Country Easter & Girls Annual Trip

I love sitting on the deck of the Mini Mansion and looking SW out across our neighbors property. Its so beautiful and relaxing. Sometimes his cattle and their babies are there to entertain me but mostly it's just this serene view.          Then when the west sun gets too much I turn around and enjoy the view of our beautiful property that one day I'll get to look at everyday not just on a weekend. Builder has been decided, bank picked for the construction loan and approved. 

Now we're waiting on the appraiser. But in the mean time I sit on the Mini Mansion deck and enjoy the views of our property. It's funny when we pull up our property on Google earth, it's easy to find ours. Ours is the property with very green pond.  The water for is clear but I'm sure if we put a few cows on the property it'll become a muddy mess.   

Prior to say 2014 this is how the Rock'n K looked as a tree farm and the pond was a normal shape and a pretty green color.  

Then when we bought the Rock'n K the prior owner had kept altering the shape of the pond to get dirt needed for the trees.

This satellite isn't so great but look the crazy shape and we are talking a dark murky.

Then David hired a company to come in and dig the pond out deeper, bigger and shape it back in a circle.  And we got the pretty clear green color of the pond back.  The pond is almost an acre big and about 13' deep in the center.






I came up with David to help him in the Mini Mansion. The tin ceiling is now complete so he's working on the wall panels.    He's working so hard on the cabin. 

He's trying to decide what it will be used for once the house is finished.  It could be a rustic very rustic guest house, man cave, wood workshop or whatever. So many possibilities. Once he finishes the panelling he's trying to figure if we just leave the plywood floors as they are or put down the vinyl/laminate flooring we already have.  I decided this weekend we should just stain the flooring that's there and save our money and not put down vinyl or laminate flooring. He's got about a 1/4 of the cabin wall panels up as of today.    He's thinking he'll finish the cabin just in time to move into the house. LOL  I think he'll finish before that.

  You know Spring has finally hit the farm when the Star Jasmin (I think that's the kind we have here) are about ready to bloom. They're in pots that we had on the patio at the house we sold in September 2017.    And now they sit in front of the porch of the Mini Mansion. 

Are you ready for the annual Mother-Daughter trip? Well we were. The first Thursday in April we left David with the girls, Lilley and Sophie, and we were off for the Hill Country. 
We had a nice brunch at First Watch in Cypress. 

Had to have food on the tummy before we get the Wine Hop started so we had breakfast at First Watch. So yummy good.

Saddlehorn is one of our favorite wineries and it's always our first stop. It's located just outside Brenham, Texas.  It's 5 o'clock somewhere.....
They always give us wine bottle boxes for our precious cargo as we do our winery hop.


We make sure it's strapped in. LOL


The drive was a smooth one until we got to Bastrop. WOW we wasted an hour there on the freeway due to construction. 
I don't think they understand they are messing with our schedule. To be honest I doubt they cared. 



Once the traffic cleared out and construction was out of the way we were rolling down the road again to only come to another complete stop in Austin just before I-35 where Hwy 290 ends.  This is ridiculous.  Something different needs to happen here. No matter the time of day this is what it looks like until you get about a mile pass I-35.

 Another 30 minute delay. Grrrr

We were pushing it to get to Dripping Springs before the Bell Springs Winery closed. I even passed on my usual stop at Valli and Kim Quilt Shop in Dripping Springs. Ughh but I didn't need anything at the time so I figured that was a good decision because if I stopped I'd buy something.  We made it to Bell Springs with 35 minutes to spare. We got a tasting in and we were back on the road in about 45 minutes.

We got to Fredericksburg finally around 7ish and decided to stop for dinner at Mammasita's. We were shocked to find a parking space up front and no wait when we walked in. After dinner we drove on down the road to Kerrville where our Hotel was.  We saw lots of deer and bluebonnets on the drive. 
Got to our hotel around 8:45 and called it night.

