Some day I want to be able to do this...

Our friend Boucek is an amazing photographer. I hope to learn how to take amazing pictures someday. I am currently looking for a photography class to take or someone to teach me. Until then, enjoy these pics Boucek took...

Be proud, make a sign

It's fun to drive around the neighborhoods and see squadron signs in the yard. Every squadron has patches for their uniforms, and the same design is often put on a yard sign that you can put in your front yard to say "Hey, look at me, I'm in VFA-???" Well our new squadron did have someone that made these for them but apparently he turned out to be not such a nice guy, and he didn't do quality work, so they no longer work with him. So while mom was in town I put her to work! (And yes I did help, even though I'm not in any of the pictures working...) We made our own sign...

This is what we needed to make:

We went to Home Depot and bought a 2x2 piece of wood for $7. Went to Michael's and bought paint in the correct colors for about $10.

First step was to sand and prime the board...both sides. We painted the back side in a coat of the navy blue paint so it would look stream-lined all the way around.

 Step two was to put the "mach wave" and the light blue circle. We went and measured another sign and did our best to get the angles right. We discussed that there needs to be a template that the squadron hangs onto with the exact measurements...it would have made things so much easier!!

 Step three was to put the navy blue around the outside. We did about 2-3 coats of paint for each color.

Step four was to put the four diamonds in the correct place in the middle (I didn't a get a picture of this step). The diamonds are navy blue (hence Blue Diamonds...actually they are supposed to represent four hornet flying in the diamond formation with the mach wave)

Step five was to spray a sealant to help guard against the elements. I used a glossy Mod Podge spray paint sealer. As we are entering the winter and rainy season we'll see how well it holds up.

I still need to get a post to attach it to so I can stick into the ground, but right now I just have it leaning up against the house... Here is our finished product, not perfect but hey it's home-made!!!

It's been a week...let's go to Paso again!!

Yep we went again...only a week later! This time we went with Kevin and Jackie, who were getting ready to move and had never been! Our other friends Paige and Greg went with us as well.

Stop #1: Eberle

Great place. We've been here numerous times before! It's got great wines and a great military discount (40%!!!!!) One time we went and they were grilling tri-tip, ribs, and duck sausage but every time we went back they never had it...until this time!!! This meat is amazing. The duck sausage is a little spicy. The tri-tip is cooked perfectly. I haven't had the ribs but they also look really good. The bigger guy in the tye-dyed shirt is Gary Eberle, the owner of the winery. He was out there cooking and grilling throughout the day. 

Every year for the harvest season Eberle comes up with a theme...this year was Spongebob... so here's their truck that goes through vineyards to load the collected grapes on:

 Stop #2: Twilight Cellars (previously known as Thunderbolt Winery)

Mike and I have been here before as well. Their wines are amazing, and they pair their tasting with appetizers! So you got little bites of food with every glass you taste.

A shot of our group:

 It was actually the Harvest Festival weekend in Paso. Twilight was letting you bottle your own wine from a barrel. So of course we did that! What fun... We got to fill it up from the barrel and put it into the wine bottles...

Then we had to put the cork in it

 We had lunch at the Odyssey World Cafe, great stop! None of us had been here before so it was a good choice and the food was amazing. I had lamb gyro and Mike had a lamb burger. I highly recommend this little cafe as an eatery. It's on the main square in downtown Paso.

 Stop #3: Sculpterra

Neat place, sculptures all over the place, very neat sculptures. But their wines...not impressive. They also have pistachio trees on their property and had those as snacks in the tasting room, and those, those were very good.

A little bit more of the harvesting at work

 Mixing up the grapes in the fermenting tanks

 Stop #4: Cass Winery

Pet friendly. 15% military discount. Great wines. Friendly staff. They also have a lunch cafe that had what looked like a really good menu. Might have to go back and try that someday, with Sunset of course!

A favorite pastime...

Yep, we went wine tasting again! The weather was nice, it was a little warm out at times, but we had a good time none-the-less. Mike and I went with my mom, Kate, Clay, Will and Leslie.

Stop #1: Maloy O'Neill

Tasting Fee: $5 (waived for military)

This place was so cute! They had a couple of bar stools on one side of the bar so you could sit and taste. They had a few whites, but mostly reds (Paso is more a red region). Their reds were good. A few of their blends were really good.

Here is the winery dog, Trixie I believe.

 And this little guy was just crossing the drive-way headed to get some wine.

 We went during harvest season so a lot of the wineries were working their presses and such. Here are the guys at Maloy O'Neill getting the juices out of the buckets of fermenting grapes.

