Top 3...

Top 3 reasons to work with your mouth closed:

Number 3:  If you work with your mouth open, your co-workers will create "clever" nicknames for you... such as The Fly Catcher  (it's ok... you can laugh... I've accepted it).

Number 2:  If you work with your mouth open, your husband will try to take pictures of your open mouth while you're cooking dinner (luckily, the pictures are mostly blurry!)

And Number 1:  Drywall mud is gritty!

The things we HEART....

There are a few new things in our life that we totally HEART.

The first is our new digs.....
We bought a house last September (we signed for it on the first day of the grape harvest... and if any of you are in the wine industry then I don't need to tell you that Sept 28th was a bit stressful all around!).  It's nestled between two farms, away from the northern Virginia sprawl, and has 0.5 acres of yard.  Totally awesome!!  We Heart it.

The Second thing we HEART is our new friend, Mr. Beck (I like to call him Mr. Becker).  Totally cute!!  He's 8 months old and we rescued him.  He has some Aussie Shepherd (or maybe English Shepherd or Collie... we don't know really) and the rescue group said he's part Bernese, but we don't really see it.  He's really smart and is doing things that a teenager would do... refusing to sleep in his crate for a week (but we make him do it anyways... like good parents), gentle biting when he wants something, and being defiant.  We'll be starting obedience school on May 7, and we're super excited to have a family activity.  We HEART Mr. Beck!

The third thing that we HEART is our new flock of Chickens!!!  I say flock,  but we only have 3.  I haven't snapped a picture yet, but I want you all to know that we received our first actual Easter Egg this past Sunday!  Then we ate it!  Mmmmm....
We Heart Chicken Eggs!!

Contemplation....

Sometimes it's easy to forget the photos that you've taken until your husband wants you to move them from his hard drive to the external drive... then he says to you "There are photos here that are not mine... like this one..." And he shows you this....

R2D2 showed up.....

And he's not looking so good....

Things I didn't know before tying the knot....

As we approach our three year anniversary, it is becomimg apparent that there are facets of Joey that I didn't know about before we got married. And you may say to yourself " Of course, silly! That's what we tried to tell you!" But until you're actually in a marital relationship, you can never fully understand or comprehend the words of advice from the ones who have gone before you. So after three years, I've discovered a few things about Joey that I will share with you here (don't worry... it's all clean stuff).

1. He really enjoys (emphatically) to watch sports! He follows the college and professional football teams, watches the NBA finals (which are happening now), makes every effort to see the World Cup Qualifiers, and catches the tail end of the World Series. He'll watch any game that is a close match-up or between long-standing rivals-- so that also will include tennis, NASCAR, woman's basketball, and golf [at this point he'd like me to tell you he doesn't watch 'AssCar', nor does he watch girls basketball. And rarely does he watch golf, but I've seen it on the TV before in our house]. The new sport that's been on our TV in the last week is hockey. I've never seen him watch hockey before, but it was a close match-up AND between long-standing rivals... the two qualifications that make a game REALLY exciting for him.

When I met him, he didn't really watch sports (as far as I knew), but somewhere between my move to Australia and our wedding, he became an avid fan. I'm waiting patiently for him to be interested in Australian Footy!

2. He has always wanted to ride a motorcycle. It's been a dream of his for his whole life, but I just learned about it over the last year. So recently he took a motorcycle riding class that focuses on defensive driving. Then he got his license. Then he looked on craigslist and bought a motorcycle! He got the gear, too, (helmet, gloves with hard knuckles, and a jacket with smash-proof padding) and now he's ready to go riding!!

He actually bought the bike from a guy that lives down the street from us. It was serendipitous. After he gets a little more experience on the bike, then I'll go riding with him. In the meantime, I'm going to save up for a helmet, and the such.

He's super jazzed about having a motorcycle!! I haven't seen him so happy in a while!! It's a good thing. I'm sure you're curious, though, as to how I feel about all this (because so far, everyone I know has asked me...)... and I'm ok with it all. Joey is taking motorcycle riding very seriously, with great caution, and great care. And he didn't buy a sports bike! I'm confident that he'll be responsible and safe. So there it is.

Funny things around Clos Pegase

Sometimes when I'm at work, I can be easily entertained by small things. (Ok, maybe that's true most of the time!!)

About a month ago, a Transformer arrived at the winery.

He was carrying some glass bottles, but as soon as I emptied him out, he got up and walked away. I didn't get a chance to snap a shot of him as he transformed, but take my word for it... it was spectacular!!

That was during bottling time at the winery. Also during that time, we got a lot of temp employees coming to work on the bottling line. One day, I looked in the fridge and found this cute little lunch pack that someone had brought in... Notice the El Monterey burritos (pre-packaged burritos that you can buy in our area) and the TacoBell Mild sauce! The funniest part for me is the pack of tiny pills in the zipper lock bag... Can you make out the brand of the pills?? I guess that's what you need to bring along when you have pre-packaged White Castle burgers and burritos for lunch!!!

[Ok... if you can't see the words on the pills, they say "Gas-X"!!! It cracks me up!!]

A sport that Karen likes

Joey's really trying to get me interested in playing sports. He took me on a canoeing trip. He bought us some tennis rackets. He wants to take me on a biking trip (so I can test out the bike thing). And he took me to hit golf balls at the driving range. Once.


But there is a sport that I really like and I'm pretty good at. BOWLING!!! I love it. And last weekend Joey and I went to play with some of his co-workers. I was super excited!!! Typically, when Joey and I bowl, I win the first game by a landslide; then Joey wins the second game by about 10-15 points; and I win the third game, but its really close. This time I won all three games!* Joey pouted for a little bit, but he got over it pretty fast.

*Correction, we tied the second game. I'll get even with her...eventually. -JR

Here are some action pics....

Here I am with my lucky ball, Brett! (notice how well my black eye has healed?)

This is about the time that Joey really started losing the game....

Don't worry... I was the DD. Bowling is a serious sport for me... that means NO DRINKING for Karen. I have to keep up my chops!!