Our Weekend Getaway

It was our TEN year anniversary this year.

And here's our story...

Eric proposed to me under the Century Tree at Texas A&M University on March 31, 2000

We were married 1 1/2 months later on Friday MAY 19, 2000. I remember it was a friday because when you only have about 45 days to plan a wedding your choices of venue are limited. Everywhere was booked on saturday (it was May--EVERYONE gets married in May), but we were finally lucky enough to find a place that had an opening on FRIDAY. THAT is how a devout Mormon, non-drinking couple got married at a WINERY! :)

We were married at MESSINA HOF WINERY in College Sattion (well Bryan actually) ;. It was a beautiful place, and a beautiful ceremony! But as soon as the photographer took the last photo, it POURED!!! (The worst flooding in Houston in the last 50 years) We however were dry and safe inside the reception...though I did slip and fall down the stairs going to the limo--oops!

Shortly after the Honey Moon, less than a month, Eric left for the summer to finish his Master's Degree in AUSTRALIA! :( We were soo love sick and spent hundreds of dollars on phone cards. When he got back he told me how BEAUTIFUL it was and vowed that he would take me back there on our TEN YEAR ANNIVERSARY!!!

Dinner

Oh the foolish dreams of childhood...little did we know that we would have 5 kids, a job that would not allow a long vacation and the expense of the trip now seems a little extravagant. Since we have frequent flyer miles and free hotel stays, we thought Hawaii would be a nice alternative. Oh did I say "we"? I meant I! Eric felt the trip would have to be several days to justify the long flight, AND it would be hard to get back if the kids needed us...:( BUT there is always the Bahamas!!! We LOVE the Bahamas! And the flight is a quick one! But alas, it was not to be, there were NO flights available at on the day we needed to fly home...we could get there, but we couldn't get back (and YES that is a problem). So choice number 4! We went to College Station for the weekend!!! Australia, College Station, Australia, College Station...Now don't get me wrong, you would be hard pressed to find a more maroon bleeding, horn sawing, whooping and humpin, Aggie out there, but for a Ten Year Anniversary?

We booked a weekend getaway at Messina Hof Whinery, strolled down memory lane, and relaxed our way into the very best anniversary we could've had!

A photo op with the owner of the winery/vineyard--quite a friendly and excentric guy! He chatted with us for about 15 minutes at dinner

The Vineyard

This pic was taken from the upstairs where we had our wedding reception.

This is the little Bed and Breakfast at Messina Hof where we stayed.

Our room was the "Antoinette", it was soo fun! It was very antiquely decorated--Eric said it was like staying at a grandma's house. :) This was where Eric's parents stayed the night of our wedding, the bridal party all got ready in their room. We got to sleep in every morning because breakfast wasn't served until 8:30am. We had a delicious breakfast each morning with the other couples staying there. The bed and breakfast thing is kinda neat.

Me displaying the cute little grape cluster in the vineyard

Eric posing with the wine barrels.

With our stay we got a free tour and wine tasting...it was free so we couldn't pass it up! It was fun and an interesting tour--we took the last tour of the day and our guide had been through quite a few wine tasting already that day so he was quite interesting! The tasting was very educational, I had no idea there were so many categories of wine, and different ways of tasting each--oh yeah, that's probably because I don't drink wine!!! They gave up glasses of sparkling grape juice, and we got to keep the wine glasses (bonus).

The guide told us about all the CRAZY/DRUNK turtles in the pond, I thought "um, crazy/drunk guide", but the next day we walked by the pond, and YES! It was full of CRAZY turtles...

I have never seen anything like it1 I was just stand ing by the pond, no food, no sign of turtles, and within 2 minutes about 100 turtle heads popped up and started swimming toward us! But they didn't stop at the bank, they just kept coming!!!! They climbed right out of the water, all over each other and right for us!!!

Our little weekend getaway was just right! Very low key, very relaxing, and very close to home--just in case. Eric's parents had the girls, mine had the boys, and we had a BLAST! Perhaps Australia for number FIFTEEN?