Celebrating Grandma Dorothy's 90th birthday - weekend of September 10th

The weekend after Labor Day we traveled down to the Chesapeake Bay area in Maryland to visit Grandma Dorothy.  We left Friday evening looking forward to a fun weekend with family.  The weekend was to celebrate Dorothy's 90th birthday.  Dorothy is Charlie's grandmother from his dad's side - at 90, she is still active and lives in her house in St. Michael's, MD.  She didn't seem to admit it was actually her 90th - she kept saying "that's what they tell me" :)

The weekend was a great time catching up with lots of family - Charlie's parents came up from Cincinnati with Chuck ("Grumpa"), Charlie's grandfather (paternal).  Also visiting were Charlie's Aunt Lynn, Uncle Jerry and their kids - Kris, Dana and Kai.  "Kids" is a relative term - Kris, Dana and Kai all have children of their own these days, though this weekend trip was too far and too quick for their families to make the trip as well.  Also there was Charlie's cousin's Hal and Bunny (and her husband Chris), as well as two of Dorothy's friends from St. Michael's.

Saturday during the day we met Aunt Lynn and Uncle Jerry and Kris, Dana and Kai for lunch at the Crab Claw which is a cute restaurant in downtown St. Michael's right on the water that specializes obviously in crab and other shell-fish.  Charlie stayed away from the shell-fish and just had a burger but Katie tried the crab-cakes.  Afterwards we went back to the rental house to take naps and watch college football.

Saturday evening, the family had planned a very nice dinner at the Robert Morris Inn in Oxford, Maryland where Dorothy and Granddad Dave spent a night of their honey-moon some 45 years ago.  The restaurant was a couple of town over from St. Michael's and separated by the bay, so the best way to get there is by ferry.  Charlie and I had never been on a ferry before so we got a kick out of driving our car on the ferry and got out of the car to take pictures of course.

The dinner was lovely with many stories from family members and toasts to Dorothy who has accomplished so many amazing things and is truly an inspiration to all of us to enjoy all life has to offer.  

After dinner, we all went back to Grandma Dorothy's house to watch the Michigan-Notre Dame game, which was quite a nail-biter.  Charlie and Tom were cheering for Michigan and Kai is a Notre Dame fan, so we had both sides represented.  Michigan pulled off the win which made Charlie and Tom very happy.

On Sunday, Leslie and Katie hit the shoppes in St. Michael's while Charlie, Grumpa and Tom took a leisurely stroll and back to the house for football and naps.  The St. Michael's area is such a beautiful part of the country and we had a great weekend relaxing and catching up with family.  Griffey really enjoyed coming along too and exploring the area.

Labor Day Weekend #2 - The U.S. Open in Flushing Meadows

Going in reverse order here, but that's OK...

On Sunday we went to the Winery tour (see previous post).  But the day before, we'd actually gone to the Tennis U.S. Open, which was midway through the two weekend tournament.  The tournament is held every year in Queens, at the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center.  This is very near the Mets' ballpark, Citi Field (it's the same stop on the NY subway).  Charlie had been to the US Open finals the year before - Rafa Nadal won the tournament over Novak Djokovic - but this was Katie's first time.  We went for the 4th round on Saturday.  The way it works - you can buy tickets to the "Grounds", which gets you into the area and you can watch any of the matches on all the "side" courts.  You can also get into the Grandstand, but that is a first-come first-serve basis, and often requires a wait.  Next, you could buy tickets to either of the two larger stadiums - either Louis Armstrong, or the gigantic Arthur Ashe.  This also gets you the "grounds" admission, too.  The Ashe stadium is considered "center court" - so it has the most notable names.

We got there a little before noon, grabbed lunch, and walked around the grounds for a couple of hours.  Right outside Arthur Ashe Stadium there is a big bar area where it seemed like lots of people come to hang out and watch the matches on the big screens...reminded us alittle bit of the parties at the big horse races.  There are lots of smaller courts along the grounds and it was really neat to be able to see some of the side matches up really close.  At one point, we kind of stumbled across a match that featured the #1 seed for women's doubles.

We bought the tickets for the Arthur Ashe stadium for Saturday's daytime matches.  This got us the chance to see two tennis legends - Roger Federer in the first match and Serena Williams in the second.  Both won their match to move on to the quarterfinals - so it was a neat day where we got to see something that only comes around once a year.

Cheers to Labor Day Weekend

On Sunday of Labor Day Weekend, we celebrated by going with our friends Brian and Adrienne out to Long Island for a Winery Crawl.  Actually only 3 of us were drinking, because Adrienne is pregnant, but she enjoyed the scenery and the time out and we enjoyed having a DD :).  Brian and Adrienne packed a cute basket full of snacks and lunch.  We started off for the 2 hour drive to the North Fork of Long Island which boasts over 30 wineries.

Our first stop was Vineyard 48, which we all really liked.  We got there right when they were opening for the day, so we got great service being that we were the only customers at 11am on a Sunday.  Charlie and I are not big wine people but we loved tasting and we even bought 2 bottles from Vin 48, one of our favorites was a Peach wine and the "Red 48" wine - which was their house red that was fairly priced but very good.

Next was Shinn Estate which was a cute little bed and breakfast with a vineyard.  The wines were not bad, but the atmosphere was a bit more subdued and quiet; not nearly as fun as the last place, but it was still nice to sit there and try a flight of wines.

Next up was Pellegrini Vineyards, which was probably our 2nd favorite.  They had a beautiful tasting room and great patio.  We got 2 wines from there as well - they named their Reds for people like us.  One was called the BBQ Red and another was the Steakhouse Red....we got the Steakhouse Red of course!  And have since finished it, with a grilled steak a week or so later.

(Pellegrini's Tasting Room)

Next up was Martha Clara Vineyards....this place was by far the largest and the most crowded.  It had a huge tasting room with 2 very long bars and the service was exactly what you would get at a crowded bar.  They had  a very lively band and a large outdoor space that it seemed like lots of people had brought the whole family including the dog to hang out all day, but we were on a mission to squeeze in 2 more vineyards.

(Martha Clara Vineyards..this place was packed!)

Our last stop was Paumanok Vineyards which also had a nice patio.  I still don't think we know the different between a Merlot and a Shiraz...but it was definitely a beautiful day to sit outside and was really fun enjoying all the different wines.  It was great place to wind down what had turned into a long day.

Once we were done at Paumanok, we left the North Fork for the 2 hour drive back to White Plains.  We had dinner there at Emma's Ale House, a fun pub named after the owner's dog.

Needless to say, we were happy to see our own doggie when we got back that night!