Fredericksburging, days one and two

Memorial Day weekend adventures, go!  We pretty much did a repeat of last year's awesome adventures, just with more awesomeness this time in the form of more awesome people.  Same crew from last year (the Vaughns, who Craig now refers to as "Grianity" in order to capture all of those names efficiently; the Keffers; and the Reynolds, who are + 7/9 one more kiddo this year) plus the Horsleys and the fabulous Dan & Jeremy.  Quite a crew!  Necessitated two house rentals this year - one for the families and one for the childless, which worked out swimmingly well.  Phew, we're a lot of people.

Let's hit the road!  Absolutely mission critical to stop for kolaches in West (Craig and I made this our lunch...AWESOME)...

...and after picking up the keys for our overly adorable house, we met up with the boys and Grianity and hit up winery #1 for the weekend, Messina Hof.  We all did a tasting (well, except for Grace, who really wanted some juice but made do with water and crackers) and then enjoyed a happy hour glass or two while just relaxing and catching up.

Number One in my series of "Trinity's Awesome T-Shirts"

I think The Craig is happiest when toting around a case of wine, I really do

Back to Avery Haus we go!  Quality time in the porch swing with a few high fives thrown in for good measure...

...and summertime sprinkler adventures are ALWAYS a good thing...

...as is dinner at Rathskeller and just relaxing with friends and drinks and PIES.  This year Trinity thought ahead and picked up the pies pretty much immediately upon arrival, so we had friends in the form of German Chocolate and Key Lime and Peach and Cherry hanging out with us all weekend.  So good.

New day, new adventures!  Shopping adventures!  Which means that Jen and I quite obviously need coffee to start the day, so we picked up icy caffeinated cups of goodness while the boys did this...

Beer for breakfast, anyone?  Just look at those smiles.

Oh, boys.  And have you always been able to wander around Fredericksburg with obvious booze in hand?  We didn't remember this being an option last year, but it was also so miserably hot last year that I think we actually wanted to just hydrate.  Curious.  At any rate, I think beer in hand keeps the boys generally happier with shopping adventures, so I'm all for it.  I just love all of the cutesy stores!  And we actually kept our spending pretty much in check, so that's a good thing.

We contemplated a moustache for Gracie...

...and didn't really contemplate adding "cardboard taxidermy" to the list of house decorating ideas, but it's still kinda fun.

Number Two

After a long afternoon of parting with our credit cards and racking up bags of cuteness and deliciousness, our party o' fourteen made it over to Hondo's for dinner where Mike finally got his club sandwich and we ordered enough fried ridiculousness for a small army.  It was awesome.