february 2013: friends, family & zero free weekends

February was a whirl-wind, but a fun one. With weekend trips, the super bowl, a new hobby, the guys hunting weekend, casino parties, Spencer Leadership Conference delegates staying with us, girl's craft nights, etc. we had a busy schedule and loved every minute of it. Here is a summery of the month in photos.


Ryan took me on a surprise date night where we took a clay molding class and had a delicious dinner at Union Bear.

We finally got around to staining the deck:

We got to go to the Mavs game with the Strolle's (friends from PK) and sit in some amazing seats thanks to a client gift. Seriously, can you see how close we were?!?!

I started Bikram Yoga (yoga in a 105 degree room) and really fell in love with it. It is calm, warm and you can do it barefoot, so I kind of think it's the perfect sport for me.

I continued to love my new job! Below I am working outside on our lovely patio on one of those rare warm/gorgeous February days that make me sooo ready for spring!

Th puppies enjoyed those days too. Surprisingly, at the dog park we discovered that Kali is a bit of a loner and rather skittish around that many strange dogs. Not surprisingly, Murphy was friends with everyone.

Valentine's Day was chill and delicious! A nice steak dinner at home on our porch with all my loves:

Some of the crafts I made at one of our girl's nights:

We had some play dates with Elvis and the Gerbmans. As always occurs when he spends time at our house, the puppies were all exhausted after a few hours.

This is the ombre (attempt) bundt cake I made for the SLC delegates, it's not as pretty as I had hoped (pintrest fail) but they said it tasted good:

These were our delegates: Phillip, Uli and Hunter. Very sweet guys!

love is action

I didn't have to stress at the dentist's office this morning because my sweet husband had already told them at his appointment last week that I had switched to his dental insurance and gave them all the information they needed. It's the little things....

Photo by kate love photography

vino: kochussen winery weekend

I have been so terrible about posting lately (like the past 6 months) - how is it already July?!?! That means we are more than half way through 2013! Anyway, I am back-dating the next few posts to keep them chronologically accurate and am committed to catching up over the 4th of July weekend.

Back in February we headed down to Fredericksburg with the Markussens for a little double-date getaway weekend. We had a blast on the ride down catching up on life and taking some "shortcuts" recommended by Siri. This took us scarily far onto someone's private property only to arrive at a padlocked gate at the end (that is the road our house was on, right there) so close, but so far...

We finally made it to our house, it was a precious guest house with two bedrooms upstairs and a kitchen/dinning/living area downstairs. It was on several acres of farmland in the hill country and there was a hot tub and fire pit on the patio, just gorgeous!

It also had a ridiculously huge jacuzzi tub that we felt the need to document.

Saturday morning we got up and met our LIMO (fancy right?) to take us on our winery tour. It was a blast! We ended up sharing the limo with another group who we quickly befriended. And in traditional Kochussen form we began the trip with mimosas.

Our first stop was Grape Creek vineyards, I think this was our favorite place on the tour (which is saying something since we got more and more ummm... carefree, as the day went on).

Side Note: At the beginning of the day Ryan gave me a pep talk about how "we don't need to buy something at every single place we go" blah, blah, blah... (ok, so maybe it was justified). In the picture above, Ryan and Brandt are discussing enrolling in the Wine Club membership at our first stop. (Yes, I absolutely rubbed that in.)

Next up was Becker Vineyards, one of the more well known Texas wineries  It was ok, but definitely not our favorite. Because it is more popular it was much more crowded and the service was definitely sub par (slow and abrasive). Not to be discouraged, we came up with a fun game called See How Many Wine Samples You Can Get for Free! Everyone was allotted 6 sample tickets at the beginning of each winery, from there it was up to you to maximize this potential. I have to say, we were all quite skilled at this game. We ended up having a splendid time at Becker and not surprisingly things started to get a little silly. (I think I won the Becker Vineyard round of the game with 11 total samples, not sure on the final score though, we lost count after a while.)

Next up was William Chris Vineyards where I ran into one of my good friend's Mom! It was fun to catch up while tasting their wine. We also stopped here to have lunch.

Meredith's and my favorite part of William Chris was the wine called emotion. They used actual "kisses" from their customers for the label design. We contributed our smooches for the 2013 blend.

Off to our next stop, Hilmey Cellars. This was a unique little place, we loved the atmosphere!

That is our limo drive in the background above, he was so great! He's a high school coach and does these tours on the weekend, very knowledgeable and friendly. We found him through Fredericksburg Limo and Wine Tours and would highly recommend them!

This was our whole limo group, by the 4th winery we were all good friends!

The final winery we visited was 4.0 Cellars, this was definitely our least favorite of the tour. We wouldn't recommend it, it was much too commercial feeling, the service was lacking and they did not have the cheese plate that was advertised on a chalkboard outside (This was the final straw for me... tipsy wine tasters need their cheese, people. If you don't have it, don't advertise it! [Ok, maybe this upset me more than it bothered anyone else, but I still think it is unacceptable.])

We had made plans to meet our new friends that night for dinner in town. Unfortunately, we all fell asleep immediately upon returning home and didn't make it out. It worked well though, because we woke up around 9, opened up a bottle of wine and got in the hot tub. The four of us chatted, relaxed and watched a storm roll in across the hill country. It was beautiful and peaceful, and one of my favorite evenings of 2013.

Here's to another successful Kochussen trip. Ruidoso, Port Aransas and Fredericksburg down - where should we go next?