Wine tasting with the Chosen Sisters

cool Chinese cut out I bought recently

close up

new fake lily pads. The old ones have solar lights in them

all the wind storms of the past few months took my friend's tree down. Interesting splinters

The Chosen Sisters at our wine tasting place owned by a girlfriend of Josh's buddy. Note to self: you may think you have only 5 pounds to lose but looking at this picture, I'd say a whole lot more. Won't wear this dress again. Unruly hair will be tamed tomorrow

It has been a pleasant week so I was able to catch up on my bicycling: 88 miles in 6 days. To avoid the rain (which hardly showed up at all) on my preferred riding day, I went early on Saturday. Much, much busier.

Moles have eaten through the wiring of our outdoor lights in front. Maybe an electrician can fix it but I am assuming it will be impossible to find the gnawed wire so I broke down and got a bunch of solar accent lights. I have been falling asleep too early to see how they look.

Most of Michigan's wineries are on the west side of the state but there is one (or maybe two) in the county next to ours. One of the Sisters bought a Groupon for us for a tasting and cheese plate so out in the country we went. A very nice day and pleasant to sit outside plied by little bits of many wines. My favorite? Wine made from maple syrup but it was very pricy. My second favorite, which I bought, was some intense raspberry wine. I will use it as an aperitif. I also bought some white guava sangria, which was very refreshing. And then we sat on the porch of our Sister who has a farm, overlooking her lake drinking even more wine.

I also went tent shopping. Fortunately, a discount camping store just opened up here last week. I wrote down the names of the most promising, went home to read reviews on line and returned today to get a much lighter and smaller tent than I had before (which broke down last year in a storm on our last bike ride after 25 years of use). Still it will have plenty of room of two of us. Technically it is a 4 person tent but only if the person is Tessa sized and doesn't have luggage. % weeks until it will be put to use.

We did get a visit from Josh minus his girls. He brought us his old TV so now we have a large one to view in our bedroom. Miss Hannah is 5 months old today.