good old fashioned family fun

The happy family: one sleeping Bjorned baby (phew!) and a two year-old terrorizing the tasting room.

The idea was not mine but I jumped on it: spend an afternoon with the kids at a local winery. Why hadn't I thought of that? My sister--who also has a two year-old and a new baby at home--lives in Virginia and she and her husband took their girls to a winery there a couple Saturdays ago. She called me a little tipsy after two glasses of wine (what is it about drinking in the afternoon that does that to you?) and sold me on the idea. Beautiful weather, wine, a picnic lunch, plenty of open space for the kids to run around--what better way to spend a summer afternoon?

I spent the next week researching wineries in North Carolina (I had no idea there were so many within an hour's drive of us) and finally settled on Childress Vineyards, which seemed to offer the perfect combination of tasting, tours, food and distance from Charlotte. In addition, it has ties to NASCAR and since Alex has been working for them this summer, I knew he'd be sold on the idea. Then I let everyone know the plan and, channeling my inner Clark W. Griswold, I started saying things like "we're going to a winery on Saturday and we're all going to have a great time!"

On Friday afternoon, Scout and I made a trip to Trader Joe's to load up on all the essentials for a family picnic--bread, cheese, grapes--and I printed out directions for our little adventure. Saturday morning rolled around and I was ready to go. I had imagined getting out of the house by 10:00am to be the first guests at the winery when it opened at 11:00, but (in real life) we didn't pull out of the driveway until 11:43. After taking the wrong exit and doing a little loop-de-loop around the winery, we finally made it there shortly after 1:00pm. The kids were hungry, and I was ready for a glass of wine. Oh, and it was about 95 degrees outside.

I had left the actual packing of the cooler to my husband before we left the house, so when we found a table outside and began preparing the provisions, I saw that in addition to the bread, cheese and grapes I had planned for the occasion, Alex had packed chips and salsa, granola bars, goldfish, crackers, Gatorade, two empty thermoses (not sure what we were doing with those), another cheese and another cheese, clementines, cookies, salted almonds, chili-spiced dried mango and a partridge in a pear tree. I'm glad that he's always prepared, but I was less than thrilled with the over-packing when lunch was finished and I had to trek everything back to the car (in the blazing sun) while Alex went man-to-man keeping Catcher under control. I hadn't had my wine yet.

After two diaper changes and a quick feeding for Scout we were finally ready for the tasting. Inside the tasting room is where Catcher's personality came to life. He was running around the room yelling "Honey! Honey!" to get Alex's attention (he hears me calling Alex honey, and our subsequent laughter only urged him to continue) and climbing on tables staged with elaborate wine displays. It's a miracle nothing was broken during the mayhem, and bless the woman who was stuck pouring wine for the Wheats that afternoon.

After taking turns chasing Catcher, I would've been happy tasting Boone's Farm wine. But as it turns out, we did try some decent wines and ended up spending $50 on two bottles (we also got free souvenir glasses, so it was worth it). All in all it was a fun day, but as Alex and I reminisced about our trip to Napa a few years ago on the drive home, we decided that wine tasting is better left as an adult-only activity.

Please keep Catcher occupied while I finish my wine tasting. Thanks, babe!

Hot, sweaty, tuckered-out two year-old ready for the ride home.