Edgefield Get-Away / Weekend with Grandpa

Oh, where to start in describing this magical place called McMenamins Edgefield?  It's hotel/brewery/winery/spa/distillery/food haven all on one campus just outside of Portland, OR.  Think summer camp meets spa meets winery.   Think awesomeness.

Anyway, our friends Heather & Jesse invited us there to celebrate her birthday last weekend.  Seeing as it's basically an adult playground (ie lots of booze), we decided to leave Isaac with a babysitter for the weekend. Eric's Dad happily agreed to hang out with the little dude while we had a weekend away.

And what a great weekend it was!  I had a lovely massage and Eric played countless holes of golf (I tried it too). We spent a few hours in the spa's soaking pool, enjoyed exploring the property and being with good friends. We ate a lot of good food and tasted even more great wine and beer.

It had been many months since we'd been away from Isaac overnight, and we missed him a lot.  So we were all excited for the reunion on Sunday. We came home to a happy baby, grandpa & doggy!

Here are a few photos from our weekend:

Friday lunch at Gorditos before leaving town

Part of the group at Friday night dinner (Alex, Heather, Andrew, Pam, Christina & Eric)  There were 16-20 people in our group!

Wine tasting Saturday with the ladies

Tasting Scotch

Golfing! (Eric's found a new hobby!)

Isaac & Grandpa had a pretty sweet weekend too; we're told they spent countless hours playing in the back yard and Isaac sure was talkative on Sunday.  So, we have no doubt it was a great weekend for everyone!

Weekend with Grandma M & OG

We can't think of anything much better than seeing family, and then leaving Isaac with them to go and play.  And by play we mean drink beer. This weekend, Debi/Grandma/Eric's Mom and Mary/Other Grandma/OG (Debi's best friend) came to visit.  We had a wonderful time seeing them.  But more importantly, Isaac had a blast!

Isaac and Grandma at breakfast, at home and sporting a new headlamp!  (thanks, Lisa & Justin for the awesome Little Dude shirt, too...)

For our date on Saturday, we visited Columbia Winery, Black Raven Brewery and American Brewing (a new brewery in Edmonds).  Many of the breweries in Washington were having open houses, as part of Washington Beer Commission's Open House 2011 day, so we got to sample some rare beers and have access to the production areas.  One of my favorites was a pairing of Black Raven's barley wine and Stilton cheese. YUM-O.

Per usual, more photos in our February Photo Album. Cheers!

Photos from this Weekend

The Merhar clan joyfully invaded us this weekend! Lots of laughs and a couple of parent breaks (ie grandparent time!).

Annual Winter Get-Away

Last week Andy and Michelle flew in from from Utah for our 4th annual February visit! We had a wonderful long weekend. On the agenda was Seattle site-seeing, wine tasting in Woodinville, a few gourmet meals, snowboarding at Stevens, a night at a cabin near Leavenworth and homebrewing a Kolsh. It was a great mini-winter-get-away! I didn't take a ton of pictures, but here are a few from Woodinville:

Me & Eric at Chateau St. Michelle (me: 32 weeks/7 months pregnant):

Andy & Michelle at Mark Ryan Winery (our favorite winery of the day!):

Me & Michelle at Bookwalter Winery (don't worry folks... I'm just holding Eric's glass here...)

Cheers to good friends!