THIRD ANNUAL WINE TASTING PARTY

Saturday, September 6 – Marsha, the party animal, had her third annual wine tasting party. This year's theme was TEXAS WINE COUNTRY. During our travels around Texas this past winter, we stopped at several Texas Wineries and purchased wine. We saved them until returning to Ohio this summer for Marsha's wine party.

The party animal and her entourage are ready to serve up some wine.
 

Of course, Marsha decorated with a Texas theme....right down to Texas boot tasting glasses. Many of attendees dressed in their cowboy duds.

Dave volunteers as the wine Sommelier with Kelly as his assistant. They do a great job describing the different wines and handing out the samples.

We had thirteen different wines to sample. We thought they were all Texas Wines, but the Sommelier discovered we had a couple Moab, UT wines included in the wine tasting event.

 

How did that beer can get in the picture?

We first picked a white wine winner and then a red wine winner.

After a final taste-off, Chenin Blanc of Castle Creek Winery, Moab, UT, was declared the winner! So in the end, a UT wine won the Texas Wine Country contest. WHAT?

Everyone enjoyed the rest of the evening with some interesting conversation, laughter, music, and the task of finishing quite a few partial bottles of wine left over from the tasting.

Thanks to everyone for your kind words, well wishes and prayers for Paul. We are still not sure when we will hit the road. He is feeling very good, but we will wait for all the test results to clarify what is going on.

Thanks for stopping by. Hope to see y’all back real soon. Have a great day!

WINE MAKING

Thursday, August 28 – If you read the blog regularly, you read that Paul decided to make some homemade wine. With wine making on mind, Paul decided to build a wine storage rack.  Now…where will that fit in the fifth wheel??? :-)

Paul uses his drill with a stirrer attached to add some flavoring to the grape juice.

The propeller end of the wine stirrer being inserted into the carboy

Paul sterilized thirty wine bottles.

The next step is to siphon the wine from the carboy to the bottles without stirring up any sediment that has settled to the bottom of the carboy.

 

Slowly but surely the bottles are filled.

This automatic filler makes filling the bottles a snap!

Once all the wine has been bottled, Paul uses a corker to insert the corks in the bottles. This is a fun and rewarding procedure!

 

Labels are then attached and shrink tops are installed over the corks.

 

Then Paul inverted the bottles on his new wine rack he built for storage.

This Green Apple Riesling is actually ready for drinking immediately. We gave it a taste.....yummy!

UPDATE ON TRAVEL PLANS: Our intentions were to pull out of our summer home here in Ohio on September 9, but health issues have caused us to delay them slightly. Follow-up doctor appointments for Paul has caused us to push back departure into October.....dang!

Thanks for stopping by. Hope to see y’all back real soon. Have a great day!

THAT'S A SHOCKER!!!

Thursday, August 21 - Our sister-in-law, Delores Weaver, passed away in 2009 from ALS. We will be attending the ALS Walkathon September 27 in Augusta, Georgia. Many of you may be aware of the “ALS ICE BUCKET CHALLENGE” that is sweeping the country. Last year ALS raised just over 1 million dollars for research. This year, thanks to the challenge, ALS has raised over 30 million dollars. One hundred percent of this money goes towards finding a cure for this horrible disease. As of now, there is no known cure.

We were challenged by our daughter and son-in-law, Kelly and Dave, to participate in the Challenge which involves dumping a bucket of ice cube filled water over our heads. We know....old people shouldn't be dumping ice water over their head!.....but we agreed to take part regardless. So if you want to witness this shocking experience view the video.

Our daughter, Carrie who has a birthday today, challenge our poor little Bella to participate in the Ice Bucket Challenge. She said that if Bella would participate she would double her donation. Now mind you, Bella has NEVER been given a bath, but because she, also, believes this is an excellent chance for her to help find a cure, she participated. Don’t forget to raise your donation dear daughter Carrie.

 

It would be wonderful if everyone viewing the video would donate a couple dollars to ALS. You can do this at this ALS secured site. All donations go directly to ALS and will be used to beat this dreaded disease.

Thanks for stopping by. Hope to see y’all back real soon. Have a great day!