Corning visit

We haven't been to my parents' in awhile and this past weekend was one of two free weekends the whole summer. (I know, we're really busy this summer, right?!)


Friday Dave took a half day and I left half an hour early, so we left our house with enough time that we actually got to my parents and didn't go to bed right away. We spent a good amount of the weekend learning Mario Kart tips from Allison. LOL.


We don't usually have a whole lot of time when we go- it's a little less than a 5 hour drive to Corning from our house, so we get there typically late Friday, have Saturday there, go to church Sunday, eat brunch, and head back home. So we try to capitalize on the Saturdays.


This weekend we decided to check out Watkins Glen and the Seneca Lake area. We drove by the racetrack- they have the big NASCAR race in two weeks- Dave would like to go to that someday. I went to the track once for a smaller race and was completely bored. :) Maybe it will be better now that I'm older. We'll find out one of these days, I'm sure.


We wanted to walk the gorge- it's beautiful and I think the last time I was there was right around when we graduated from college; I went with Miheer and Susan just to go do something fun and we got some great pictures. I'm going to have to find them later.


Anyway, we didn't go there right away- one of the main things we wanted to do was check out a winery called Wagner's. Here's a link: http://www.wagnervineyards.com/ Anyway, I guess it's known for really good food, but now only serves lunch. By the time we got there, it was mid to late afternoon, so we just did tasting. The best part about Wagner? The beer! It turns out they are maybe better known for their beer than their wine. So the 5 of us (Dave, my parents, Allison and me) went to the beer tasting part. For $1 you got to sample about 8 of their beers and they gave you a decent amount to sample. I tried all of them but one, and between my parents and myself we got a case of beer. Dave and I got the honey wheat and the pilsner. Oh and Allison got root beer for free while we were sampling the beer.


Dave and I still wanted to try wine, so for $1 we got to sample about 6 wines. I didn't really care for any of them but their special, Alta B was on sale and Dave liked it so we did buy a bottle of that.


On the way to Wagner's, I had seen a winery called Penguin Bay that looked really neat and made me (of course) immediately think Pittsburgh Penguins. LOL. So my parents stopped there for us on the way back to the gorge. Dave and I did sampling there (maybe a bad idea before walking a gorge but we did it anyways). For $2 you could choose 8 wines to sample. I liked their wines a lot better. Plus, who can beat the labels?! So cute! And for every bottle of wine sold, a portion of the proceeds is donated to a zoo in Syracuse, NY towards the Humbolt penguins.


So check these labels out:

We bought 3 bottles of this, because it was buy 2 get 1 free and we really liked it. And it fits in with the music theme we used for our wedding and some of the decorating in our house.

We also bought a bottle of this- a sweeter wine but I liked it and so did Dave.

After the wineries, we did walk part of the gorge. However, it started to rain and my parents suggested we turn back. Luckily, we did. We went to a restaurant to eat (in Watkins Glen) and it ended up pouring, so that was a good choice.

I'm hoping we'll get to go back again sometime. I forgot how pretty the gorge is and I'd like to walk the whole thing.

Dave's family's visit

Dave's dad, step mom (Darlene), sister (Darci), and brother (Damian) were in this weekend. Actually, they came in before July 4th, stayed for a few days (went to Kennywood for a little bit with us), went to Ohio to visit Darlene's family, and then came back again.

Dave went to the zoo with them on Thursday and then a bunch of the family came over for a cookout that night. I couldn't go to the zoo because I couldn't take time off of work at that point, but seeing everyone at our house afterwards was fun.

Damian spent the night Thursday night. Dave took Friday off (I couldn't take vacation on Friday either) and I think they spent most of the time playing video games. Boys... LOL

Darci spent the night Friday night. We went for a pedicure (love those!) and then did some shopping. My flip flops were too big for her; they kept falling off her feet, so her first priority was getting some flip flops that fit. She found some cute ones at Victoria's Secret. I should have known they make flip flops. Then we went to see the Proposal. It turns out it was filmed near where they live, in Rockport, Massachusetts. That area is sooo pretty!

Dave and I took Darci to play mini golf inside on Saturday and of course did just a little more shopping. I got a shirt I really like for $6! And I've already worn it once. It's not an appropriate shirt for work, so I was a little anxious about spending the money. We're trying to not spend as much and save more but I think I will get a lot of use out the shirt outside of work so I feel better about it. Plus it was only $6.

Then we went to Sara's graduation party. (Dave's niece). She just graduated from high school. We brought our Ladderball game and had a blast.

I had a lot of fun with Darci and with I could have spent some more time with Damian, as well as with Dave's dad and Darlene. It's nice to see them- we don't get to very often.

That sounds like a full weekend right there but on Sunday we played a concert at Twin Lakes park. The weather was absolutely beautiful. I can't believe this summer so far. Not really too hot, and we can leave the windows open most nights.

I collapsed into bed Sunday night, exhausted. Our weekends are always so full!

My weekend with my sister

My sister Megan (the one who is closer in age) was in for the weekend. I'm really glad she came to visit.

Thursday we went to a Pirates game. She hadn't ever seen the Pirates and they had a make up game from a rain out. It was a rainy day and they ended up losing, but we had fun! The game was close, there was a good amount of offense, and it went into extra innings. We tailgated beforehand and ended up sitting in the car waiting out the rain until we went into the game. PBJ and beer, yum yum!

On Friday, Jackie, Dave, Megan, and I went to Kennywood. East Winds had a concert in the evening and we got 4 free tickets each (including tickets for ourselves) to the park. It was REALLY crowded, which was surprising because it was raining in the morning. We got on all the coasters though, and had Potato Patch fries, among other things. (Megan's favorite was Dippin Dots I think.) Later, Dave's family was also there and they watched the concert too. We saw Dave's dad, step-mom, Darci, Damien, Heather, Larry, Beth, and Milo.

Saturday we slept in because we were exhausted from being so busy. Then we went to John and Aleta's house for a picnic/birthday celebration for both of them! That night we set off some legal fireworks in our backyard (some of the grass is black, haha) and Jackie, Steph, and Sara were over to watch that. I got the fire extinguisher out when I saw how close some of the fireworks were to the one bush in the back. We're getting landscaping done anyways, so if the bush had been burned down I wouldn't have cared but I didn't want to set the house on fire! LOL.

Then Sunday after an early lunch Megan headed home. We'll miss her- she's about to move to Savannah, GA, which is more than the 5 hour drive to Corning. It was nice for the last 3-4 years that she was closer, and able to spend a few weekends with us.

Dave's family is in Ohio right now but we'll see them this week/weekend, which should be a little fun. After that, I'm trying to get my other sister Allison out here for a weekend!