sun. I'm taking full advantage of that by working hard in the backyard. We have a nice corner lot, but the backyard is kind of not attractive...it's basically just a fenced in place for the dogs to hang out. But we'd really like to make it a nice little area for sitting outside, grilling, and enjoying the sunshine. We're planning on putting in a nice little brick patio, but we can't start until Jay is done working these crazy hours. So I started by digging all the weeds out of the one corner and laying some landscaping edging, planting grass seed, cutting and trimming the out of control tree that comes over the fence from the neighbor's yard, and trying to make a little rock garden thingy. I've been working all week just one the one corner, and it's starting to look much better. The patio is going to take some time, because there will be lots of digging to do.

Meg's here in two days!

Out to dinner

Tonight Kelsey's guitar teacher came over to the house to give her lesson, and then the three of us went out to dinner afterwards. It's absolutely amazing how much Bronwyn and I have in common. She's almost my age, and tonight we found out that we're both Star Trek fans, specifically Voyager and Janeway, both science fiction fans in general, big fans of dragons and dragon related stuff, like the same kind of books and music...it just goes on and on. She wants to start walking too, so we're going to get together a couple of times a week to walk around Greenlake. I've been wanting to do that, but I hate to walk it alone....it's so much more fun with someone to talk to.

I took some pictures of the bathroom to post before and after shots, but then the batteries died before I could get them uploaded. I promise to do that soon.

Go Blake!