Sunday, January 10, 2010

Welcome to 2010

Hi all, we celebrated the start of 2010 (last weekend) by taking a tour of the mid-Willamette valley with our good friend Jen. We started with a delicious breakfast/brunch at O'Briens, a cute restaurant/antique store. I had a grilled cheese with fries, Misty had a half-egg salad sandwich and salad, and Jenn had chili and corn bread. The food there was and is always pretty tasty!

After lunch we drove to Ankeny Hill Vineyards, which is a nice location, supposedly with a good view, but we couldn't see much due to the fog.

From Ankeny Hill, we tried to hit Vitae Springs, but they were closed for the day, so we went back to one of our favorites, Willamette Valley Vineyards, where a private function (a wedding) was taking place. They are a big enough place that they don't shut down for private functions. The tasting room was still open, and they even let us go upstairs to sit at a table and eat our picnic snacks. We had olives, bread and triple cream brie, hummus, goat cheese, and smoked cheddar.

The bride came upstairs to throw her bouquet from high above the crowd and we felt a bit like we were intruding.

Jenn was in Eugene just this past weekend and she stayed over. We cooked up a nice meal with some marinated, grilled steaks, crash hot potatoes, and asparagus. Then we broke out the Wii Fit while Misty did her homework. Jenn brought her dogs along and gave Ubi and Ro a bit of a scare. Good times.

Today, we managed to find enough time to head out to the coast for an afternoon. The trademark Oregon Coast winds were nowhere to be found, and I found flying my kite near impossible. I managed to fly it for a couple of minutes at a time, but then it died down completely. The light wasn't too great for photos either, so neither Misty or I found much use for the equipment we brought. So we just headed down the beach looking for treasures. Much to our surprise, we found 3 whole sand dollars!!! Yay!!!

And don't forget to check out Misty's latest creations while at culinary school over on her blog. We will have some wedding plans up there too!