the beautiful north...

Recently I was lucky enough to go on another girls weekend

with some of my favorite girls...

my sisters.

I only wish that all of them lived close enough 

to join in the fun.

we would have made room in the 

'must visit' phone booth!

Our stay at my SIL's parents cabin was fabulous!

Here is the view from the living room...

heaven.

Lake Michigan is gorgeous

in every season.

What used to be cherry orchards and farm land has now

a vast amount of excellent vineyards.

...So we went to a few

MANY

wineries.

MANY.

here is the run down of some of the ones that we went to...

Really, something for everyone!

I fell in love with this little old school house one,

the theme of all of their wine was about a school house.

I'm going to apologize now,

right up front,

I do not remember the names of most of the places we visited.

Although that has NOTHING to do with

wine tastings...

MANY.

They are scattered all up and down
the peninsulas.

Black Star Farms

(I only remember this because we went there last time!)

Thanks for the fun girls!

This one is the newest and has won many awards for their wine.
The whole decor was very contemporary with a focus on the view,
they built it on top of the tallest hill on the vineyard.
perfection.

It was the last one of the day and 

oh my gosh, I could work here,

if just for the view!

Those huge windows are actually doors

that open up to a patio for wine tastings in the summer.

how perfect is that?

ok, this one is called 45

(thanks to that t-shirt for sale!)

They had about 5 of the sweetest dogs

wandering around inside,

waiting for the little oyster crackers that 

they gave us for between wines.

This is the old asylum in Traverse City

that has been converted into

condos and low income housing

with restaurants, boutiques, and a farmers market on the bottom floor.

There was also a winery on the property.

Very beautiful, but I know that I couldn't live here...

all I could think of was some of the awful movies

about places like this.

way too eerie for me.

We did eat in the Cellar Restaurant there

and it was fabulous and we went to the

winery and that was awesome too.

We also visited the old fishing village...

but we were the only visitors!

That's what happens when you go up north

Michigan in March!

I wish I was a better tour guide and could remember the

names of the wineries, but honestly

all of the wine was delicious and if you are the

level 1 of wine connoisseur like I am

then you will be fine at all of them!

Just get yourself a map of the wineries on

the Leelanau Peninsula and you will be fine.

Now as much fun as we had tasting, and 

staying up late laughing and 

conquering world problems,

one of the highlights of the trip had to be this lady...

Our Aunt Virg,

last remaining sibling of my moms,

84 years young with the ability to make us

laugh so hard that my face hurt when I left her!

She is doing her diva pose for us as we pulled away.

love. her.

Now how do you top a weekend like that?

I'll tell you how...

You get dropped off at the movie theatre to meet your family

to see 

OZ the Great and Powerful

because if you stay til the end,

then you see what for me was the best part of the movie...

see that name, 4th one down?

...yup, that's our girl!!

and then to add more pleasure to the day,

we picked up our copy of the NY Times...

NY Times, T.mag

...yup, that's our boy!!

That's going to be a tough weekend to top!

wish me luck,

tomorrow's Saturday and my day will

be spent grocery shopping.

I don't think it's going to cut it.

Have yourself a fabulous weekend!

love,

t.xoxoxoxo