May We Have A Little Wine With That? :)

Grand Lake

As adults, Kevin and I look forward to our vacations. A week or two each year that we spend with either ourselves or with family and friends in fabulous locations around the world (mainly the US). We love learning about new cultures and visiting new places. With the economy the way it is, we have decided that our long holiday weekends need to be closer to home.

So this past weekend, we traveled to Monkey Island, Oklahoma with my brother Bill and his wife Dawn. Since Monkey Island is surrounded by various wineries, we opted to hit four of them. We were not disappointed. All of the wineries were half wineries, half wine merchandise shops but we were pleased with every single one of them. They all had something to offer us and let’s just say we went home with more than our fair share of wine! :) (and yes Captain Carol if you are reading this we are definitely saving some bottles for you to “taste” when you are here in November). :)

Since this was the first time that we went “wine tasting,” we had so much fun learning all kinds of new things about wine and how you actually go about “tasting” the wine. It isn’t like you get a full glass of wine to taste it. Just merely a gulp or two to satisfy your palette. The most interesting wine I tasted was the “jalepeno” wine. I wasn’t going to try it at first but after a little prodding from Kevin, I did and boy was I glad I did. It was amazing. :) The gal says she drinks it when she grills pineapple or eats it with fruit. Yummo!

We also were able to spend some quality time with our friends, Bob and Linda, who moved to Grove, Oklahoma back in March. They are animal lovers and Linda is forever bringing home strays. In fact, she went over and “got” the two little dogs from her neighbors and let them play in her yard. Her dog Gidget was not very happy but it made us laugh at how jealous Gidget was of the other dogs sitting on Linda’s lap. It also made us really miss having Stoli with us. He absolutely LOVED visiting with Linda.

Our evenings were spent back at the resort hanging out by the golf course and then finishing up the night with marathon runs with the Wii. We realize when it comes to game systems, we are totally out of the loop, but this was our first chance to try the Wii out. We had the best time…. Kevin and Dawn totally rocked when it came to the bowling game. I, on the other hand, wasn’t very consistent. :) Kind of like real bowling. :)

All in all the whole weekend was so much fun and after the stressful month that we endured, it was truly just what we needed.

~ Elizabeth

(On a side note, we are meeting with the landscaping guy on Thursday to go over Stoli’s Memorial Garden. I am really excited to see what plans he comes up with. It still is hard coming home and not seeing our baby there. Life goes on and we hope we can honor his memory in the best possible way!)