Happy Birthday to Jessica!!

In honor of our dear friend, us gals decided to take Jessica away for a much needed weekend of girl time and some R and R. Kate's mom and step dad have a beautiful home on the Willamette River and they graciously let us use it for the weekend. We started the weekend of with a wine tasting/appetizer pairing. Our goal was to only try wines that were $10 and under from Trader Joes. We chose Pinots...Pinot Gris and Pinot Noir. We were each in charge of bringing one of each and a pairing to go with it. Abbey made us darling wine journals to record our thoughts about each wine...although by the time we made it to bottle 7 and 8 we forgot to take notes. We then had a Port tasting along with a very rich triple chocolate tart. The next morning we decided to be resourceful and use our leftovers to make quiche. We made a smoked salmon, goat cheese, and dill quiche and a pepper, kalamata olive, feta quiche. We had a great laid back day watching TV, drinking coffee, and of course eating Abbeys famous popcorn. Seriously people this stuff is amazing. We then started the evening off with a cheese sampling and Gewurtztraminer wine sampling...thanks Shannon for the great wine!! The weather broke just long enough for us to sit outside with the beautiful river as out background. We followed the wine and cheese with a dinner of salmon, asparagus, and a wonderful salad and were able to finish the wine from the evening prior...and of course we finished the chocolate tart. The evening ended with a game of Apples to Apples. Jessica had to get up early to get to work the next day (those kiddos in children's ministry love her as much as we do and would have been disappointed not to see her). A quick Starbuck's stop and we were on our way home. It was such a refreshing weekend filled with great fun and conversation with 4 other lovely ladies. Thanks Jessica for being such a wonderful gal and letting us celebrate you!