Saturday, May 02, 2009

Girl Time & Vineyards!

Okay, I found this saved & I hadn't posted it! So, it's an oldie, but a goodie. :-) It actually all happened toward the end of April.

Last weekend was lots of fun! It actually started on Thursday evening when I picked up my friend, Barbie. I have known her since high school. She & her family moved to the west coast when she graduated (a year after me), so our friendship has been long distance for a long time. I was one of her maid of honors in her wedding 9 years ago...hard to believe it's been that long. Anyway, the last time I saw her in person was about 7 years ago in New Orleans. She & I met there for some girls time. She came to DC for work and I picked her up on Thursday evening to head down to Fredericksburg to meet another friend from high school.
I barely knew Sarah, but Barbie & she were good friends. By the time we go to the restaurant, it was nearly 8:00 (thank you, DC traffic) and we ended up talking long after we were done eating. By the time I got Barbie back to DC, then drove home, it was 1:00 a.m. That's extremely late for me! It was well worth it, though. I had a great time catching up and hope it isn't 7 years until the next time. Her boys are about the same ages as my girls, so we're hoping we can figure out a vacation together sometime.

Friday I worked from home and went to bed very early to prepare myself for our day at the vineyards!

There was a large group of us....6 "old ladies" (including Kristina, Dee, a few of Dee's friends & me) and 8 "young uns" (Kristin and several of her friends). As I was driving over to Dee's house to meet up with a few others, I was dancing & singing in the car. It was a GORGEOUS day and I couldn't help myself!

We got to Ingleside around 12:30 and started out with their barrel tasting. We tasted 2 Chardonnay's and 2 Merlots right from the barrel.
Then, we tasted all of the wines that they had bottled. The only bad thing is the guy that was pouring & telling us about the wines went entirely too fast. We either had to chug it or dump it. Not very good if you are really trying to decide what you like. After that we just relaxed at a table outside while listening to the band and munched on the very small selection of food they had.

We left around 3:15 to head to Belle Mount to taste a little more. That's also where we were staying the night - they have little cabins for rent. The tasting was a joke. The lady pouring wasn't even telling us about the wine and she was pouring such a tiny amount that we couldn't even really tell if we liked it.

We got over to the little cabins at around 6:00 and chowed down on all the food we brought. I ended up so full (from both wine & food) that I couldn't drink anymore for hours.
Our intent was to play games like Outburst, but those plans were messed up when our party was crashed. The other 3 cabins were being used by several couples in their 50's and then men ditched their wives to come plan LCR with us. Strange. They all seemed to be nice enough, but why their wives (1) didn't come, too; or (2) let them leave for so long is weird. And, Dee & I agreed the next day that we should have politely explained that we were there for girls time. But, we would have felt rude, so we didn't. Oh well, it was still fun.

Kristina, Lynn & I headed to bed around 12:30. Dee, Dana & Lisa came in at 1:30 and couldn't stop giggling, so we were woken up then. :-) No one had a great night of sleep given the uncomfy beds (for those of us that had one). Dee slept on the couch & Lynn slept on a twin size air mattress.

We've all agreed we need to try to do one in the fall again. Those of us that are married talked about needing to do one with the men.