Wine, Weddings and Wool

Where to begin?? I've been a busy girl.

WINE: As you can see from the pictures - I've been wine tasting... it was very fun. We were in the Sonoma area of CA. We drove, our daughter, her husband & his parents flew up from Southern CA. Our daughter's sister in law (husband's younger sister) and her BF drove up from SF, the sister in law's BF's parents drove from the Bay Area.. all total - there were 10 of us! One great big happy family!! We rented a big van, which we called The Silver Bullet. This is the second time we've done this.. about a year ago we did the same thing, but in Napa. So - we did 3 wineries on Friday, 4 on Saturday and Sunday was a "go home" day... all in all very nice.

WEDDINGS: It was actually one one wedding. No pictures, sorry. One of our daughter's friends got married in South Lake Tahoe this past weekend. The chapel had a lovely view of the lake, the bride was beautiful, the groom handsome, etc etc. I have a few comments here on South Lake Tahoe - i've not been in about 20 years.. First - Harvey's Hotel/Casino - nice - i'd go back; MontBlu (the old Cesears casino/hotel) - seriously, don't waste your time/money. Here is the deal and go ahead call me an old stick in the mud. We met up with the bridal party after the reception... about 10p at the hotel's Club Blu - since we were not guests of the hotel, i got in free, but hubby had to pay a $10 cover charge.. EXCUSE ME?? The place was just about empty.. i think our group was about 1/2 the folks there. The drinks were served in PLASTIC CUPS! I ordred a vodka/cranberry w/Kettle One vodka.. you could not even tast the vodka in it.. horrible. The girls all went down to the bar to order shots of Kamakazi - all said it was the worst they'd drinken/drank/drunk... whatever. Then, and here is where I said "enough" - earlier we had kinda made fun of the 3 booth like things ajdacent the dance floor with brass poles.... you know where I am going with this?? So, i notice that one of the "booth's" lights are on, and who is standing there but some fairly flat chested young girl sporting pasties on her boobs and a g-string.... apparently it was body painting night.. I would have spent the money to write "my mom is so pround of me" across her tummy, but the idea of the body painting just made me want to puke. I did not go there for some strip club thing... it really pissed me off. So - MontBlu - you shall never again get a dime of my money.

WOOL: Before I headed off to SLT (south lake tahoe), I was checking out The Needlecrafters' Travel Companion (www.needlecrafterstravelcompanion.com) and discovered that about 3 miles from the hotel (on US 50/Stateline) was The Wool Tree, a lovely knitting shop. It's on the corner of US 50 /Stateline and Alameda Street, but that's rather deceieving.. in that its one of several shops on the corner in a little strip mall thing.. around the corner was The Yellow Submarine - where we grabbed some yummy sandwitches and had a picnic... but I digress.. The Wool Tree is a place I will go back to the next time I am in SLT... very friendly.. the ladies there at the Stitch and Bitch were very nice to me too. I got a little something in anticipation for SP13 to start too!

BACK TO WINE: So I can't recall all the wineries we went to, but kinda the funny part was - on Sunday just me and hubby driving home, we decide to stop at Kirkland Ranch, thinking its the winery that is at Costco, and joke, "do we have to show our Costco card to get in" ha ha ha. well, turns out - it has nothing to do with Costco, Kirkland just happens to be the name of the two brothers who have the winery. They had very nice wines - reds and white.. we got some of each. I'll do a better trip report on wines later.. but don't you think these pics are pretty?