I'm going to "Wine a Bit"

I'm going to "wine" because my great weekend is over!  We had a ball and I totally need that garden flag that was at one of the wineries.

I'll get to our weekend in a bit.

We got through week 2 without Ben and we are sure glad to have him back home now!!

I don't recall anything overly exciting happening during the week before I headed out on Friday.  I found Bean an IH (International Harvester) onsie to match the cute skirts Christi had made for her.  Since she will not sit still, I have to catch her in motion, so here's a few of her "modeling":

I also gave her her first wooden spoons so she could practice her percussion skills.....she enjoyed the noise the garbage can made:

Friday morning I dropped on Tucker at the Pet Resort, dropped Bean off at Mrs. Carole's and I headed north 7 hours to Vicksburg, MI, which is just south of Kalamazoo.

Easy drive, no issues, beautiful weather, really didn't seem like it took anytime.

I drove through Constatine, MI, which is touted as the Seed Corn Capital, so of course, I found that interesting.   Two big Seed Corn outfits on the main road, Pioneer and DeKalb/Monsanto:

Ben got to head out pretty early on Friday from Ohio, so he went straight down to Elkton to help Dad.  Mom and Memaw came up Friday afternoon to pick up Mallory from Mrs. Carole's.

I got to Christi's around 5 pm Eastern and was greeted with Wine and Spaghetti!  It's funny that even though this is only the second time I've actually met Christi in person, it's really like I've known her for years.  Our lives, kids and husbands are so similar it's really like stepping into your own home.  You just feel at home with all of them.  We had a relaxing evening but went to bed fairly early so we could get up at 5:30 am eastern to head out to the race site in Holland, MI.

Up early with coffee in hand we were off.  We were super worried it was going to rain on us but the weather was awesome.  About 50 degrees and the clouds parted for beautiful blue skies.

This was supposed to be our second half marathon, but I failed on keeping up with my training and Christi did better than I did but wasn't ready either so we opted for the 5K.  I think I was there for wine as much as the running, lol!

So we both donned our "Will Run for Wine" caps and got ready for the run.  I was a little concerned, I had really slacked over the past month and had probably only run twice during that time.  So, I knew I was probably not going to PR, the goal was to just burn some of the calories I was going to be consuming at the wineries later : )

Here's a few pictures from the race:

 We found it very interesting that after the race, not only did they have the normal breads and banana's, power bars, but they also offered Swedish meatballs!

 Here we are pre-race in all our no makeup glory!  Take note of our "Will Run for Wine" caps, got some good comments on those!

 Just a snap shot of some of the crowd.  

And the finish line!

Holland is a very pretty place.  Christi got a new PR for her 5K time, 29:33, You go girl!!!  I wasn't expecting a new PR, but I finished in 39:04, so not my best but not my worst and since I hadn't run much in the past month, I'll take it : )

Since we didn't run the 1/2 Marathon course, we missed getting to run down by Lake Michigan and seeing the views, so we headed south a bit to go down by the coast. 

We found a neat little pull off spot next to a deck thing that overlooked the lake.  The deck was private property, but they were setting up for a wedding that afternoon and they waved us down to come down and take some pictures from there instead of the side of the road.

Here's some of my shots of Lake Michigan:

Next we were off to the wineries and looking to find some lunch!  Running makes you hungry!  Paw Paw, Michigan was our destination and the two wineries there.  St Julian and Warner.

St Julian was up first:

 Loved this sign!

 Um, yes please!

 Me and the St Julian Monk!

 Cool Wine Barrel Light Fixture.

 Christi enjoying our tasting!

 You had us at Free!

Really liked their wines!  So many good ones to choose from.  I opted for their Blue Heron, Red Heron and Catawba.  

Then we went across the street to an Irish Pub and grabbed some lunch....you know running and then wine tasting on an empty stomach....we needed food!

Then we headed over to Warner Winery which was right next to St Julian.

Their tasting room and facilities were neat but they were busy, didn't take as much time with us and we weren't as impressed with their wines, so we left empty handed there.

Last stop was a local brew pub in Lawton, MI, Old Hat Brewery.  Tasty options, I got Ben a growler of their Stout:

We had found out after the race that one of the newer preemie moms on our Preemie Board has lost her son to SIDS that morning, just really knocks you down when you hear something like that.  I didn't know her well yet, but still, it doesn't matter, it just makes you want to squeeze your own munchkins that much tighter.  Since I was 7 hours away from Bean, I had to call and check in on her and then try to steal snuggles from Christi's two, Gunner and Greyson!

Gunner you will recall is her son who is 10 months older than Mallory who was also born at 33 Weeks because of Pprom and her 6 weeks on hospital bed rest.  They are both such cuties!

We were pretty wiped after the day of running and tasting, so Christi and Brian whipped up a tasty steak dinner and we just crashed at the house.  Of course, we finally did tap into two of the bottles of wine we bought earlier in the day!

Sunday morning we had breakfast and I was off.  It did rain on me the majority of the way home, but it was a very light rain, so it really didn't bug me much or make driving difficult or anything.

I picked up Tucker and Papa John's pizza for dinner and got back to the house at about 5:10 pm and Ben and Mallory rolled in about 5 minutes later.  I was so happy to see both of them.  Then on to a relaxing evening and today I've taken off so I can catch up on laundry and several other things around the house and just to spend some time with Bean today.

A big thanks to Christi and Brian for letting me crash with them over the weekend, I very much enjoyed it and can't wait until we can all get together again with the kiddos!

Here's a few other pictures of Mallory: