A Month of Traveling . . .

Ok, so this month is almost over and I feel like I haven't been home much, not that I am complaining. It's been a fantastic month and I have LOVED every minute of it (even all the laundry and waiting at the airports!).

We started the month by hosting our annual 4th of July party (photos "borrowed" from my mom's blog since I did not take any because I was busy eating and drinking hosting!).

This is a large bucket my sister made for me.
I absolutely love it (thanks again Jen!)!
We used it to hold a bunch of ice and our wine bottles.

The four oldest girls (2 are mine, two my sisters) jumping into the pool.
This is one of my favorite photos. I love that their
legs are all bent the same and they got so high.
Only took about 10 tries to get it though!

I adore not having to drive anywhere, we just watch the fireworks
from our pool - easy peasy!

The girls having fun with sparklers.
Isn't this cool?

The next day, my sister took my girls, my parents took the dog, and Rich and I had one day to clean up and get organized before we hopped on a plane to Sacramento. My hubby had to go there for work, so my ears perked up and I found my USAir $99 voucher and tagged along, not because of Sacramento (no offense capital city) but because Napa Valley is only about 45-60 minutes away!

We headed straight to one of the vineyards we were dying to try.
We had booked a tour but because Hertz (maybe they should steal
Avis's motto and "Try Harder" themselves!!), kept us in line for a full hour,
we missed our tour.

Luckily, it wasn't a big deal missing the tour at Stag's Leap. We ended up meeting one of the main sommeliers and he spent over 30 minutes with us going over our flights of wine. We even got to sample a 2006 S.L.V. Block 4 Estate Cabernet Sauvignon that is only available to it's Wine Club members - talk about a nice wine. You can really tell the difference between it and the $2 Buck Chuck at Trader Joe's!

Marcus at Hopper Creek. He personalized a bottle for us!

Hopper Creek is one of my favorite vineyards. They aren't pretentious, just a whole lot of fun! I have now been there twice and had a great time both of them. During the tasting, you get invited into the back where you sit looking at vineyards and sampling great wine at reasonable prices. Plus, the company of Dan, Marcus and Chili Dog are totally worth the trip!!

Not enough hands to hold all our bottles!

Hanging out at Chateau Montelena.

The setting here is beautiful. It's almost castle-like. The young man in charge of our wine flight however, was a bit pretentious and snotty (apparently dating the owner's daughter) but I quieted him down when he said there never, ever, never were any discounts at the Chateau for the tasting and I proceeded to pull one up on my iPhone on my eConcierges.com app. Then I went on to share it with the couple next to me who downloaded it before their bill came! They do have nice wines though and since we bought a couple bottles, no tasting fees for either of us!

My hubby and I watched Bottle Shock before heading to Napa.
We highly recommend it. 

We had many great meals at some well-known restaurants starting with Press (fantastic steaks!).

Check out Suze Orman in the far right position in the back of the photo!
FYI - the lady she was with picked up the check!!

We also ate at Gott's Roadside Diner (fab burgers, garlic fries and blueberry milkshakes) and a really great pizza place across from Merryvale Winery (named has escaped me at the moment.).

Here's the cheese board I got at Merryvale.
It's made out of an old wine barrel lid.

I love that it has the original stamp from the cask makers.

This is the room at Merryvale I plan to have a party in someday!!
They were setting up for a wedding and the room literally took my breath away!
Isn't it stunning??

We also bought 2 cases of wine (which just arrived safely) and a map of Napa Valley that I need to get framed. The other vineyards we tasted at were Bell Vineyard (wines were ok but we didn't buy any, our tour guide was from Chicago but talked like a valley girl and it was so distracting and kept making us laugh!!); V. Sattui (very commercial but fun, we loved their Gamay Rouge and if I wasn't so stuffed from Gott's, their huge deli and cheese section would have done me in; the server was also serving several other groups so not much information about the wines but still a fun atmosphere), and I think that's it! We did buy a couple bottles of Two-buck Chuck's at Trader Joe's to compare (first one I opened was slightly acidic so not real sure about those.

All-in-all, it was a great trip and I can't go wait to go back to celebrate my sister's 40th birthday - with or without her!

Off to upload my Virgin Island photos but that is for another post!

Happy Birthday America!

Just a quick note to wish everyone a Happy 4th of July!! This past February,
my family and I decided to take a long weekend trip to Washington DC.
We had a great time and saw ALL the patriotic spots. The weather went from
lightly snowing one day to warm the next, but we survived!

This is on the rooftop of Charlie Palmer's Steakhouse.
The waiter took a liking to the girls and asked the general manager
to take us up there. He was fantastic and gave us time
to take all our photos! 

The wind on the other hand, was not as cooperative!

I still think these photos are so fun!!

So I hope you and your family have a happy and safe holiday. Eat lots of
burgers and potato salad and enjoy the day off!! Back to organizing tomorrow,
but that's for another post!

Are You Kidding Me?

Not my real kitchen but it might as well be!

As a mom, I am sure you have had the same experience as me - wash all the dinner dishes, wipe down the counters and go to bed. The kitchen is clean and my final task for the night is done. Then I wake up with a smile on my face, head downstairs to start breakfast for my little darlings (uhhh, this part is fiction!) and turn on the lights to find a mess - a kitchen full of dirty dishes (this part is non-fiction!)!! Huh?? I have never fully comprehended how this happens!

