Happy Anniversary

Oh god...how long has it been? Have you all left my bloggy for another bloggy that puts out? Of course not...cause we always come back together.

The last few weeks have a little crazy. The last weekend in April was my aunt and uncle's 50th anniversary. Mario and I decided we would go up to Oregon for the celebration. We left on Friday and drove the 6 hours up to my moms place. On Saturday, Mom, Mario, and I drove the 8 hours up to Oregon. We arrived about half an hour before the party started. It was a nice relaxing supper with all their friends and family that could make it. It was good to see people I haven't seen in a while, nice to meet some new people and of course it's always fun to see my cousins and family.

My favorite parts of the trip were after the party though. We headed back to my aunt and uncles for a little bubbly wine and some good story telling. I usually hear most of the family stories from my mom and cousin. This time it was my uncle, aunt, cousin and my mom. My mom was in heaven. My mom's relationship with her brothers haven't always been strong, so this story telling was really made her happy. She got to hear more sides to the stories from her childhood. I miss my grandmother's stories, so this was really fun for us all. Mom's still talking about it.

My second favorite activity was getting to shoot some guns. I've shot bb guns before, but not a real gun. I have this dream of being a sharp shooter one day and I'll never be a sharp shooter if I never shoot a real gun. So my other cousin took me and Mario up on their ranch to shoot some guns Sunday morning. Mario went in trying to be all cool and shoot a bunch of bullets...and missed a lot. I went in trying to hit every shot...so I took a long time between shots aiming. In the end, if we had an intruder, Mario would shoot a million bullets and miss the guy. While I'd take forever to line up the shot and the guy would end up running away before I shot. So, we aren't safe but we had fun.

However, the fun was soon over and we were already heading the 8 hours home. We landed at mom's house again on Sunday night.

Normally we would have spent the night and headed out the next morning, however, my mother and sister had waged a war on us. My mom bombarded us with phone calls for the previous two weeks begging us to stay through to the next weekend...for mothers day weekend. She worked. She begged. She bribed. Then she enlisted the guilt of my sister.

It worked. She now had us for over a week. Mario hasn't stayed with my family for over a week that I can think of. He's patient, but I wanted to give us a little break, and my mom a little break too, so I booked us a few days at our little timeshare in Napa.

the wine cave at our timeshare

happy peoples

Fun fun fun. It was a really nice little getaway. We went up Tuesday. Relaxed, swam, made yummy dinner, hung out and just enjoyed ourselves. It was like a little anniversary for us, since we never get away for our actual anniversary. Wednesday night, mom drove up and stayed with us. We had an awesome dinner at the timeshare restaurant, walked the grounds and then completely passed out.

Yummy food!

 after dinner we sat at this awesomely huge fire pit and ordered dessert

Bocce Ball court also! This place rocks!

Thursday morning, however, was wine tasting day. Mom and I were wasted before 11am. Luckily Mario's not really a drinker, so he was our driver. There is a really beautiful wine cave on the timeshare grounds. The wine tasting guy loved him some Sara. Cause that woman knows how to spend some money on her wine. I know! She doesn't just drink boxed wine...she drinks the good stuff too! We had a blast. I think we tasted every wine in the place. He was very very generous with the wine.

Mom and I quite a few tastings in...and yes she also brings her own iced tea to tastings as seen in the background...she is always high class!

We ended up at only two wineries...the second winery I found out that my mother becomes a product saleswoman when she's drunk. I was feeling good, mario was relaxing taking photos, and mom was selling cheese slicers and corkscrews to other patrons of the winery. She cracks me up.

My poor man relaxing and waiting for us drunkies

The second winery was beautiful!

We were looking a little worse after the second winery...it's impossible to take a photo of this woman cause she's always talking!

Needless to say, we hit our peak early. We ended up getting lunch and then realized we should head home. It was a blast though. I haven't really done the wine tasting with my mom for a long time and I hadn't been to Napa for even longer. It was a beautiful little break from life. Perfect weather, great wine, and a great place to stay.

continued tomorrow...