Back again!

I'm back!  I had a wonderful summer and early fall, I hope you did too!

Instead of trying to catch everyone up on what I've been doing since my last post (over 2 months ago!!), I'll just pickup from this past weekend.

Ryan and I spend a fantastic weekend in Paso Robles and San Luis Obisbo.  There was a lot of wine tasting involved.  It is harvest season in wine country so we were pretty lucky and got to see how the process starts.  We took a tour of Eberle's wine caves which was pretty sweet.  They offer free tastings and tours so if you're in the area I highly recommend them, they make a pretty mean glass of viognier. 

Here we are happy to be starting our winery tour!

At the next winery, we enjoyed our picnic snacks and some local honey we bought from Pipestone Vineyards.  Pipestone was a really cool vineyard - they are completely solar powered, organic, and practice sustainable farming.  They had their very own beehives and the honey from said bees was delicious!

Our second day we spent in San Luis Obisbo and San Simeon.  Here we took a tour of Hearst Castle which was pretty darn incredible.  

And last, but certainly not least, we checked out the little town of Cambria on our way back home.  And lucky for us, it was the weekend of their Scarecrow Festival!!!  There were hilarious scarecrows placed all throughout the city.  The town itself was pretty quaint, a few restaurants and little stores.  We hit up a couple of the antique shops while we were there. 

A very successful weekend!

 In other news, my niece Hannah is 2 months old already! My how time flies. She is so precious and getting some serious rolls already. Yes, major cuteness!  

Also, I don't know if you heard or not, but California just passed the Cottage Food Law which will allow people to sell baked (non-perishable) goods from their own home.  Prior to this, one would have to rent out a commercial kitchen if you wanted to sell any homemade goods.  So starting Jan. 1, 2013, Ryan and I will be going into the home-bakery business! Wooo!  We are still working out the kinks and deciding on a name, but we are so stoked!

And that about wraps everything up!  I am going to start blogging regularly again and hope to share some craft projects and recipes soon.  I also am getting ready for the Scandinavian Christmas series 2013, so if you or anyone one you know would like to participate, please e-mail me (kathryn dot pickledherring at gmail dot com).

Happy Wednesday! :)