On Friday, April 6th we got up and cruised through Kerrville checking out the sites and finally headed back to Fredericksburg. We always go back to Fredericksburg on Friday to hit the wineries because on Saturday  everyone is off work and all the wine tours make it really crowded. To start the day we went to lunch at The Peach Tree Cafe. A former co-worker Pam told me about this place. And she didn't lie This place has such delicious food and plenty of it.  
Pamela ordered a sandwich with a salad while I ordered their special of quesadilla's with black bean soup.  

                  

Definitely worth a try if you're ever in Fredericksburg.
Now we're off to try some new wineries and some old. We stopped at Baron's Creek, Mendelbaum, Grape Creek and then to Pedernales. Pedernales has one of the best views when you sit outside on the deck. Pamela and I got a glass of wine here to just sit on the deck to relax and enjoy the views.   I enjoy spending this special time with Pamela and making memories and documenting with photos.

Time to move on to the next winery for the day. Another place we love to stop at is at Fat Ass Winery. The name alone made us stop the first time but we keep going back because we do enjoy they're wine.  After a tasting Pamela had a Wine slushy and we snapped more pictures.


I need this little tractor at the Rock'n K sitting up at the fence line. Love my sweet girl.  


Love what they did with this old feeder.   










Pamela is feeling silly and is letting me take her picture. I guess I just need to give her more wine and she'll let take all the pictures of her I want.

















Now this picture I am finally 

able to share. When I went to quilt retreat in March I made this quilt top, sent it home with the quilter and I got the binding on it right before we came on our trip.  The cows were very interested in what I'm doing with this quilt on their fence but not enough to get too close. 

Anyway I Brought it along for a photo opp somewhere in our travels. And this was my back drop.




I just gave this quilt to Baby Jeremiah Wharton just this past Saturday. The  Momma and Daddy are both graduates of Texas A&M so I thought this fabric very fitting for a future little Aggie. I used the Accuquilt tumble die cut. It's a fun die cut to use and fairly simple to piece together.

And before you say anything I know I took a quilt for the baby to a winery. What can I say. I'm always looking for good back drop for my quilts and this one was at Fat Ass and it worked. Hey I pieced it together while have a glass of wine during retreat. Jeremiah will never know unless he can read my blog at 1 month and I don't think that's a possibility. Besides I doubt he would mind.

This is the future little Aggie Jeremiah. He just turned a month old in this picture. I borrowed this picture his Momma posted on Facebook with her permission. Isn't he a little cutie? He slept the entire time Pamela and I were there with the quilt. Well he woke up briefly but I think he was a little hungry so he was a tad angry. LOl. 




While meeting Jeremiah we also met Elly. Elly is the dog. A big dog, it's a Great Mastif. She is as big as Jeremiah's momma but is so sweet. At one point I looked out on the patio and saw this huge bone and I do mean huge. Check this out.  Elly brings her finds to the patio but never in the house. Beatriz thinks this was a leg to a bull that died. She said sometimes the finds are fresh. This bone is as big as Elly.  WOW! 

After we left Fat Ass we headed to Fiesta Winery.  We're in their wine club and needed to pick up our quarterly shipment. As a member we get a free tasting plus a free tasting for 2 friends and we get a free glass of wine. They have all their bottles lined on the wall. It makes a pretty colorful picture. 


We each had a free glass of wine and our tummies said it was time to find some dinner. We decided on Italian and went to Pasta Bella . They have very yummy food. No wine for us. LOL I think Pamela has had enough.  Me too probably but there's no evidence of that here.











While out on our trip I found out that I'm going to be a great Aunt of a new baby boy coming in October to my Nephew Nathan and his sweetie Jordan.  Congrats to them. the Grandparents were present for the gender reveal. 

So that's it for the first 2 days of our Mother - Daughter trip. There's more but I'll save the next 2 days for my next blog post.  And to think I've had more adventures since then to write about. Woe is me will I ever catch up to myself....  LOL probably not.

Until next blog...  I have never been convinced there's anything inherently wrong in having fun. ~ George Plimpton