I think this is my last one of these cool date posts for the year. I’m going to use it to talk about my weekend.
It was finally nice this past weekend. Raleigh has had such weird weather lately; it’s been MUCH colder than it usually is in February and March. It’s been a lot of overcast and drizzling. No sun means no warm air; we rarely had a day that got out of the mid-40’s, which for the South, IS cold. It was finally sunny and in the 60’s this past weekend, so Jay and I decided to make the best of it.
On Saturday morning, we went for a walk in the morning before I went to Pilates class. We walked up to the NC State Fairgrounds because Jay wanted to go to the flee market. It’s a 45 minute walk each way. I ended up running back home to get ready for Pilates, then picking Jay up and dropping him off at home on my way. In the afternoon, I joined Jay on his great thrift store hunt for old Disney Classics on VHS. I like looking through the books to see if there’s anything good. On Saturday evening, we ended up grabbing a quick bite to eat and then heading to the movies to see Oz: The Great and the Powerful. I’m trying to work on a blog post about Oz, but I’m not sure when I’ll have it done. I liked the movie a lot, though. I’d recommend seeing it.
On Sunday, we really had a fantastic day. After a great run in the morning – it was SO gorgeous – Jay and I went to redeem a Living Social deal we bought for a vineyard in Angier, NC called Gregory’s Vineyard. It was awesome! The deal included 9 samples of wine (they give you enough for 1.5 sips), souvenir glasses, a free glass of wine each, and a tour of the winery.
Gregory Vineyards makes their wine from a grape called the Muscadine grape. It’s native to the South and has a very sweet taste. I must admit that the taste of Muscadine wine took some getting used to. They started us with a white wine called Bald Eagle and it tasted like a sweeter white wine, so the difference in taste wasn’t as noticeable until we got to the second sample, a dry red wine called Sly Fox with a musky smell. We alternated with a set menu of red and white wines and finished up with something called a Love-a-Rita. The Love-a-Rita is a cider/red wine slushie. I was also given a tip to use one of the very sweet dessert red wines called Lee Love as an ingredient in brownies, to make wine brownies. I kinda want to do that, even though I know it’s going to be a VERY hit or miss thing. The wine tour itself was also pretty cool; mainly, it was teaching us about what the Muscadine grape is, why it’s different from grapes in European and Californian wines, and the process of making wine for mass production. I really enjoyed the entire thing a lot. I’m so glad that we went. We’ll be buying the next Groupon/Living Social/etc. deal for a winery.
We stopped by Jay’s parents’ house for a family dinner on our way back from Gregory Vineyard. It was a very nice time. All in all, we had a really fantastic weekend. With the weather finally acting like springtime in the South, how could we not? Warm weather and no pollen! A girl can’t ask for more in a weekend…
Some pictures:
Display in the room where we did the wine tasting. I spy a Pinterest project in the center. No, really, the Christmas-lights-in-a-wine-bottle is from Pinterest. I almost did it and wrote a blog post about it right before we left for California, hahaha.
Jay’s Wine Ranking List is on the left; mine is on the right.
A picture I look really bad in, but it’s the only one I have of both of us.
This is the machine they use to crush the grapes in.
The red machine with the handle is how they put the cork in. Way too cool to see.
On a more personal note, my grandpa gets the results of his latest CAT scan tomorrow, March 14. They’ll let us know whether or not this round of chemo is working. I could use all prayers, positive thoughts, etc. you could spare because I’m so nervous about them that I’ve had no appetite all day long and have sustained more pretty much nothing more than plain M&M’s and a few pieces of celery.
