Winthrop Visit

On decidedly short notice we decided to head east for the long weekend and visit Grace's grandparents in Winthrop. We were planning on leaving late afternoon, but as usual with the lack of planning on Martin's part we ended up departing our house after 7 PM. This resulted in a hasty dinner on the road, part of grandma's chicken coop flying off the back of the truck and a lot of heartburn (from the bad Asian food we ate on the run!).

We did lot's of walking into town while in Winthrop. Had to visit the fabulous Rocking Horse Bakery, I highly recommend their scones, but my absolute favorite is the chocolate croissants. Second only to the one I had at a small bakery in Paris. My favorite scones are the apricot/ginger ones, yummy! We also sampled some of the ice-cream at the local sweet shop, where co-incidentally Grace's cousin

Alannah worked over the

weekend. Here I highly recommend the Mocha Almond Fudge, it's divine. LOL

Of course after all that food one gets tired and needs a ride on Daddy's shoulders...

The weather for this long weekend was fantastic and I had impulse

bought a slip-n-slide for Grace. Who can say no to that when it's for sale right there in the grocery store with the bread and stuff I was buying anyway??? I tell you those merchandisers are evil!

Grace ended up not quiet knowing what to do with the slide

and ended up walking up and down modeling her swimsuit like on the runway. It was quite entertaining...

We also visited the Farmer's Market with grandma. They had some really cool booths and we bought some huge radishes, a shelf for grandma's stereo, some divine pound cake and we missed out on getting some awesome looking cherry pie by just a smidgen. Too bad, I bet it was delicious.

Winthrop Weekend

Well, I didn't have plans to visit again, especially since we were just here last weekend...but the draw of the awesome Rocking Horse Bakery scones and Grandma's chock full currant bushes were just too strong. Guess Mt. Fuji and my latest scrapbook projects will just have to wait a day or two.

We arrived in Winthrop in the late afternoon and hit the garden right away. We picked, and picked and picked and picked...you get the picture. I have no idea how many pounds of berries we ended up having but it was a lot. Grace was a big help with rinsing and picking through them for bugs and leaves. I brought my much neglected juicer and we revved that puppy up... Appearantly my Mother-In-Law thought that I was going to go and de-stem all the berries and then boil them to make juice.??? Nahhhhh, just throw those puppies, stems and all, into my handy dandy BRAUN juicer. Thank God for good German engineering. LOL I made three batches and then had to quit as Grandpa was getting a little worried about when dinner was supposed to be. So I saved the last batch of juice and I will process it at home later. Grace had fun helping to put the berries into the juicer, licking the juice, stirring the pot and then of course taste-testing the whole thing in the end.

The jam turned out wonderful. I forgot how much fun it is to make your own and how yummy the end result is. Needless to say we'll be picking more berries and anything else I can get my hands on for more jam making sessions in the near future.

Mother's Day Crazy-ness

For Mother's Day we decided kind of last minute to pack up and head over the moutains to visit my mother-in-law Becky. They live in Winthrop and it's about a 3 hour drive, which we did in approximately 2 3/4 hours. Yeah!

We had sneakily planned to take her out to Sunday brunch (my favorite meal of the week!) at Sun Mountain Lodge.

I had never been there before and the drive up the mountain was incredible. The view was stunning and I can't wait to go back there again...

Brunch was fabulous, especially the steak, done rare, just the way my MIL and I love it. Both the boys, Martin & his dad, are not so fond of undercooked meat. To each his own, but boy did they miss out.

Miss Grace looked fabulous in her new dress and of course she sported her styling straw hat which made the whole thing even cuter.