Schnitzel My Noodle

Hey everyone!  How was your weekend?  Anything exciting happen for you?

Before I tell you all about our trip to the winery I wanted to let you know that Love and Crayons, Brew Mama and I are co-hosting a link up this Thursday called “Celebrate Your True Beauty”.  It’s all about taking a look at yourself and finding what is beautiful about you.  Last week on the Today Show they had a segment about how women view themselves, and it’s not good.  Women are so hard on themselves and on their looks!  They had women describe themselves to a sketch artist, then had other women describe them to the same sketch artist.  The difference in sketches was dramatic! The women that described themselves had sketches that were almost…grotesque, I guess is the word.  But the sketches of the same women who were described by others were much more realistic and beautiful.  So, Jodi came up with the great idea of really taking a look at ourselves and finding our true beauty.  Stay tuned for more details, and come back Thursday to link up!

In addition to this, I will be doing a linkup next week about -- wait for it --PROM!  Prom season is in full swing and I want to see your prom pictures and hear all about your big night!  That will be next week so keep an eye out for that, too!

Ok, now for my winery recap.  First, I have to say it was FUN FUN FUN!!  My mom, sister and grandma arrived at my house about 9:30, hopped into my buggy and off we went!  The winery is about an hour from my house so we chatted and laughed and giggled the whole way up.  When we got to the winery we walked in and were greeted by a super nice lady. She told us she was getting ready to give a tour so if we wanted to come along we were welcome. Well of course we did the tour!  It was fun and interesting to see how it all worked.  Then came the wine tasting, the best part!  We bellied up to the bar and all got our first samples. Then I had them take a picture of us.

Being the DD I only sampled 2 wines.  I like sweet wines, the sweeter the better. 

Then we got a little giggly!

After we left the winery we went to the town of Pella.  It is a community with a Dutch heritage, so they really play off of that for the tourism aspect.  It’s a neat little town.  We ate at the Windmill Café for lunch, I got a super delicious Patty Melt.  Then we hit up the shops.  First stop, the Quilt Shop.  All four of us love crafting in some aspect and my Grandma is a very talented quilter. She has made all 18 of us grandkids quilts when we were little, and now she is making us all quilts as we get married.  She makes small baby blanket quilts for the great grandkids, too.  And she just finished the most beautiful quilt for my mom for her birthday!  She has passed that love of quilts and quilting on to us so we all walked around the quilt shop drooling!  My sister purchased fabric to make a twin sized quilt for my niece’s bed, we had fun helping her coordinate the fabrics!  And we had the shop owner’s husband snap this photo of us!

After that we went to an antique store called Funky Junque!  It was so neat, we had so much fun walking through there!  Here is the giant windmill that Holland gave to Pella a bazillion years ago (not sure the year, I didn’t go in it to find out).

And they had this awesome clock tower in the middle of the block!

Our last stop in Pella was the Jaarsma Bakery.  They are famous for their Dutch Letters pastries.  Basically they are skinny pastries filled with an almond paste shaped into the letter ‘S’.  I might be the only person alive who is not a fan of them, but my co-horts all bought one.  I got cute little sugar cookies shaped and decorated like little Dutch boys for my boys, Andy got a cherry filled Danish and I enjoyed some glazed donut holes.  The line was crazy long, everyone wants those Dutch Letters!

We headed out of town and drove as fast as we could to the nursery/green house we saw on the ride up.  Another hobby we all have is gardening!  This nursery was really neat, the owners were so friendly.  If it was a normal spring the place would have been swarming with customers, unfortunately we’re not warm enough here to plant our planters and hanging baskets and keep them out so no one is buying yet.  But we had fun exploring all of the greenhouses.  Just look at these flowers and colors!

And lookie what I found!!! Hawkeye flowers!!! (Also called ‘Phantom’ petunias.)

After that we drove home.  We were exhausted!  But it was such a fun day!!!  We made some great memories, I’ll treasure that day for a long, long time!

Wishing you all a fabulous week!

Erin