Sunshine and Spreadsheets: fredericksburg.

On Saturday, H and I made the drive out to the quirky little German town of Fredericksburg. I've grown up going out to Fredericksburg at least once a year, either with family or for a few school field-trips. I'll actually be going out there again next month for our Strategic Planning meetings for work. But Saturday was purely for fun. We got there around 2, so we had a late lunch at a German restaurant/biergarten (of course) and then walked around Main Street and stopped in a few shops. I made some fun purchases in 2 of the shops - an alarm clock (that might actually make me get out of bed) and some new sandals/flats (both seen here). I've decided I can't wear the cute little one strap sandals that everyone is wearing right now, so these are a fun compromise. Anyways, after we walked around and pretty much melted completely, we stopped in a candy store to get something to drink and then took off down the road back towards Austin. Along the way though, there are some wineries that coincidentally, I've been to before on a fun little trip a few Christmases ago when I got to drive the family around on a wine tour because I wasn't 21, yet. Yay, me! No, it was actually really fun. But I've already said that next time, we're getting a limo or a driver or something. But since I don't know when that will be, I decided I wanted to try a couple of them on this trip. We decided to stop at Grape Creek and Becker. I'm pretty sure I've had wines from both places before and I remembered hearing good things about both of them from my family. We stopped at Grape Creek first because it was one of the first ones on the way out of town. The tasting room was jam packed when we got there, so we took it as a good sign. We got to try 6 different wines and our server was nice and let us try one more - a port. Not my favorite. They were all pretty good and H chose his favorite and bought a bottle. Next, we drove down to Becker, which is off the main road a little ways. The tasting room there was also really busy, but we found a spot to squeeze in at the counter and had 6 more tastes. We both decided we liked Becker a little more than Grape Creek. I chose my favorite at Becker and bought a bottle to take home. Both places also gave us a glass to take home, which was nice. After our tastes at Becker, we sat down for a little while outside on the patio. Luckily, they had misters going so it was actually pretty nice. After taking a breather (I could have probably taken a nap at this point), we headed off towards Austin again. On the way into Fredericksburg, we also saw a bunch of fruit stands where they were selling peaches (Fredericksburg is kind of famous for their peaches) and quite a few with signs saying they had homemade peach ice cream. SOLD. Sadly, the place we stopped at was out of peaches (say what?) but they did have some nice looking tomatoes and of course, peach ice cream. Overall, it was a really fun day. From singing really really loud in the car (have I mentioned H is slightly tone deaf...) to ducking into shops just to get out of the heat (riiiight) to getting to taste some Texas wine - I loved every minute. But the next trip will definitely be when it's not 107 degrees outside. Is it October, yet?