Wine in the Woods Weekend

This weekend was the first (of what will be many) "Wine in the Woods Weekend." We went to Silverwood Lake with the neighbors for a camp out and wine tasting. It was so much fun, we had a whole cul-de-sac of campsites for our group. We went out on Jesse and Jeanine's boat, did a little hiking, the guys went fishing while the girls did wine tasting, and we all finished up the night singing around the campfire. Awesome weekend!

These are some of the wines we tasted, everyone brought a bottle to share.

Here's our camper, our little home away from home.

Here's Pat and Jesse playing bass and guitar for our camfire sing-a-long.

One of the best things about camping...smores!

Deneen being the fashionista camper in her Prada hat.

Lisa enjoying her wine in the woods.

Looking good Laceys!

Here's part of the group, from left, Pat, Kevin, Denise, Dan, Cathi, Lisa, Dave, Hardy, and Maria Elisa. Cody is one of Dave and Lisa's dogs.

Jesse driving us around in the boat.

Silverwood Lake, with snow on the mountains in the background! Only in Southern California can you be out boating, looking at the snow, all just about an hour and a half from the beach!

Dan all bundled up on the boat. It was freezing by the marina, but once we were out on the lake, it was really nice.

Happy New Year!

We spent New Year's Eve day working on our new kitchen floor, which is looking great! We rang in the new year with the neighbors, as we did last year. Our hosts, Mike and Deneen have the best parties. The food is always amazing, and last night was no exception. Deneen made pasta, MADE the pasta, rolled it out herself. It was unbelievably good. I'm sure it's been mentioned on our blog at least once, but we love our neighborhood, and the people in it. We know we're lucky not only to know our neighbors, but to have found such good friends in them.
This is how we get around the neighborhood, especially when we have a lot to carry. We got the wagon idea from Jared last new year's eve. Since then, we picked up our own. It comes in surprisingly handy on nights like these.
Our toasting champagne (actually it's sparkling wine, since it's from California - Champagne isn't really Champagne unless it comes from the Champagne region of France) was from Wilson Creek Vineyards in Temecula. So good. We love our almond champagnes, this one, and a slightly sweeter version from Rapazzini Winery in Gilroy.

Happy Holidays!

We hope that whatever holiday you and your families celebrate at this time of year are happy, healthy and full of laughter and love. We didn't get around to sending out holiday cards this year, maybe we'll send New Year cards!

We started our morning early with a little egg nog french toast, which might be my new favorite breakfast. It was excellent, if I do say so myself. Pretty darn simple too. Mix up 1/4 gallon of eggnog with an egg, cinnamon and nutmeg (for 8 slices of bread). Drench your bread with it, and put it in a nice hot frying pan. Let it get nice and brown, then drizzle it with whipped eggnog and some powdered sugar.
We don't really "do" gifts at our house. Mostly because there is really nothing we need, and that is perhaps the greatest gift of all. Somehow though, a gift or two always seems to sneak up under the tree. My Pop loves his Bah Humbug Certified Scrooge t-shirt. When I saw the Golden Humbugs at Harrod's in London, I knew I couldn't pass them up. Chico got a Bengals jersey, he really likes it.
Dan and I made our traditional Christmas dinner, Hawaiian Steak (inspired by the one at Houston's). He's such a great griller, dinner was fantastic. Seriously, fantastic. For dessert, an apple crumble that was so good that while reaching for seconds, Dan spilled his glass of red wine on the rug under the dining room table. So we ended the meal with the shop vac running, and we saved the rug.

Here was our Christmas wine, we'd definitely recommend it. At $12-15/bottle, it's a deal. You can get it here if you want to give it a try. http://www.mariposawine.com/yosemite-view/wines/ You know me and wine labels. You can see why I picked this one.

Friday Wine Bar Night

We rode our bikes down to the wine bar with the neighbors last night. Dan got to try out his new bike headlight, and it worked great, it's really bright. When we first started going to PWM over a year ago, there were some Friday nights that ours was the only group in the place. Last night, it was packed, and they had live music. Our little local spot is apparently on the map now.

The guys usually go for the local brews from Dale Brothers, right here in Upland. Last night Pomona Queen was on tap and earned the thumbs up from the group. As for the girls, we enjoyed the Blue Pirate Pinot Noir, and we highly recommend it. You can find it online (if your local wine store doesn't have it) for about $15-20 per bottle.