Eudora Wine Tour

My friends from pharmacy school, Kim & Jill, recently took a trip to California to the Napa and Sonoma Valleys. They had a great time visiting all of the wineries out there and had many bottles shipped back home. When I heard about their travels, I told them they wasted a lot of money on airfare because they could have had the same experience in Eudora! Today, I took them on the "Eudora Wine Tour" (no, not an actual tour, I just took them to the two Eudora wineries) and we had a great time! Our first stop was the newest winery, BlueJacket Crossing, whose tasting room has been open less than a year.

Jill and Kim preparing their palates for some delicious Kansas wine.

Some of the bottles.

We each found several we liked here, but we have another winery yet to visit!

Our next stop was just down the road at Davenport's. This winery has been in operation since the early 90's.

Some of their bottles.

Kim was adventurous and bought a bottle of the Watermelon Wine (actually made from fermented watermelons--very refreshing for summertime!), and I bought some Apple Wine, which is always a favorite for me.

After leaving Davenport's, we decided we didn't want our day to be over just yet, so we drove on down the road to Basehor, home of Holy-Field Winery (so I guess it was kind of the "Eudora and surrounding areas Wine Tour").

Some of their bottles.

We decided to try to take our own picture outside in front of their sign. It was a gorgeous 70+ degree day (in January, crazy huh?), but extremely windy, as you can see by my hair!

We lined up all of our beautiful bottles when we got back to my house and they took up the length of my kitchen table!

It was definitely a fun day of wine tasting and girltalk! Sorry, girls, that I didn't let you in on our Eudora secret before you spent all of your money going to CA!

Up Close & Personal

Here are some recent ultra-close-ups of one of my two favorite subjects. Look at that sweet face!

I don't have that many of him NOT smiling, but sometimes I really like the innocent look in his eyes when he's serious.

A couple of 'almost' smiles. . .

And there's the full-fledged smile we are all used to!

One of the ladies at church absolutely LOVES Oliver and made him this latch-hook of Noah's Ark. I haven't done latch hook since Jr. High Home Ec with Mrs. Wilhite, but all I remember is that it was really time consuming--Thanks, Kelly!

I just never tire of taking pictures of this little guy!

Snow Mowin'

I've heard of snow blowing, but snow mowing?? Calvin loves playing in the snow, and the other day I looked out the window to see him pushing his 25-cent garage-sale lawn mower all over the yard. It's amazing how much entertainment that 25 cents has bought us!

He was literally running around the yard with it.

If you look closely, you can see "mower tracks" everywhere.

Russ is really hoping that Calvin enjoys mowing this much when he gets older!

Ross' Baptism

Last weekend was a very special weekend as Baby Ross was baptized--The whole family was present to help celebrate! Russ was so excited to be chosen to be a godparent, along with Russell's sister, Rochelle.

Here are a few more pictures of his special day.

Look at that happy family! Papa Denny & Mama Jo with their kids.

Brrrrrrrr!

We certainly have hit winter in Kansas! It becomes quite a production to try to go anywhere with temperatures as low as they were today. Before getting the boys out, we put on hats, coats, scarves, and their favorite. . .


GLOVES! They think gloves are something pretty special (maybe because it takes about 5 minutes per glove to don--whoever thought 3 year olds and gloves were compatible, anyway?)
On the way to Wellsville, in the middle of the day, this is what the temperature read in my car:

Only one word for that: BRRRRRRRRRRRRR!

Calvin's Happy Birthday Party (Finally)

With the holidays behind us, we finally got to really celebrate Calvin's 3rd birthday! All of the family came over today and it was a nice time. After months of saying he wanted a firetruck party, he made a somewhat last-second change to a Mickey Mouse party. Fortunately, our cake lady (aka Grandma Cheryl) is very flexible. Here's the table all set up and ready for the party!

And look at that really cool cake!
Calvin LOVED his cake. When asked if he would rather have presents or the cake, the cake won. Thanks for another great one, Grandma Cheryl!

Party favors were a big hit as well!

Time for presents!

Then time to sing to our belated birthday boy.

Blowing out the candles.

Even our littlest guests (Brynn & Ross) got in the spirit with the Mickey ears.

Brynn seemed a little more excited about hers than Ross was, however.

My New Toy, continued

I'm continuing to have fun playing with my new camera. Yesterday while I had Tyler & Brynn I decided to do an impromtu photo shoot with the Little Miss. These are a few of my favorites . . .

I can't take all the credit, though. I had a great crew working behind the scenes.

And since Tyler was right there anyway, I figured I should get a picture of the two of them together.

Oliver reminding me that the little black box is supposed to point at HIM, not Baby Brynn.

I don't think I'm going to be quitting my day job anytime soon, but this camera is providing some good entertainment!

My New Toy

My wonderful husband surprised me this year with a Christmas gift! Now, you may be thinking, "What's the big deal about getting a Christmas gift? That sounds like a pretty normal thing for a husband to do for his wife." But Russ and I decided long ago that we wouldn't get each other gifts for Christmas (after our 2nd Christmas together when it became obvious that we didn't NEED anything, and it was causing undue stress trying to get all of our shopping done). So after 11 years of no gifts, he broke the rule this year by getting me the new camera I'd been wanting. I'm thinking he probably bought it because he was sick of me talking about it and looking for it on Ebay and checking the Sunday ads every week and saying that I'd probably never spend the money on it. . .So it may have been a little self-serving on his part after all. At any rate, I was very surprised and extremely excited to discover my gift! I've been playing on it quite a bit trying to figure out all of the different settings and the fun things it can do. This evening I took it in the bathroom while my boys were in the bath, and here were some of the results . . .

On these next two, I was focusing on the duck so that the boys would be blurred in the background.

And earlier today I got a couple pictures of Brynn & Tyler. Look at those beautiful blue eyes--no enhancement here--they are really that blue!
And here I did the same effect as earlier where I focused on the tractor so that Tyler would be blurred. This is a Massey-Ferguson, the same kind of tractor his Papa Jim sold for, well, pretty much his whole life.

Now I just can't wait for it to get warmer so I can get outside with my new toy!