Grape Stomping

Yes, I am - again - running a bit behind. The grape stomp was fun, and Dee and Steve make yummy wine! We did our best Lucy impression, peasant skirts, hoop earrings, and bandanas. Mary wears her bandana much better than I do...

We were drinking last year's as we stomped.






Then when we finished, the guys had to pick out the stems. I keep trying to talk them into growing a reisling, but Steve says it's more complicated than the white. They have a Black Spanish and a Syrah, my favorite being the Black Spanish. Then, of course, Dee made a delicious Mexican feast...mmmmmm. This week seemed to fly by with our normal breakneck pace. Yesterday, I went up to SUU for a Gifted Conference with 2 of my school colleagues and Andy studied (until 4 am)! I will be grading papers today since the speaker was so interesting that I didn't get anything graded there.

Hopefully this week will go slowly enough that I can enjoy it...but I'm not holding my breath. Hope your week is a good one!

Middle of September???

I can't believe that it's been a month since I last posted. Time is flying past me again... Andy's deep into his school schedule, busy with Bio II, Chem I, and Trigonometry. He's officially past me in the math department. He's got regular study groups for everything, so I've got a lot of evenings with the dogs. Good news is, with the need to feed someone else kind of not necessary, I have been really cutting the calories. Not to jinx anything, but since summer started, I've lost about 15 pounds. Not that big a deal, since I need to lose a bit more, but it's a start. With the weather starting to cool, I should be out walking or biking with the dogs again in no time.
Coming up next:
Grape stomp @ the Maranhao's
SUGC conference @ SUU
Apple Valley Founder's Day - 10/9
Fall Break (from classes, not studying)

We got Skype working, so once Katie and Mike and the kids get settled in the Philippines, we'll be able to chat with them. So much better than climbing a ladder to an attic to talk to Grandpa over the ham radio... ah, progress.
Have a great week!