10 years and still having fun

We had a great trip to south western IL and Hermann, MO. We tried lots of wines and beer. We had great food and alot of fun.

We would highly recommend Forsse Vineyards and Winery in Coffeen, IL Super nice people, wonderful wines and just a great way for us to start our trip.

Next stop Bretz Winery and Lodge in Carlyle, IL. The best thing I can say about this bar is it had Shiner on tap and cool atmosphere. The menu looked good and the place smelled liked cedar. Notice I have said nothing about the wine and for good reason. No good.

The final winery that day was Crooked Creek Winery in Centralia, IL. The winery has been open for 4 years but have been growing grapes for much longer. this may have been one of the best wineries We have ever to. the owners are awesome people and the wines are just superb. Just go here and you will understand. Dinner at Tony Roma's, so-so tomorrow Hermann.

Check out the pictures on my face book page for Mo Wineries. Robiller Winery in New Haven was our first stop. Great wines, great wine pouring person who knew lots of good pairings for the wines. A great place to sit and drink wine

Bommarito Estate in New Haven, MO. This is right up there Crooked Creek, if I had visited just this winery it would have been a perfect day. No longer on the Hermann Wine trail but the best wines we had in MO.

Bias Vineyard and Brewery was old winery in a good way. Wines were good and had some unique offerings. Beer was good but not great. We had lunch here with our beer. Ropp cheese spread and crackers, yummy.

Adam Puchta Winery, oldest winery in the area. great food pairing with wine and maybe the best port I have ever had. I got a bottle of the anniversary port. We were feeling pretty good at this point so $50 bottle of port seemed like a good idea.

Stone Hill Winery, the biggest in MO. his is a excellent tour and you get to learn about the area. Stone Hill wines are available everywhere and mass produce wine is similar to mass produced beer.

We check into Montugues B&B in Hermann. Great BBQ and a great place to stay. We walked over to Tin Mill Brewery and tasted their wares. Good but not great. We had a great meal at Wings a Blazin. Chicken Lips and Fitz's Root Beer just a perfect meal. Stop at Time for Pie and I would have to say crust was too salty.

We got up the next morning and headed to Hermannof Winery and were pretty wined out so we will try them again on the next trip. We then headed to The Swiss Meat and Sausage Co. as seen on Food Network. Carrie discovered she likes brats, who knew. This place is awesome. After getting some brats we headed for home. Every time I get a chance to be alone with my wife, it reminds me how much I love and the fact that we enjoy the same things only makes things sweeter or dryer depending on how you like your wine. Cheers!

Relay fundraiser at Willet's

What a super night and for an awesome cause. Carie and I attended and meet with many friends to enjoys this great evening. We drank a bottle of bottle, a white, I think and enjoys some wonderful food. We brought home a great dry red. We always enjoy Willet and consider one of the best wineries in IL. If you are ever in Manito, be sure to check them out.

First T-Ball Practice

Tyler had his first t-ball practice last night. The Diamondbacks appear to be a solid team. They look to have lots of team speed and good chemistry. Tyler loved being able to wear his new baseball shoes and try out the new glove. As the lone leftie on the team, we are expecting big things from him vs. right handed tees. Emmy's first practice will be this Saturday, this is the sophomore season of t-ball for her, so she should be more ready for the ins and outs of softball t-ball. Emmy was able to get a little work in last night with Tyler after practice. It is looking like a good season in the making for both of these ball players.

That 70s night

Carrie and I got a chance to volunteer at the ACS Gala. This year's theme was the 70s. It was a great night that raise alot of money to help fight cancer

Well it has been a while since our last post but here are some updates. Emmy now was two seasons of indoor soccer under her belt and when she is not dancing or singing is a pretty good player. She really likes to play goalie. Her favorite thing to do at the moment is tumbling class. She love working on cart wheels and back bends. She has gotten really good at controlling her body. Tyler has also finished up a soccer camp. Emmy and Tyler will both be playing t-ball this summer and can not wait.

Christmas Catch Up

It is amazing that Christmas has come and gone once more. It was truely a blessed eent agian this year. The Newman's did some traveling and took lots of pictures. We took the kids to downtown Chciago, they had never been so it was a big deal to them. Christmas week had us visting the cousins in Macomb. family brunch in Peoria and dinner in Dunlap on Chrismas day. Check out all the pictures of the great holiday.

Good Morning America and Dad/Kid's Video Game Day

Well it has been a huge week. I got to be part of the Good Morning America Great American Job Fair in Chicago. There were over 2000 people that attended a job fair that started at 5:00am. People started lining up around 2:30am. When I arrived to finish setting up the booth 300 people are standing in line waiting to get in. The fair was very positive yet some what sad at the same time. There were 60 employers there and each average 3-4 openings. That figures to be only about 240 jobs that 2000 people were hoping for only 12% weer gong to get jobs that day. It makes me very thankful to have a job and it is an added bonus that I work for an awesome company. I did get to see my back on TV for about 3 seconds. No future movie star career from that. 5 was also interviewed by the Chicago Sun Times for about 10 minutes, they took pictures of me and my booth but I think I ended up on the editor's floor. Oh well, it did not take away from the greatness of the event.
This Saturday, with Carrie safety shopping in Chicago with her sister, Emmy, Tyler, and I played video games for six hours. We start our morning with normal breakfast for everyone and then went and rented three new games, 2 for the Wii and 1 for the PS2. We had to get Tyler a haircut which is finally starting to look better and run some errands. We stop and ate and Subway and then headed home for our video game marathon. Tyler got to pick first,since he is the youngest, and chose Carnival Mini Golf. Tyler has this game on his Christmas list so we wanted to try it out. It proved to be a big hit not only with Tyler but everyone else. I would highly recommend this game to anyone, it is very fun. Emmy choice was Petz 2. Emmy also wants this game for Christmas. I could be the stupidest game ever but Emmy liked it. Interesting side note, the bad gut in this game is a wolf and guess who woke up last night with nightmares about a wolf???? Our last game to try was the new Guitar Hero. We had fun playing the guitar and singing along. There is something wonderfully twisted hearing your children sing Joker by Steve Miller. We also pulled out Disney DDR and High School Musical-Sing it! These are tow of our faves that we try to play when we get the chance. Carrie came home to sleeping children and brought us all new stuff from her shopping trip. She will have to get on and talk about that.
Happy Thanksgiving to everyone and God's blessings to you all