Bridgeview Winery

One thing that really surprised us as we were driving into Grants Pass last September

were the amount of wineries that we drove past! Apparently our climate here is ideal

for growing and harvesting grapes for wine!

The Boys & Girls Clubs are very event heavy (meaning they throw a lot of fundraisers)

and several of the events take place at the wineries in the area. We had an event

scheduled at Bridgeview Winery in Cave Junction (that was eventually postponed

due to the heavy smoke from our recent fires). On one of our trips out to Cave Junction

to visit our Club out there, we stopped by the Winery so that I could get a feel for the

layout and and idea of what the event would be like! I just happened to have my

camera with me because I was taking pictures of the Club we had just visited

so I pulled it out and snapped some pictures of the gorgeous vineyard and winery!

Random July Fun {2013}

Wow! It's the middle of August already? Where did the time go?

Well - here's what we did through July ...

We got to hang out with these handsome dudes on our fridge all month!

Aren't they all adorable and handsome?

One of my tasks at work in July was to get the kiddos to decorate these

thank you 'cards' that we took to our local Staples for the Staples for Students Campaign!

(BTW, it's not too late for you to support your local B&G Clubs - Staples is running

this Campaign through September - every $ donated will go to their local Clubs - how AWESOME!)

We planted a few more things into our 'garden' and got really excited when we saw this cucumber ...

Our tree in our front 'yard' bloomed with these GORGEOUS pink flowers!

Seriously - it is beautiful!!

We tried out the 'Train Depot' for lunch where I had the BEST Monte Cristo (sans the ham)

that I've EVER had! The bread they used was cooked up as French Toast and instead of Jam

they had a strawberry sauce ... mmm ... my mouth might be watering just thinking about it ...

Rascal continued to be cute ... she's really slowing down a lot but tends to flop down

in front of our feet whenever we walk into a room so that we'll rub her head and

back with our toes ... when we stop, she looks at us like this:

I am REALLY enjoying my job! I fall in love with a little more every day - because I get things like this

from the adorable kiddos that we work with:

I also took on the title of 'Safety Manager' and one of my tasks was to put together new

First Aid Kits for for each of our Clubs ...

 

We found this AWESOME licorice at our local Walgreens ...

 

I shot my first wedding here in Grants Pass and it was marvelous ...

Nate crashed the wedding when he got off work and we took a turn in the photo booth:

We snuggled lots ...

And then the fires started ... oh the fires ... they started at the end of July from lightening strikes

and they are STILL burning. The fires are between 20-30 miles away from us, but the wind flow

caused the smoke from the fire to sit right above the valley ... when the fires first started I took

these pictures because the sunset was so beautiful ...

But within a day of taking those pictures, Grants Pass looked like this (and it lingered through the first few weeks in August ...)

Our Air Quality Index was listed as hazardous for several days, and then it moved to unhealthy ...

We were stuck indoors for several weeks and we bought some masks to wear when we had to be 

outside for more than a minute or so at a time ... (as of this post on August 12th, the fires are STILL raging, but over the weekend we had a beautiful rainstorm that cleared out the smoke for a few days ... I hear it's heading back in to the valley, but we were grateful for the short reprieve).

We harvested some cucumbers and A little biddy carrot ...

Our July was pretty low key and smelly, but we survived the smoke

and just keep hoping and praying that these fires burn out soon!!

... Our Day in Eugene ...

Several Saturday's ago (I know, I'm behind on blogging) we loaded up

and made the 2 hour drive to Eugene to spend the day with Carl, Lynnette & Tomas!!

We were SO excited to see them all and we were SO excited to go to Jimmy John's,

one of the (MANY) restaurants that we loved in Logan that is not in Grants Pass!

We met up with Tomas at his awesome bachelor pad, then met up with Carl & Lynnette

for lunch, where we had the most delicious sandwiches!! :)

After lunch, we headed over to the very large and very populated Saturday market!

We wandered around, listened to the awesome drummer's circle,

I got suckered into buying a necklace from an adorable little girl

and we chatted and caught up! The weather was perfect and we had a great time walking around!

 

Since we were downtown, we made a stop at the famous Voodoo Doughnut shop!

We had a great time giggling at all the different doughnut names and even got to see some of

those doughnuts in person (if you're looking for a good time, just go to their website and

have a look around their doughnuts ... you'll see why!! :)

 

 

We stashed our doughnuts in the back since we were all still full from our delicious

sandwiches and drove up to Skinner Butte and got a birds eye view and tour of Eugene from Tomas -
he's lived there for several years now and really seems to love it there!!

 

We also took some time and drove down to the Willamette River and walked along the bridge!
Tomas had the audacity to challenge the beautiful - ness of our bridges in Grants Pass,

but this one came pretty close - it was such a gorgeous day!!

We also walked along the trail to a little duck pond, but the ducks seemed to be missing!!

We finished up our day in Eugene with a stop at Papa's Soul Food Kitchen!!

It was an adorable little place that served up some delicious southern style bbq!!

After our bellies were full, we headed back to the bachelor pad to chat for a little while

longer and eat our super yummy and sweet doughnuts before we had to head back!

We had such a wonderful day in Eugene and it was SO great to have some family time -

we wished it were a few days longer, but we were grateful to have the time that we did!!