Wine and Girls

My friend Megan started her first batch of wine in 2011 and last weekend was the opening of her winery Errant Cellars.  She lives about 2 hours away from us so we planned to go to her opening but just two weeks before the event our friend Angela called me from Chicago to tell me that she would be coming too, as a surprise!!!  So of course I called Shawna and she said she would be there too, also as a surprise.  Both girls arrived at my house on Thursday. 

On Saturday afternoon we headed to Quincy for the wine opening and the big surprise!  I went in and told Megan "I'm so sorry, we have some friends with us, I hope that's ok."  Megan said "sure that's fine."  So I told the girls to come in, Megan just kept saying "You're here!"

 Bryce built this beautiful wine bottle holder for Megan's first bottle of wine.  As always, he did a beautiful job, and I think Megan really liked it too!

 My mom came too and of course made all of us girls cry telling us how impressed she is with everything that we are all doing, it was so sweet.  Here is my mom visiting with Megan's mom.

 And then we got to buy our very own bottles!

 Afterward we were lucky enough to steal Megan away for a beautiful dinner on a golf course on the Columbia river.

                                      

On Sunday morning we made a special Father's Day breakfast to celebrate all the great Dad's in our lives,  none of which were there to enjoy the breakfast due to having to take care of other things...  

The big neighborhood yard sale was on Saturday morning so I drug the girls along with me.  We all found great things but I think my favorite find was this power wheels for $20!  This exact one is $250 new and it works great, clearly the kids love it!

 Sunday afternoon Shawna hung around after Angela caught her plane back to Chicago and the kids all had a great time in the pool.

 and driving....

It was so great to have the opportunity to spend the weekend with all these great girls.  It's hard for the four of us to get together what with kids', jobs and a recent move across the country.  But we did it!  And it was a great time, as always.

The Airshow

Over the weekend the little airstrip in Spokane had it's "Neighbor Days" celebration.  Bryce decided to take a couple hours break from the HUGE house project we are working on (coming soon!) to take the kids to see the planes! They had a couple of World War II British fighter planes that did a cool show.  Plus tons of old fixed up bi-planes and such.

 Dietrich announced to everybody what was happening, "HERE IT COMES AGAIN!  THERE ARE TOOF (two) OF THEM!"  Everyone around us laughed at his excitement, I think all those adult boys were just as excited but they have learned to not jump up and down the whole time.

 Dietrich wanted to fly in the planes, he really didn't understand why we couldn't.  But he did get to sit in a homeland security helicopter!

 Lenorah was a freaking rock star and rode around in the backpack the whole time and barely made a peep.  It seems we may have finally found her preferred mode of transportation, phew.

 And then he got to sit in an airplane!

 Here are the boys with the fighter jet.  The cockpit was SO TINY.  It was made for a very small man.

 Then D rode in the little pedal plane, so fun!

The kids had a great time and we had fun watching all the planes too.  We ran into friends of the family as soon as we got there and had a great time wondering around with them.  Then we came home and spent the rest of the weekend working on the BIG PROJECT...

Badass

Everyone says how each kid is so different and even as siblings we will comment on "how could we all be so different when we were raised the same way?"  Lenorah is so different from Dietrich, he was such an "easy" baby.  I could take him anywhere and he would just hang out with me happily.  Not Lenorah, she is off and running.  At my mom's over the weekend she took off down the driveway, and if you haven't been to my mom's house to take off "down" the driveway you are already pretty far from the house, and she just kept going, even when I yelled at her to come back.  She is an explorer, the nickname our friends gave her as a baby "Lenorah the Explora" has turned out to be perfect.

She is taking on life with no fear and she is tough.  She hits her head about a million times a day and most of the time she cries because she's mad not because she is hurt.  She will keep me on my toes but I am really in love with her tough go-get-'em attitude.  Last week I left both kid's at Grammy's house to play with their cousin Nathan while I did some grocery shopping.  And then I sneaked away to have lunch with Bryce!  Of course, just like in high school, I got caught sneaking around because Lenorah was spinning around with the boys and fell and split her eyebrow open on a piece of furniture.  It wouldn't stop bleeding so Grammy called to see if I would be back soon.

45 minutes later it was still bleeding and although Lenorah wasn't bothered by it we had to keep stopping her and cleaning blood off her, finally I decided we better have it looked at.  Once we finally found a Dr. who would see her we found out that although it could possibly use a stitch it was more trouble than it's worth on a baby.  I'm sure it would have been impossible since the two of us could barely hold her down to clean it off!

It's healing nicely and it hasn't slowed her down or kept her from spinning or running full speed into things...

When my cousin was 3 or 4 someone said "Come on, all the chick's in here."  She asked her mom "What's a chick?"  Her mom told her it's a word that people sometimes use for girls, and it's not always very nice.  Una replied "When I grow up I don't want to be a chick, I want to be a badass."  I think Lenorah will be joining her in the badass department.

Memorial Weekend

We are just starting to recover from Memorial Weekend, I almost have the laundry done and the kids are getting back to their sorta normal selves.  We had a good time at Mom's house playing outside and just relaxing.  Everyone arrived on Friday night (Stacey, Jeremy, Emery, Bekah, Mark, and Bryce's parents).  On Saturday the guys headed out golfing and we all relaxed around the house.  We played Skipbo in the afternoon with Laurel being the big winner and Bekah being the big Loser (just kidding Bekah!)  And then I threw a small fit about how long the guys were gone golfing...sorry about that.

Here is Dietrich super excited about the fire on Saturday night.

 Trying to get the baby monitor to come in so we could hear Emery and Lenorah if they woke up.

 My Little Ponies in the morning.

 Cupcakes for breakfast, of course!

 Kid's table.

 And then we lucked out with a gorgeous day on Sunday and Mom and Steve put their new pontoon boat in the lake for our enjoyment.  It was amazing!  I could lay around and relax on this boat anytime...of course I would have to go without kids because I was up and down a lot, not exactly relaxing, but still fun!

 We made a pit stop for the bathroom and got out to throw rocks, Lenorah decided to head right in the water.  She went clear up to her chest, and I tell you what that water was C-O-L-D.  I'm excited she is a water baby, but I also think she will have to live in a life jacket because she has no fear.

 Bryce built Mom a new sandbox last time we were there and then he fixed up the old backhoe toy that was in it.  He repainted it and put a new seat on and replaced all the bolts.  The kids loved digging, even though the sand is pretty rocky.

It was a lovely weekend as always, now we are looking forward to another long weekend up there for the 4th of July.