Backyard

Our long-awaited backyard renovation is finally underway.

We had been thinking for some time about building a deck in the back and last summer we spent a lot of time and effort working on a plan to build one. We worked with a landscape designer who helped us come up with some ideas on making over the whole backyard.

A month or two into the project the woman we hired left the country to go take care of her ailing mother in Germany. We continued to work with her partner on the plan but as the weeks went on it seemed the design was getting a little bit away from what we had in mind and it was also going to be pretty costly. So we made the decision to shelve the project until the spring and then manage it ourselves.

 

Over the fall and winter we had a bunch of trees removed and fixed up the front yard. The same crew who did those jobs came back this summer to build us a couple of retaining walls in the backyard. These guys did a great job in the heat moving almost 800 sixty pound blocks down from street level to build these walls.

 

There is another crew hard at work on building the deck. Aimee spent a lot of time working on drawings for the deck and it looks like it's going to be really nice.

Wine Trip

In May we made another trek up to the Central Coast for our now-annual wine tasting trip. The trip was originally planned to coincide with the birthday of one of the group. It also happens to fall on our wedding anniversary weekend. This year we were there on our tenth anniversary and it was a fun celebration.

We stopped at one winery mid-day for a picnic lunch and enjoyed some live music and barrel tastings of upcoming releases. Aimee had no trouble putting away that last chicken wing.

One winery let us check out the behind-the-scenes action and allowed us to sample some of their reserve vintages not yet available to the general public.

The Ranch

Here's Aimee meeting a good friend recently at Saddlerock Ranch. This is the place at Malibu Wines we went to last December for a Safari/Wine tasting tour.

I don't have a picture of Aimee and Stanley the giraffe unfortunately but he was the friendliest giraffe we have had the pleasure of meeting. He was more than happy to lower his head to allow us to pet him and say hi.

The winery had their annual members party at the ranch and we went and had a great time with good food, wine, live music and meeting some neat animals up close.

We have been very busy the last few months and look forward to sharing some of what we've been up to lately.