Sunday, May 31, 2009

Wine, Wine and More Wine

To celebrate my mom's birthday and Mother's Day, we spent the day at Oliver Winery tasting various wines and drinking several bottles of wine. It was a beautiful day, and we all had a great time. We are so blessed to have such a wonderful family!

After lunch at BJ's Brewhouse, we loaded up the Kia and headed down to B-town.

No, we did not buy a mini-van. It's a rental.

Let the tasting begin!
We really enjoyed all the free wine! We were able to try a variety of wines - I think we liked them all!


After the wine tasting, we made our way down to a picnic bench to enjoy the bottle we purchased. We initially only purchased one bottle to drink, but ended up going back two more times. Yes, we drank 3 bottles between the 5 of us! Thanks to Justin for drinking very little and driving us home!

2 of the 3 bottles we enjoyed. We had the Gewurztraminer, Vignoles, and Pinot Grigio. The Vignoles is my new personal favorite. We even took advantage of the large quantity discount and bought a case to share!


I don't think we could have asked for a better day!

Huge Sandwich

We enjoyed a nice dinner at Muldoon's in Carmel with Michael and Emily.





Breaded tenderloin before.














Breaded tenderloin after.











I think it did a pretty good job on it!

Wednesday, May 27, 2009

Race Day!

We had so much fun this year at the Indy 500 with our friends. With our coolers packed, we made the trip to the track. It was quite an eventful day to say the least. Thank goodness we have some pictures to help us remember it! ;-)

On our way to the track. We had to make a pit stop at a gas station due to Will's leaky cooler. Note the 5L box of sangria that Lindsey carried. The cardboard bottom was wet, and we were all convinced it was going to break during the walk. I am happy to report that it did not break, and the sangria successfully made the trip!

Stopping for a moment to adjust our coolers.

We finally made it to the infield to see Brian and Shawna. It took us awhile to find them since Brian told us to look for the people playing cornhole. I don't think he realized that 95% of the people in the infield were playing cornhole!

Check out that massive turkey leg! It was pretty funny at the time!

Ladies and Gentlemen start your engines!


Emily was so kind to share some sangria with everyone around us!

For a full recap visit Emily and Will's blog. She took so many great pictures. We had so much fun and are ready to make this a tradition!

New baby!




We have another neice! Ellie was born on May 13 to proud parents Nathan and Bethany. We went to visit her in Clay City last weekend. She isn't even 8 pounds yet, and she is so tiny! She slept most of the time and only opened her eyes for a couple of minutes. I am sorry I didn't get a picture with Justin and Ellie, but he really did hold her for quite awhile (until she started getting hungry and going for his breast)! Haha!

Wedding Bells!

Congrats to Michael and Emily! Michael suprised Emily by showing up in her Chicago apartment on a Wednesday night in late April to propose. Emily was suprised but happy, and of course said "YES!" Wedding plans are already in the works. The date is set for May 1, 2010. We can't wait for another fun family wedding!

Happy Birthday Mom!

Happy Birthday Mom! Today, May 27, is my mom's birthday! So far her students have celebrated with her in the classroom, and tonight her 9 closest friends are taking her out to dinner. Sounds like a good birthday! We plan to celebrate this weekend with a trip to Oliver Winery!

Visit with Kelli

While in Arizona, we had the chance to visit with my friend Kelli who moved to Tucson last year. It was so much fun catching up with her. Too bad we live so far away now because we always have a great time together. Kelli shares my love for celebrity gossip, fashion, and beauty magazines. I miss having someone to exchange magazines with! It was great to see you, Kelli!



Tuesday, May 26, 2009

Arizona vacation

As a reward for surviving my first and Justin's fourth busy season, we spent a wonderful week in Scottsdale, Arizona at beginning of May. The Rice's were so generous to let us borrow their beautiful home for the week. We sure enjoyed it!

We played some Monopoly, Arizona edition.

We enjoyed the beautiful scenery.


Check out that cactus!

We relaxed with some beverages.

We attempted to use the camera timer and take some pictures.

We read several books, usually while in the pool. It was 101 degrees everyday!

We traveled to the Grand Canyon. It was amazing!

What a view!

All in all, a wonderful vacation!

Charlie gets a haircut!

Charlie is a shedder. We are talking major hair all over the place. At the Mutt Strut, we started talking to this family with a corgi, and they told us about how they get their dog professionally groomed. We decided to give it a shot - why not? He looks so cute now. We love it!

He was a little camera shy, and it was hard to get a good pic. We can really tell a difference though!


Check out that nicely groomed butt!

Mutt Strut 09

Our post-busy season excitement began with the Mutt Strut. This is Charlie's favorite day of the year. Since it was his third Mutt Strut, he has become quite the pro and doesn't get so scared of all the big dogs like he used to. He loves seeing so many corgis! This was Boonie Stevenson's first year joining us, and boy was she crazy! Charlie was completely exhausted at the end and spent the rest of the day and night sleeping.


Us at the beginning of the Mutt Stut - poor Charlie didn't realize he was about to walk 2.5 miles. That is hard work with those little legs!!

Charlie and his friend Bonnie. It was a hot day, and he couldn't seem to get enough water!

Charlie barely made it to the end. Justin was pulling him along. He laid down on the bricks and didn't want to get up! He did have a good time though and is already training for next year.

Welcome!

Welcome to The Sinders' Scoop - Rachel, Justin, and Charlie's blog dedicated to filling you in on the scoop in our lives. While it might have been a good idea to begin this blog at the beginning of the year, the months of January through April were pretty boring around here. Seeing as though Justin and I are both accountants, those months are kind of a blur to us. Besides working alot, the little time we had was spent eating dinner at Chile Verde every week, playing with our dog Charlie, and sleeping. I felt it much more appropriate to begin this blog after busy season, when our lives have gotten much more exciting. Stay tuned!