Donna's birthday celebration...

For Donna's birthday, the whole family gathered at the golf club on Sunday night, to celebrate.  In addition to the family, Lee and I and April were also there.  Karl wasn't feeling well, so he wasn't able to make it.

We had our own room to celebrate in, and there were 15 adults and 5 children there!  Lee and I felt right at home with the joyous chaos all around!

Sunday night is a pasta buffet at the club, and we all enjoyed the variety of pastas, salads, meats and desserts available.  The kids all ate really well, enjoyed dessert, and then had a great time playing.  The 5 of them are ages 8 down to just over a year, and they had a blast!

Donna's niece and nephews and their families gave her a Nook book, complete with cover and little light!  Now she's all set to download books and read to her hearts content!

it was great fun to be a part of this family celebration.  I was reminded that Donna was a part of our family celebrations when we had just 5 grandchildren.  Very special!

Happy birthday, Donna!

Donna's brother, Jim, giving the birthday toast!

Donna and Claire (Jim's daughter) listen to the toast - I think Donna is a bit misty-eyed!

Katherine, age 8 and Ava, age 7 - Donna's great nieces

Hungry kids!  Starting at the end is Joshua, then Steven Jr., Andrew, Katherine and Ava

Claire, with her youngest son, Joshua, and Steven, with his youngest, Steven Jr.  Andrew is Claire's son as well

Claire

Steven, with Donna's aunt Annu

Jim Prisco - the patriarch!

Andrew, enjoying his ice cream!

Donna's brother, Jim

Donna's Dad, and her nephew, Philip

Kristen - Steven's wife.  They are expecting twins in January, to round out their family.  Sister Ava and brother Steven Jr. are very excited.

Joshua "hi-fives" Lee!  He's adorable - reminded both of us of Nick!

Phil and Jennifer are expecting their first child in December!  The family is growing!

Donna opening gifts, with help from Ava, Steven, Andrew and Katherine

Katherine, with her juice in a wine glass!  She thought that was pretty cool!

Gathering for a family picture!  It's not easy!

There we go!  From the left, Aunt Annu and Uncle Ralph, Donna with Katherine, Kristen, Steven, Steven Jr. Jim, Claire, Joshua and Matt, Mary Jane, Jennifer, Philip, Ava, Andrew and Jim (Donna's brother) 

And another shot - same cast, without the wine glass in front of Andrew, but in this one Kristen is behind Donna.

Uncle Ralph and Aunt Annu

Happy Birthday, Donna!  And it's not even your birthday yet - we'll be in New York City for that!!  And thanks for letting us be a part of an amazing evening!

Madison, New Jersey...

On September 30, we went to visit Donna in New Jersey!  For some reason, this is the first time we've visited her in a very long time! 

We flew on Delta, with a connecting flight in Detroit, and got into Newark about 8:00.  Donna picked us up at the airport, and we went to Madison, NJ, where Donna is staying with her Dad, Jim Prisco.

On Saturday we had a leisurely morning visiting, then in the afternoon April came over and we walked downtown to the Bottle Hill Festival.  The Madison area was called Bottle Hill early on, only I don't remember why.

The weather was a bit drizzly, but we had a nice walk and had lunch downtown.  Lots of fun!!

On Saturday night we went to April's for dinner!  April's husband, Karl, goes fishing in Alaska every year, and we had fabulous, fresh-caught salmon, which Karl fixed on the grill, along with steaks.  What a feast!

It's great to be in New Jersey!

Some of the Madison architecture.  There is a lot of stone work there.

The train station - commuters take the train into New York every day

The Library

Bottle Hill festival

The car show that was held at the festival

What a great day!  And now that we are firmly on this time zone, we're ready for Donna's birthday celebration tomorrow!

Celebrating our anniversary in Calistoga

For our 9th wedding anniversary, we decided to spend a few days in Calistoga, our favorite wine country get-away!  We stayed at Washington Street Lodging in our favorite cottage, and took advantage of the amazing weather to do some wine tasting, wandering about and enjoying the deck outside of our cottage.

