Busy Busy Bee

This past weekend was a super fun, eventful, and SUPER HOT weekend!!! Saturday I worked (woo hoo I know) but before work I got up super early and drove to my friend Sara's parent's house to drop off Sofie for the day. I couldn't take her to work with me because it was forcasted to be 92 Saturday and that is just too hot to be sitting in the car! She stayed all day at Mike & Mardells house with her fun big elizabethian collar on (2 more days to go) in the kennels outside while I worked from 10-4. Saturday was also the first day of Hoopfest here in Spokane http://www.hoopfest.org/. It's the largest 3-on-3 basketball tournament in the world and Spokane SHUTS DOWN for the weekend. Cell phone calls and texts either didn't go through or you did not receive them until 2 hours post text. Thousands... billions, of people were here in Spokane for the event and my Boss' son Isaiah and my coworker David were both playing. Although David's team didn't do well and only played the 3 games on Saturday, Isaiah's team one the first, lost the second, then one the 3rd on friday to put them into Sunday where they played 8 games, made it into the championship and lost (sad but awesome job). Anyways, I was here and everyone was outside for the whopping 95 degrees it ended up getting when testing the streets on Sunday during Hoopfest they found that these poor ballers were pounding 135 degree pavement!!!

After work on Saturday I proceeded out to Mike and Mardells to hang out and wait for my friend Sara to arrive from Eugene. She came to visit for the week and we are headed to their cabin on Lake Pend Orielle (pronounced Ponderey) for the 4th!!! We will be spending 3 days out on the lake WOO HOO!!! I ate dinner and spent the night at Mike & Mardells then the next morning I got to see my first black German Shorthair Pointer that was actually imported from Germany. Her name was Belle and she is 4 months old. A lot different looking than the Shorthairs over here!!! After meeting Belle we got ready and drove up to Greenbluf for Strawberry Picking http://www.greenbluffgrowers.com/. After 2 hours of picking we had about 20 lbs of strawberries!! We walked over to pay and found a $20 on the ground and NO ONE around, no one's cash register was missing money so we decided to use it for ourselves; Our 20 lbs of Strawberries only cost 1.56... WHAT A DEAL!!!

We headed from there to an italian farm where they are growing wine grapes AND have a catering-pick/up business. I bought some AMAZING minestrone soup 32 oz for just $5 and Mardell bought some Meat Lasagna; 3 servings for just $7. I'm definitely going back there for more stuff soon. After there we headed to Townshend Winery http://www.townshendcellar.com/ which wasn't open yet so we proceeded to Arbor Crest. AMAZING!!! Their wine was alright (Trying the $12 glass next time, maybe it'll be better being the priciest wine on their list) but the grounds were beautiful. It's a historical landmark in Spokane and a place I am definitely taking anyone to who comes to visit me; the man who lived there was like a billonaire back in the day and has built up all this amazing stone into fun places to sit, eat, drink, and view the local beautiful river and landscape (I could see my apartment from there)... again, AMAZING: http://www.arborcrest.com/ and http://www.avalonwine.com/ArborCrest.htm.

We then proceeded to Latah Creek winery http://www.latahcreek.com/ which was right by my place. I've been there before but have only tasted a few wines there. This time we tasted their Maywine and if you can pick it up at your local store for a girls weekend I would definitely recommend it!!! Super good with Strawberries, fruity, sweet but not too sweet (I hate sweet wine and I loved this); we all picked up a bottle! Another great wine that I picked up this last Christmas and will be stocking up on soon (before they run out) was their limited edition Petit Verdot, a very smooth red... yummy, a definite christmas hit!!!

After having our share of wine tastes we left Latah Creek and went back to Mike and Mardells. We brought out all the strawberries (I went and got Sofie from the kennels in the back yard), we collected recipes and spent the rest of the day making Strawberry Jam, Crisp, Pie, Dipped strawberries in chocolate, and finally we cut some up for freezing. It was quite a strawberry filled day. MY first ever strawberry pie was made and here is the pic of it:

Well that is all for now, stay posted for pics of the Lake and our fun Hike on Friday at Schweitzer Mountain - Sofie's first hike... 1 step closer to her own pack :-)