Mom's Birthday Celebration

I realized last year that in my lifetime, I had never really planned anything for my mom's birthday before. But looking back on all the amazing parties she's thrown for me during the years, including the planning and help surrounding my wedding last year, my sister and I felt it was due time to pay her back and do something for her. Not to mention, my mom needed a pick-me up after a difficult year of changing schools where she worked, and taking care of my grandma in her finals days. (This is not to diminish my dad's contributions and stress he's been under too! He deserves a huge thank you just as much as my mom.)

So with my mom's impending birthday, a few weeks ago my dad, sister, and I sent her this:

After a really tough year
a new one's begun
And we want to make sure
you have lots of fun

Your birthday is near
and we want to you know
you shouldn't plan a thing
we'll run the show

So kick back and relax
we've taken care of it all
Reserve September 15th
we hope you'll have a ball!

And so, that was all my mom knew.  She was told to be ready by 2:00 and we'd take care of it from there. We had a "light" (is it light if you overeat?) lunch of bread, grapes, cheese, and shrimp cocktail at my sister's place and then began our day by heading out to Pinnacle Ridge Winery for some wine tasting!

We bought three bottles of wine here! I made sure to bring plenty of (personalized) water bottles along so we wouldn't get too loopy or dehydrated at the wineries:

With her actual birthdate instead of the 15th

After that, we headed over to Clover Hill Winery for some more tasting! We liked this place much better. It was prettier, larger, and had a better selection of wine.

 

The Family :)

We knew that two wineries would be enough wine tasting for my mom...she's a lightweight. We had a little time to kill before our dinner reservation, so we headed over to Grim's Greenhouse Farm Market which was right across the street. I just love places like this in the Fall!

We had dinner reservations at The Grille at the Bear Creek Mountain Resort and Conference Center. My mom was super surprised when her good friends started to arrive with gifts in hand! Below, Beth (in blue), is showing off her "Bear Creek Mountain" t-shirt, compliments of the restaurant. What I didn't catch on camera was the waitress spilling an entire tray of drinks at our table, and onto Beth (who was wearing a white blouse no less) when we arrived. It was a bit of a scene, but the waitress and restaurant handled it really well and will reimburse Beth for any cleaning or replacement of her white blouse.

 

After our amazing dinner...

My sister, Melissa, enjoying her burger

My mom made an impromptu speech thanking everyone for being there and surprising her

And then the gift opening began...

The restaurant manager and hostess even brought these flowers to my mom because she mentioned she liked them when we arrived! The restaurant was a fantastic place, I couldn't have been happier with the service and the food, even despite the little drink mishap!

To close out the night, we headed back to my sister's house for cake and ice cream!

Mom showing off her new apron

My husband is very helpful :)
Carrying all her gifts to the car!

We ordered a Chocolate with Peanut Butter Cream cake from Emmaus Bakery, and it was delicious. I had always heard that this bakery was amazing, and now I can say that I agree!

All in all it was a successful day, and everything went mostly how we hoped it would go! Most importantly, my mom had an awesome time, and that's all we could have hoped for.

Happy Birthday to a loving and deserving Mom, we love you very much!

Flowers from her friends, Christine and Jim's, garden

Day-Drinking with the Parents: A day on Long Island

Last week my parents and I took a day to head 2 hours out on Long Island to explore their wineries. With my dad as the DD for the day, we were ready to sample some wines, and pig out on our packed picnic of meat, cheese, bread and chips for the day! If you had told me years ago that I'd spend a day day-drinking with my parents...well I wouldn't have believed you. And yet...here we were...

Our first stop was Bedell Cellars Winery, a cute little place. We were hungry when we got there, so we snacked on some cheese and bread in the back of the car (we later realized we should have gone to their nice outdoor patio!)

Bedell's wines tended to be drier than my mom and I like, so we didn't fall in love with any of these wines, but we enjoyed ourselves non-the-less. Plus, we were just getting started. They did have some neat sitting areas overlooking the barrel rooms.

Our next stop was right down the street at Raphael, this was our favorite winery of the day. If you look closely, you can see my mom and dad here:

The entrance was so beautiful, inviting, and very Tuscan. We walked into a gorgeous space with hanging chandeliers which immediately caught our attention. Off of the main room, they had private party spaces and a gift shop.

My mom and I loooved the woman who helped us out...Carol? Cathy? Luann?? Obviously, at this point we had sampled 8 wines, sooo I don't remember what the heck her names was!

We sat out on their back patio for at least 45 minutes eating more of our packed salami, cheese and bread and drinking a bottle of their 2011 White La Tavola! you can certainly see the flushed look of wine-drinking on my cheeks here! (also: why is my dress so SHEER??!)

Our next stop was Duck Walk Vineyards where our good friends, Chris and Corinne, will be getting married next year! I've been to a Duck Walk winery before, but not this one. One of my all-time favorite wines is their boysenberry dessert wine and I couldn't help but buy a bottle before leaving! It's sooooo good!

 Our lady-helper. We each bought two bottles of wine here: Boysenberry, and one of their reds.

Cute Fishy!!

Our last stop of the day was Sparkling Pointe - the place where our friends, Chris and Corinne, got engaged! They serve only sparkling wine, which wasn't really my mom's thing...but I highly enjoyed closing out our day with some bubbly...or champs (pronounced "Shamps"), if you will. I also enjoyed the set-up here, sitting out on the grass directly next to the grape vines! I'm so one with nature! ;)

It was at this point that Mom and I started to get goofy...I mean, this was our 4th winery of the day...

On the way out of town, we stopped at a farmer's market for some fresh produce to make for dinner the next night.

We ate dinner at a place called Dark Horse Restaurant in Riverhead, where I had a lobster roll, my dad got a kobe beef burger and mom ordered stew.

I didn't feel so great the next day..which kinda sucked., but it was worth it for a day of spending time (and drinking) with the Parentals!!