We picked a few wineries to visit, ones that we had not visited before, so that was fun.  We stopped at Cline Cellars on our way to Calistoga on Tuesday.  They are located in Sonoma and had some great wines.  They also have a great picnic, so we enjoyed lunch there.

Other wineries that we visited were Peju, B Cellars; and Cuvaison.  The tasting experience at B Cellars was quite different - you took a seat in their rocking chairs, and they brought you the different wines to try, as well as a plate of appetizers to share!  All of their wines are blends, and were very good.

We spent some time wandering through St. Helena.  That's where I discovered Goodman's Department store, which has the largest stock of "Life Is Good" items I've ever seen!  Needles to say, my wardrobe got augmented there!

We had our anniversary dinner at Boskos - our favorite Italian restaurant in Calistoga.  We took a bottle of wine that Celeste had give us, which was fabulous!  We both enjoyed the risotto (YUM!!) and had a very enjoyable and leisurely dinner.  And, our wonderful waitress didn't even charge us the corkage fee! 

Happy Anniversary to us!

Some of the architecture in St. Helena

 

The entrance to Peju Winery

 

The grounds at Peju.  I think that we enjoy the wineries grounds almost as much as we do the wine!

 

Lee, with the Peju fountains

 

Pat, with one of the many sculptures on the grounds

 

Full, happy people!  And we were able to wander back down the street to our cottage!

Nine wonderful years of marriage!  Can't wait to see where we will be for our 10th anniversary!

Our last day in the Rapid City area and some family photos

On Friday we stayed pretty close to home.  We did take a drive to Hill City and visited some wineries there!  On the way we drove by Mount Rushmore!  That is a must see, no matter how many times you visit.

As you can see, it was another beautiful, sunny day.  We visited three wineries and did some tasting.

Friday night we met Susie, Dan and Clay at a restaurant in Rapid City for a "farewell" dinner.

We had such a great time!  Thanks, you guys for a wonderful visit!!

Mount Rushmore

Washington, in profile

 

The Prairie Berry Winery was our favorite!  We tasted lots of wines, and had lunch there, as well.  Our favorite red wine was the Three Rednecks!

Here is Miss Princess!  I don't think that she was very happy with us, as we left her home nearly every day!

 

Vivian, Sue and Dan, at Sue and Dan's house

 

Sue, Clay and Dan

Devil's Tower

On Thursday we ventured into Wyoming to visit Devils Tower National Monument.  It was about 90 minutes from Rapid City, and another beautiful drive!  Devils Tower was our first National Monument, designated in 1906 by Teddy Roosevelt, and it's just amazing!  The tower was featured in the movie "Close Encounters of the Third Kind".

Devil's Tower rises 1,267 ft. about the Belle Fourche river, and was created by a volcanic uprising that cooled quickly, resulting in columns that are virtually all the same size. 

We were able to listen to the Ranger talk about the tower, and then after our picnic lunch, we walked all around it.  It was pretty darned amazing!  And even more amazing were the people who felt that they had to CLIMB this sheer rock face!  We spent a lot of time, gazing up in awe, and listening to fellow hikers mirror our thoughts - "they're crazy!!"

On the way home, we stopped by Belle Fourche - which happens to be the geographical center of the nation!  We were very skeptical of this claim, since looking at a map of the US shows that Belle Fourche isn't in the middle, but, apparently when you factor in Hawaii and Alaska, it is!

Devil's Tower

Wyoming red rock mountains

The tower from the visitor center

On our hike around the Tower

Another view

The forest around the tower



We went to "hyper zoom" to get this shot of the crazy climbers!

And here's another one - hanging out in space!  We counted 15 climbers on the tower.

Expand this picture - there are more climbers here.

The tower is on Indian ground and is sacred for them.  These cloths and bundles are put there by the Indians, asking for blessings or offering prayers for loved ones.  Once you started looking for them, they were all around the tower

This is the "Circle of Sacred Smoke" sculpture, which is located at the Interpretive center.  If you stand in the right place, the sculpture frames the tower

Actually the true geographical center of the nation is about 20 miles from Belle Fourche, out in the middle of nowhere!  The monument is here, because it's the closest town to the center.

Pretty amazing!

What a fabulous day!  Vivian is the BEST tour guide in all of South Dakota!!