 Stop #2: Pear Valley
Tasting Fee: $5 (waived for military)

This place was so pretty. It sat up on a hill and looked down towards the valley of Paso and the other wineries. Pear Valley had a greater selection of wines, they had whites, a rose, and a dessert wine. They were all pretty good. I didn't taste the dessert wine though (not my style). I'm not usually a rose drinker either but theirs is decent and I would have a glass of it.

Close up of the grapes (like I said we went during harvest season so their grapes all over the vines)

Stop #3: Rio Seco
Tasting Fee: $5 (waived for military + military discount)

Great wines, great company, and an interesting story. This place had a few good red mixes that made for easy drinking and a great table wine. Now for the story of this place...the current owners bought it from the state? how had acquired it after a police raid. Yes, a police raid. This property had at one point been a pot farm and drug selling location. If you looked around at this red barn you could see bullet holes from the shoot out at the police raid.

If you like port wine, they had a Zinfandel port that I hear was good.

Stop #4: Peachy Canyon
Tasting Fee: $5 (waived for military + military discount)

This winery is mostly known for its zinfandel's, which I'm not a huge fan of but they were actually pretty good. Their other reds were only ok. The place was pretty cute, I especially liked this sign which asked "Who's the skipper?" Gave me a little laugh.

 This building, now the winery tasting room, used be an old school house.

 Stop #5: Zenaida Cellars
Tasting Fee: $5

This place was very neat. The owner is a veterinarian in a town nearby. It had great wines. Everything I tasted here was amazing. Even their simple table wine was good.

 Stop #6: Edward Sellars
Tasting Fees: $5

This new tasting room was beautiful set in the middle of their vineyards. Gorgeous views. We came here  on the recommendation of another winery, but we weren't all that impressed.

Another successful day of wine tasting. All the stops were new places as well, which brings my grand total to over 40...only about 200 to go!!

Build it up, tear it down

My mom was just our here for a week. We of course went wine tasting (post to follow) and went to see Mike's new squadron, but we also drove down to Santa Barbara. My mom has a brother who lives there and since it's only about 4 hours from my house we decided to go visit for a night. 

Their youngest son is 4 or 5, I'm not quite sure anyway he wanted to build block castles so that he could knock them down, correction: he wanted ME to build block castles so HE could knock them down. Here are my beautiful masterpieces pre-demolition:

My uncle Doug is an amazing cook! Every time I go down there I get to try something new and different and it is always amazing. Well this time he made paella for dinner! And it was so good!! I need to get myself one of these pans and a copy of that recipe so I can make it at home sometime!!

On the way back home mom and I stopped in a little town of Los Olivos for some lunch and meandering. Cute little town! Look at how huge these pumpkins are!!

This is the little patio where we had lunch. I love the trunks of this tree (or maybe vine), it looks so cool. I believe the name of the place was Los Olivos Cafe, and it was really good! Mom had a turkey club with avocado, and I had BBQ chicken pizza. 

I just loved the saying on this sign: 

"Wine improves with age, I improve with wine" So true!

After Los Olivos we pulled off in another little town called Los Alamos to check out a restaurant Doug had told us about that cooked everything over a wood fired oven/grill. We didn't stop to eat there (since we had just had lunch) We ended up finding this:

An antique depot mall & PUB, that's right the sign says and pub. Naturally we were interested so we had to check it out. Like most antique malls it was filled with a bunch of old stuff. It's amazing that all this stuff came from people's house. And it's also amazing what stuff some people have! Anyways, what we were really interested in was the "pub"...

Yep, there was a bar with a billiards table and dart board. They poured wines by the glass and also had some beers on tap. Weird!! But it was indeed an antique mall & pub.

Once a Diamond, Always a Diamond

As I said before Mike is now a part of VFA-146, the Blue Diamonds. Mike is currently  on the USS Ronald Reagan. Right now he is out on the ship doing some training to get the entire carrier air group ready for their deployment, leaving early next spring for 7 or 8 months :(  I knew the day would come where deployments were in our life, but it still sucks! I really need to find myself a job before then so that I have something to help keep me busy.

Every squadron has one plan that they deck out all fancy. I think the Blue Diamonds decked out plan is pretty neat:

This is his new hangar, not that exciting I know but...

And a couple pics of the flight line

The squadron has been awesome. The wives have been very welcoming and it is a very family oriented squadron which is nice. The CO tries to give the guys ample time off between now and deployment so that the families can be sure and get as much time together as possible. We are both really enjoying it. I'm anxious to hear what prank the guys pulled on Mike while he's out at the boat...there's always something!