Blue Ostrich Winery

Matthew and I will be celebrating our second anniversary next week. We have developed a tradition of having a bottle of wine on our anniversary we picked out on our previous anniversary. So for our first anniversary we had a bottle of wine from our wedding night, this year we'll have a bottle that we picked out last year on our first anniversary trip and next year we'll drink the bottle we picked out last weekend from Blue Ostrich Winery in Saint Jo, Texas.

We started the trip we a stop in Munster to pick up some stuff for a picnic lunch.

It's a super cute little town.

We passed some wind farms on the way there.

Saw some eagles flying the wind currents.

And finally arrived at the winery about two hours after leaving home.

We did a quick tasting to see what we wanted to drink with our lunch and also picked out our bottle for next year.

Great view.

Yummy lunch.

And of course a visit to the ostriches.

There was a calf that got out of the fence and couldn't get back in, it's mom did not sound happy. But we told the people who worked at the winery before we left. Apparently they own that land and the cows too and called someone to help the calf get back.

When we got home we saw that they wrote us a note on our bottle for next year!

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Our First Christmas

Both Matthew and I were really excited about celebrating our first Christmas together. We felt very blessed when we were able to have our first Thanksgiving at our house with our parents, so when we were able to host my family for Christmas we were ecstatic.

Our family at Thanksgiving.

Our first step was to decorate the house.

The dogs even got in the spirit, though I think Milton was hoping to get some of Santa's cookies.

Ornament my mom gave to us for our first Christmas

All done.

Then we went to Matthew's holiday party for his office at Buca di Beppo. We ate so much that night.

Matthew got his P.E. license in the mail Christmas Eve, he was very elated about getting it so soon.

Christmas Eve with my family. Milton jumped up on the couch at the last moment and posed for the picture.

The kids were playing a game.

Catching up with the family and enjoying the food (note the cheese-ball). 

Our first Christmas ended up being a white Christmas, lucky us!

We planned to go to Arkansas the day after Christmas for a mini vacation, but because of the snow we decided it would be safer if we stayed at home. So we made a snowman.

Angelina hates the snow. Milton likes to eat it.

I think he turned out pretty well.

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Christmas Sausage

My family has a tradition of making sausage every year at Christmas. It used to be called Slovak Sausage, but since we only make it at Christmas, we just call it Christmas Sausage. I'm not sure how long our family has been making this amazing meal, but my mom remembers her grandfather teaching her father to make it, and they didn't even speak the same language.

Cutting up bread and grinding the meat.

Adding the seasonings.

My cousins have goats, they wanted inside.

Wouldn't be an official family gathering without my Aunt Kathy's cheese ball.

 Michelle doing the calculations to the recipe so we add the correct amount.

And of course we have to sample it to make sure it tastes right.

 Divvying up the goods. Yum!

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