So, with the start of summer break happening this week, I decided to make a few small changes. One of them involved me going to my local Wal-Mart (yes, you know I am a Target faithful but there is a really nice, brand new Wal-Mart by my daughter's school so sometimes you have to bite the bullet, but then again, I usually come across a couple of not-necessary-but-really-want-to-have purchases there. Someone has got to keep the Walton family in their billions!). So I found some great, insulated tumblers with the acrylic straws.

I got out my hand-dandy-love-it-so-much Cricut machine and cut out some vinyl letters and voila -

Fashionable, fun, fantastic and frilly cups for the girls and I to use. I did ask my husband if he wanted one but he opted out!  The dealio is, the girls are to use these cups everyday, and only these cups. They are hand wash only so when they are done for the day, we just wash them and leave them in the dish drain for tomorrow's beverages.

Yes, you also know I LUURRVVEE my holidays and found these little gems in Ross, I think?? I went in looking for a basket my sister wanted (no basket) but left with these. We will pull these out July 1.

These were inexpensive to make, and I truly hope, will cut down on cups/glasses/beakers/chalices/goblets we use during them summer.

If you are not as talented as me Cricut, you can find them on-line with even fancier monograms at my favorite on-line store www.toochicgifts.com.

They have more styles, fancier personalization and you can even add graphics with their tumblers.

So hopefully this will help me, and maybe you, cut down on some chores when those darn kids invade our homes and take away from my bon bon eating time!!

Progress is majorly happening on my minor home renovations but that is for another post!

Fourth of July Just Around the Corner . . .

FINALLY!! Here are my 4th of July photos. As mentioned before, it is just TOO hot for me to get motivated to decorate, even if it is 76 degrees in the house so I just put up some seasonal touches.

If you notice, I do buy a lot of "multi-holiday" items. Meaning, I bought a red pitcher with white polka dots. Tie a blue ribbon on it and it is good to go for the 4th. Pink ribbon tells me it's Valentine's Day and of course one of my favorite colors, lime green, signals Christmas is approaching. When I store my holiday items, I actually keep out solid-color pieces so they are easily accessible for any and all holiday needs!

On my mantel, you can also see that I do the same with frames. I actually bought a handful of frames on a good sale at Jo-Ann's (love my sales!) that were solid red and blue. I added a scrapbooking embellishment to make it more festive. This time I actually filled the frames. I am notorious for putting frames up with the intention of filling but you know what they say about good intentions. In fact, my mother always jokes about the new members of my family (the model photos that come withe frames!)

So enjoy!

LOVE Holiday Decorating Except . . .

Alright, I am a BIG fan of holidays. I love to decorate but everything has to be just right in order for me to actually do the work. Decorating is a HUGE undertaking, at least in my house. Pretty much all pictures on shelves, decorations, candles, pillows, you name it, that are currently out for the season, go away! Lucky for me, my current home has a TON of storage. I say current because it is on the market but I will make sure the new place has lots too! I am a Material Girl and I am not afraid to admit it! So here's the perfect storm for me to get going: 1) Husband has to bring all the storage boxes upstairs to the main floor without complaining or dislocating anything! 2) I have to have a couple days of nothing else on my plate (always hard as any mom or woman knows!!) 3) The weather has to be right (why as a Floridian, I am NEVER in the mood to decorate for the 4th of July! Too friggin' hot! I would so much rather float in the pool with a good book and even better frozen drink!) 4) Has to be a holiday I really love which for me is Fall (yes, I know it is a season but I still decorate for it so it counts!), Halloween and Christmas. They are the big ones but they are also the ones I love the most! 5) Has to be the correct month. Usually in my house, Fall hits September. Halloween, October 1, and Christmas usually happens in November. For the past couple of years, we have taken a big vacation in November so since we are not home for Thanksgiving, we skip it and start putting up Christmas. That way when we get home from our vacation, we just need to buy the trees (yes again, more than one) and put them up!

So today is not really the perfect storm but since I am hosting a 4th of July party for family and friends and still working part-time for the Census (my last day is this Wednesday!), I need to get decs up today so we will just call it a tropical wave. Lucky for me, this holiday is pretty simple for me. I plan to redo the mantle since it is the focal piece, decorate by the front doors and add some glittery stars (got fantastic wooden stars with glitter on them in the $1 section of Target - dog ate one of my blue ones so I imagine she might be dropping some blue sparkly poop in the next day or two!!) and flags around the main rooms and that will pretty much be it. Most of the rest of the decorations will go outside for the party and those can't go out until next weekend because they will fade quicker than John Gosselin's current girlfriend!

Since I am new to blogging, I am far from being an expert but I am going to shoot some photos and post them, or try to, of the before and afters. Hopefully I will have them up by tomorrow. I do have to play mom today and take my girls to their cake decorating class at Jo-Ann's. While I was not happy to have to spend $40 on the supplies (and that's with them sharing most of them!) I am real happy about having 4 cakes to eat tonight!! Yummers! Monday will be here soon so I will start new then!! (see previous post for the joke) Off to put up some patriotic pride and go Team USA in today's World Cup match!

P.S. How do you like my clipart?? I am so proud to have figured that one out!!