A Cherry-Pickin', Wine-Sippin' Day in the Country

What We Did on Our Fourth of July Vacation

On Sunday, we took a day trip up around New Paltz, NY, to Prospect Hill Farm to pick cherries. This is me with Jae's brother Sung, and his wife Amy in the tractor-pulled wagon up to the cherry orchard.

Jae picking dark, sweet cherries.

Jae's Mom liked climbing the trees as much as picking and eating the fruit.

The color was amaaaazing! We picked 20 pounds.

On our way up, we saw a sign for the Willow Tree Flower Farm. This is Maria, who grows gorgeous plants and flowers. We bought two pots of artemesia and a pot with daliahs and snap dragons to place outside the shop.

After the cherry picking, we drove to Benmarl, the oldest winery in the U.S. It's situated up on a hill overlooking a gorgeous stretch of the Hudson River Valley. This is me and Jae's Mom feeling as though we're walking into a Thomas Cole painting.

The young grapes. We did a tasting and brought home way too many bottles of wine. Afterwards we went to Adair Vineyards for another tasting and to see their 200 year old barn. It was very lovely there, too.

A self-timed portrait at Benmarl. It was our first outing since Amy & Sung's wedding in May, so this was our first vacation as an official family!

Today we returned to the shop. Dad is back in town to install the halogen lights in the display case. And this morning we had "Greenjeans" applied in vinyl letters to our new clear window. I know I always say this, but it's really coming together! I'll post pictures of the finished product tomorrow...

And big props to our neighbor Rena at Rare Device who got a fabulous mention in Daily Candy today!