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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Anniversary Trip

It amazes me how quickly time can fly. It has been nearly 8 months since Matthew and I celebrated our first anniversary with a trip to California. Time to post some pictures! We decided on California since Matthew hasn't really been to visit before and I wanted him to see where I grew up.

First stop: taking Matthew to see the sea lions at Pier 39 in San Francisco

Alcatraz, it's there I promise. It wouldn't be San Francisco without some fog.

One of my favorite flowers, poppies. Golden poppies are also California's state flower.  

Matthew was taking a break while I was busy taking pictures of the poppies. We also had walked a long way through Golden Gate Park and he took the opportunity to take a rest.

We spent a whole day at the California Academy of Sciences and got close to some gorgeous butterflies. Honestly, we probably could have spent at least two days exploring everything there.

And it's sacrilege to not see the Golden Gate Bridge. It was a beautiful day too.

I had to take Matthew to San Juan Batista to see the cute little town and the mission where I went on many a field trips growing up.

Another place I spent a ton of time at: Pinnacles National Monument, though now its Pinnacles National Park. 

I think this picture was taken after Matthew and I went spelunking and had to use my phone as a flashlight. I only hit my head in the cave a few times. It's not as tall as I remember it being.

Obligatory holding up the rock photo.

Wine tasting! You cannot visit California and not go wine tasting.

Jeanie (my old Girl Scout leader, who also let us stay at her house in Hollister) took us to some of her favorite places. She made a friend with one of the winery dogs.

Glorious Monterey! Another one of my favorite places growing up. Matthew and I went to the aquarium and then took in some sights around town. 

We decided to do another hike, this time to see the redwoods.

We spent one afternoon having a picnic lunch with Jeanie at the winery she works at. Delicious food and the view was great too. 

Matthew and I decided to visit Winchester Mystery Mansion. I figured he would get a kick out of the crazily designed building.

We then ended our last day enjoying a sunset view at Fremont Peak with some delectable desserts from a place where we had lunch that day.

We had such a great time celebrating. I am so glad I have this amazing man by my side.

We flew back home on our anniversary and ate our wedding cake we froze and drank a bottle of wine that we had our wedding night as well.

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Attempting Art

 My dear friend Jesica have been talking about doing one of those BYOB painting classes for quite some time now. So when we saw a deal for one we snatched it up. We had such a great time together that we have already purchased another deal from groupon to do another painting class. Anyways, in this class we painted a cute scene with some birds.

Jesica and I

Kind of excited, yet nervous about the painting. 

Got my glass of delicious moscato.

Intimidating blank canvas. At least it's intimidating to those with no artistic skills like me. Probably why the wine is a must.

First step - blend base color with white.

Second step - add more base color to the white.

Third step - add yet even more base color to the white (this was where I had to get more brown and Jesica need more red as well).

Then take a break with chocolate and more wine!

Now to add the moon.

Branches for the birds.

Now the difficult task of adding the birds. This was terrifying to me. Everything else so far was relativity easy to do.

I thought he turned out pretty well.

Birds done, now to make the trees pretty.

Bam!

I know you're jealous of our awesome paintings. I ended up hanging mine up in my master bathroom.

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