Girls weekend of chuckles, chugs and cheese!

Awww, girls weekend.  We do this once a year and as much as I wish it were once a month (tehe) it's nice to have this to look forward to.  We are all so busy in our lives so it's great to focus on each other and have a fun, bonding weekend together.  And even more fun when wine's involved!  We headed up to Temecula for a wine and cheese pairing tour at Leonesse.  Yum, one of my favorite wineries and it's also a beautiful venue.

 

Leanne and Jenny shared a plate at the pairing, such beautiful girls.

And our tour started in this large room where we enjoyed 6 wines (actually 7 since Shauna asked to taste the Zin and we all profited) paired with delicious cheese, and some fruit and black licorice, yum!

My pairing partner.

After the wine pairing, they gave us a tour through the beautiful vineyards.

Then we were taken down to their barrel room, pretty impressive.

After Leonesse, we headed to Ponte for a bottle of Chardonnay.

This was a popular place, it was over an hour wait for lunch so we drank instead of ate. :)

Which led to some silliness. :)  We headed to Maurice Carie for their amazing brie bread bowl and some champagne to finish off a wonderful trip.

 

After spending a comfortable night in Shauna's new apartment in Carlsbad, we enjoyed a breakfast of champions. :)  Love my girls, so much fun.

Wine Night BBQ

I love my wine night girls.  We get together once a month, either at a yummy restaurant, a new wine bar, or just at one of our houses.  We enjoy talking, eating and trying new wine.  But what we never do is see or enjoy the other members in our individual families.  We've been getting together since June 2005 and our families have grown over the last 7 years.  We decided to meet up at a park, bringing our important people with us.  Eileen and Shauna were unable to attend and we missed them greatly.

It happened to be the same night as the eclipse, we got a great view and some good shots. 

 

And here's the second generation of wine nighters! :)  Keira, Ty, Kyla and Tatum.

Our youngest member, Tyler, with his mommy Kelly.

Connor is already walking!  This cutie belongs to Dana and Sean.  Such a sweet smile!

And Phoebe, Jacquie's beautiful girl. 

The kids enjoyed playing at the park with Kyla, a wonderful babysitter.  Kyla is one of Tatum's favorite people, by far.  Just wish she lived closer so we could use her as a real baby sitter!

Keira and Ty are 6 months apart and make a great pair.  They match each others energy level, we need more play dates with Keira. :)  What a wonderful wine night!

Happy Birthday Princess Ellie!

Tatum was so graciously invited to a princess party for her friend Ellie where yet another favorite princess was attending.  Rapunzel!!! 

She brought her friend Pascal who sat with the birthday girl while all the girls had a little chat.

Tatum was in awe, can you tell by the look on her face?!

Then there was singing,...

 

and all the princesses received a crown,...

and heard a story,...

and then face painting!  Tatum had asked for Rapunzel to paint her on her face,...

I guess that was too involved so she got a crown. :)

She loved it!

The birthday princess Ellie and Kaitlin enjoying the new pool chairs.  These are so cute!

The friends hung out patiently and enjoyed some snacks and drinks while everyone had their face painted and took a picture with Rapunzel.

Then the princess dresses came off the fun began!  There was a scavenger hunt in the backyard and a bounce house!  Here's Tatum with Kelsey, Grace and Shay.  Such great friends!

Tatum decided she needs this chair in our backyard, pool or no pool. :)

After some delicious cake and more bouncing, we headed home but it was a wonderful party and Tatum decided after this one that she needs to have another Rapunzel party next year. :)  Of course.

A different life!

One day I was watering the plants and spotted a furry, black caterpillar hanging on one of the plate stems.  I didn't think much of it and then a few days or weeks later, the kids were enjoying catching rolly pollys at preschool, so we got some bug catchers at the Dollar Tree and came home to look for friends.  I went back over to the plant, since i remembered seeing the caterpillar there, and now hung a cocoon!  Oh my gosh, so exciting!  So I cut the stem off and hung the cocoon in a mason jar on our counter.  A few days later we headed to Irvine for a night or two and when we got back and were unpacking, something made me think of the cocoon.  I glanced in and there was this large, black butterfly!  There was even blood still pooled at the bottom of the jar!  It must have just come out of the cocoon!  We took the stick and butterfly out front and set her down gently in the dirt.  She started shaking, I guess drying her wings, and we got to watch her for quite a few minutes.  Then we said we'd head in for dinner and check on her later and when we did, she was long gone.  But what an amazing thing to see.  We'll have to do this again next year!

Love Disneyland!

All the times that we've come to Disney and we'd never taken Ty on the Nemo ride.  That's his favorite movie!  I just wasn't sure he'd be ok with the enclosed submarine, but he loved it!  Barbara and Grandma came with us and we all enjoyed an underwater adventure.  Can you see Darla?

And we always love the Peter Pan ride!

We also had never taken Ty to the petting zoo, nor Grandma or Barbara, so we headed over there.  The kids loved the horse...

and all the goats.

Tatum still isn't too sure about the goats, she gets close enough to slightly pet them, but doesn't really care for it.  But Ty, since he was little, has been wrapping himself around their necks and loving on them so freely.  If he could get past this fence, he'd have that goat in a loving embrace!

Tatum has also been very standoffish with the characters, which I don't blame her because I'm a bit standoffish as well.  But she must be growing up because I caught her dancing with Chip...

and hugging Donald!  We've come a long way! :)

While Grandma and Barbara went on Pirates, we headed up into Tarzan's tree house!  I explained to Tatum that when I was a kid, this was the Swiss Family Robinson's tree house and she said who?  So last week we rented the movie from the library and she loved it!  Who doesn't love the ostrich race?!

We had big plans of doing both Disneyland and California Adventure but as we left Disney that day, Ty said "let's go home."  He's our home body and so we did.  But a few weeks back we came back for a day of fun at CA and loved it!  The kids love the adventure camp area, look at this big red wood!

Synchronized sliding. :)

What is Tatum's Indian sign?  A wolf!

We had heard the Toy Story ride is a lot like Buzz Lightyear so we waited patiently with our 3D glasses to shoot em' up!

Love the shades ladies!  We all LOVED the ride and Grandma got the high score! 

We love our Disney time.

Such a sweet pair.  Tatum's a wonderful big sister, always watching out for her little bro, and keeping him in line.  He's not too fond of that but yet, when we leave Tatum at preschool or she's gone, he says he misses his sissy and when will she be back.  So sweet.

We went on some wild rides in the bug area and then headed home, another amazing day at Disney!