Fun at the Winery

Checking the grapes at the winery to see if they are ready for harvest!

The airshow is this weekend so we got to watch the planes too!

Wine Country Week

Don't tell anyone in Sonoma County but Santa Ynez might be my new favorite wine tasting region! The wines were fantastic and so affordable. We spent a week visiting different wineries, golfing and checking out the small towns. The B&B we stayed in is in a town of only 100 people! It was so peaceful sitting on the porch in the evenings drinking a glass of wine. We got into a relaxing routine of sight seeing in the morning, wine tasting in the afternoon, wine/cheese on the porch before dinner and then watching the Olympics at night. It was definitely a routine I could get used to!

We went on a wine tour the first day to get a introduced to the area.

Santa Ynez has three main industries: wine, horses and marigolds!  I'm not kidding, they grow marigolds everywhere!

One of our stops was at a horse ranch/winery.  The owner, Jeff, knew a lot about both.  He quickly learned we only knew a lot about only one (wine!).  I asked some of the dumbest questions about horses.

Based on this picture, I think I need to work on my swing some more!  Not bad for my second game of golf though.

I think my swing is supposed to look a little more like this...

Solvang is the cutest town!  Everything is Dutch.

Hey, look....we're wine tasting again!

A few places had these signs instead of "closed".

Best wine tasting room EVER.  Wine tasting AND painting!!

Sea Ranch

While Andrew was in Texas playing with Gma, Gpa and Oma, Brian and I decided to go and play out on the coast.  Brian had a friend from high school in town and they were spending a couple days in Sea Ranch so we joined them for some fun.  We stayed at the Sea Ranch Lodge and it was gorgeous!  I wanted to take the bed home with us, it was the most comfortable bed I have ever slept in.  It probably helped that we had the window open and could hear the ocean all night long.  The weather was a gorgeous 70 degrees while we were there and we were able to walk around outside and enjoy the views.

Brian had a great time catching up with John and I got to hear some fun stories about the good old days!  We wish John and Jen lived closer so we could see them more often.  Now it's our turn to go to Virginia to visit them!

Looking back from the coast up to our hotel

I could look at this view forever!

Two childless couples!

Me, Brian, John and Jen enjoying the sunset on the beach.

The view from our hotel room.  The barn was built in 1870 and it still standing!

MBA sailing trip

School field trips are much cooler when you are a graduate student! As part of our Leadership Management class, we all went down to San Diego for four days for a sailing trip. While the main purpose of the trip was not to learn how to sail a boat (it was to increase our leadership, communication and team building skills), I still learned how to sail. It is SO MUCH FUN! Well, if I'm being completely honest, the first day was frustrating, exhausting, mentally challenging and hard. But by the third day, I learned the lingo and had a much better idea of how the boat worked. I can now tack, gibe, up upwind, downwind, turn into a close haul and trim the sails. Just to make sure we didn't kill ourselves, each boat had a professional skipper to show us what to do and keep us out of harm's way.  

On a side note - my leadership skills were also increased during the trip!

Brandye and I

Our team flag

My team and our skipper Darla.

Pretty San Diego

We are sailors!

Family BBQ

We have so many things to celebrate in May: Andrew's birthday, my mom's birthday and Brian's graduation. Since my parents were in town, we took the opportunity to have a family BBQ at our house. It was so much fun to have everyone together and celebrate all of our May fun.

 Jen and Zip aren't blood family but we've adopted them.  :)

Brother-Husbands  (they love the name I came up for them)

Sister Wives!

Boys getting ready to ride bikes

Duste Family 4 generations

Kinzel family 4 generations

Lades having fun

Let's Go Giants! Andrew's First Game

Andrew likes to watch baseball with Brian and whenever he sees it on TV he will yell "Let's Go Giants!"  Brian decided that it was time to take Andrew to his first game for his birthday.  We had to explain to Andrew that a baseball park is different from the park that we go to with a playground on it but once he got it, we were good to go!  Andrew had a great time and enjoyed being at the game.  Between each inning, we would run down to the field and wave our sign that said it was Andrew's first game.  Melky Carbrera is the Giant's outfielder and he throws balls into the crowd between each inning.  Towards the end of the game we were getting discouraged but didn't give up.  Between the 8th and 9th inning, Melky threw two balls into the crowd.  We thought that was it but then he walked over to the side and personally handed Andrew his own ball.  The section that we were sitting in went wild with excitement and we are now die hard Melky fans!!  Andrew will tell everyone that he sees " I have a Melky ball."  (That leads me to explain what a Melky ball is!).  The game ended with a Giant's win so it was a perfect day!

Andrew and his first game sign

So excited to be at the game

Besides getting a ball, Andrew's favorite part was eating cotton candy

#53 is Melky.  We love him!

Andrew showing off his ball.  He was so excited (and so was Brian!)

Giants Win!