lodi wine country

where we live in northern california, we are pretty fortunate to be so close to wine country. napa is less than two hours away. livermore valley is the next town west of us and they have some great wineries like wente and concannon. we are also about 30 minutes from lodi - wine country in the central valley. some pretty good and decently priced wines come from this area, such as seven deadly zins and gnarly head.

today, we spent the afternoon at michael david winery, which is where seven deadly zins is made.

upon arrival, a quick game of chess while dad grabs the wine glasses.

i was happy to see how much they had available for the kids to enjoy. they were able to run around and have fun while the mister and i had our wine tastings. it was a win-win. ;)

 a little bocce ball.

then, a friendly game of bean bag toss.

the big boys enjoyed the games while wyatt and i chilled in our little shady oasis. 

once the boys were dripping with sweat from running around in the afternoon sun, we headed over to the small petting zoo to feed the animals.

these two were our bffs. the guy on the right was particularly excited to eat our delicious animal feed.

me and my homeboy. i want one for my backyard.

we even got a little lesson about chickens. now i know where the "bantum-weight" class in wrestling comes from - those guys are the little chickens. :)

duck-chasing is always a fun pastime.

there was a cute little tractor that i just had to pose the boys in front of. 

this pic of my two big boys kills me. who are they and what have they done with my babies?! 

spring has sprung and i couldn't help take a few pics of the beautiful flowers they had blooming. everything was so colorful and pretty!

a beautiful little secret sitting garden. 

and what kid could possibly walk past this giant tree and not climb up?

it was calling their names. 

and, of course, mom and dad couldn't leave without a bottle of heaven.

survivor mud run 2012

yesterday, i did the funnest thing i've ever done in my entire life. the survivor mud run. a 3.5 mile course with obstacles and mud pits. i know it doesn't sound fun at all, but it really was! i guess the quality of anything you do in life has a lot do with WHO you do it with. and i had the time of my life because i have the best friends a girl can ask for. we were huffing and puffing through the entire course - not because we were tired - but because we couldn't stop laughing. we laughed and giggled our way through 3.5 miles.

there were eight of us who ran, including the little sister of one of my friends. i'm sure you can spot her in the picture easily - you know, the one with the body you had in high school and haven't seen since. 

our shirts say "rhot - real housewives of tracy". teehee. because that's what we are - housewives. own it, ladies. own it.

 here we are, all nice and clean before the run. trying to look all tough.

between the seven of us moms who ran, we have seventeen kids. mud? pssh - we laugh in the face of mud. we've changed poopy diapers for the last seven years. a little mud won't scare us away. then we meet these super muddy people as they head through the finish line. umm, ok. i'm starting to tremble in my booty shorts.

we went through the course with two waterproof cameras, so you better believe we got some good pictures in the mud trenches. but those will take a little longer to get our hands on, so for now we will fast forward to a muddy me heading toward the finish line. i think i was trying to shake the mud off of my hands here.

and here are the real housewives of tracy, people. willing and unfraid to get down and dirty. 

so much fun. seriously - you should try it sometime.

most of the runners wore their oldest pair of shoes with the intentions of tossing them afterwards. i wore my oldest pair with that intention, but i couldn't bring myself to tossing them! i'm a little attached to them and they came home with me, extra muddy, in a garbage bag. not sure what i'll do with them.....lol

and here we are all rinsed off and - well - still muddy.

definitely one of the funnest times in the history of fun times! :) 

bonjour!

whew! my bloggy blog took an unexpected one-month hiatus! don't you hate that? sorry - it's kind of like tv shows. either the writers go on strike or they just run out of ideas. i guess it was a bit of both in the case of my blogging, but i'm back! and that's what matters, right?

what happened over the last month, in a nutshell:

• the boys got really sick and it was really bad. the only one that dodged the bullet this time was isaiah. i hope we never, ever experience illness in this house like that again.
• i left for PARIS! i have yet to blog on my amazing experience but, for now, i will just say that it was awesome to the max!
• i celebrated my 29th birthday - in PARIS! actually, i had two birthdays this year. i left france on my birthday, spent a day in the skies, and landed in san francisco and it was still my birthday! now, that's some real time travelling.
• got home from my trip a few days before tax day. i prepare our taxes every year, so i spent a of couple days stressing over that. 
• got caught up on laundry. the mister did a great job washing the dirty laundry while i was gone. but i came home to all of it in a huge pile on our sofa. he said, "folding and putting laundry away is just not my thing." bwahahah. if he didn't just let me take an entire week vacation without him or the kids, i probably would have ripped into him about that. but since i was so well-rested and relaxed from my trip, he managed to get away with just an eye roll. 
• grocery shopped, grocery shopped and grocery shopped some more.
• the kids started school after a little over a week of spring break. needless to say, monday morning was extremely difficult.
• we're all back to our normal routines - school, work, extra-curricular activities, etc. finally.
• i'm getting ready to run the survivor mud run this saturday with my girlfriends! they won't be ready for the real housewives of tracy haha! we can't be missed, decked out in matching tank tops and hot pink bandanas. 3.5 miles, obstacles, mud pits....it's gonna be some great, muddy, dirty, fun. i've always wanted to mud wrestle - i finally have my chance.

i'm going to try and do some blogging about my trip and such, so keep checking back. can't believe how much i've missed blogging....but not as much as i miss paris!