Wine Fest, Greg's Birthday, and friends' visit

Wine Fest was a blast. My friends Melanie and Benji arrived Friday afternoon and we hit the road for Hilton Head shortly after they got to Charlotte. We got to HHI (Hilton Head Island) that evening and went to a Wine Bar with my parents (where else?!) to kick off the festivities. Several lovely glasses of wine and much excellent fancy salad and flatbread was consumed by all. Saturday morning the weather was glorious and we all excitedly made our way to the festival to enjoy the WINE.

So many great vineyards were there. Melanie and I were drinking partners and would each get tastes of something different then have part of the taste and switch. This was meant to help us pace ourselves better. There were so many delicious wines! One called LOST, was only $4 a bottle- and it was great! I tried an almond flavored champagne that was really yummy.

I even had coffee and chocolate infused wine that was interesting and better than I thought it would be! There were too many good Pinot Noirs, Cabernets, Pinot Grigios and Reislings to count- it was heavenly. As a rule of thumb (which I learned from my parents), anything Russian River Valley or Paso Robles (both are regions in California) are usually excellent. There were quite a few Paso Robles wines there. Some were even special reserves like the ones at J.Lohr. Yum!

I had a blast and thought I did pretty good pacing myself, until I got home and crashed! I had a three hour nap (which is a lot for me, considering I never nap!). What a great day though :)
Sunday, Mom, Melanie, and I got up and went to the Westin Spa for massages I had booked for us while Benji and my dad played golf. The massages were great and we did a quick walk on the beach after. It was pretty cold, so we didn't stay out on the beach that long. We all met up at my parents' house after and then had a seafood lunch on the island before Benji, Melanie, and I headed back to Charlotte to see Greg and Clyde and celebrate Greg's birthday before he left town. I made Greg a birthday cake when we got back and we had some Donato's pizza and a salad for dinner. I always make Greg the same cake every year: Chocolate Cake with chocolate pudding between the layers, then frost the cake with Cool Whip and sprinkle crushed Heath Bar pieces on top. It's easy and so good! Melanie and Benji had a good time playing with Clyde. They fell in love with him just like everyone does :)
Yesterday we saw Greg off at the airport as he headed off to Memphis for training with his new airline. I got very teary since we don't know when we'll see each other next. I'm hoping visits will work out while he's gone, but we kind of don't know how his schedule will be while he's in training yet.
I was glad my friends were visiting to distract me from being sad after he left. We went to World Market to browse, then to The Flying Saucer which is this very cool bar and restaurant with like 200 different kinds of beer. Benji was in heaven. If you register with the bar you can try to eventually try every beer they have there and once you do you get a saucer with your name on it on the wall. This is something I would never attempt! The saucers all have quotes on them too. I saw a good one, "Don't tell my mom I'm a pilot. She thinks I play the piano at a whorehouse"! Haha! Love that!
We finished our visit with a trip through Ikea. I made it out with two items for Clyde- a dog tent and flamingo toy, some green cocktail napkins, and a new flour sifter since mine has not worked right in quite some time. Good finds and not too much damage done. It was a great weekend and I hated for it to end. The only bad part was that Greg didn't come to HHI with us, but I think he was glad he stayed behind to finish up all the stuff he wanted to do before he left for Memphis.
I miss him already :(