I'm back!

I can't believe it has been several weeks since I last posted. Things around here have been incredibly busy!

Snowman (Dennis) and his wife, Kris, visited us last weekend. They are from Wisconsin and wanted to just get away from all the snow. Although it rained a little, the weather was fairly nice. The sun even peeked through the clouds a few times on Saturday. Anytime we have visitors, we either take them to the wineries in Hermann (45 minute drive), or to Branson (5 hour drive). Off to Hermann we went!

Hermann is a quaint little town built along the banks of the Missouri River.

We usually start at the wineries in town (Stone Hill and Hermanhoff) and then end at Adam Puchta. We've found that three wineries is about all we can handle in one day. They give very generous samplings of all of their wines - and I like it all! Puchta is the oldest family farm winery in Missouri, having been established in the 1840's and is my favorite because everyone there is so nice and their wine is awesome. The town of Hermann and its wineries took a devastating hit during prohibition. Many of the wineries in Hermann began growing grapes and producing wine again after prohibition. Adam Puchta winery didn't begin shipping wine again until the 1990's, and I sure am glad they did. Two of my favorites are the Vignoles and Jazzberry. Both are a sweet wine - Vignoles a sweet white, and Jazzberry a sweet red. I am especially fond of the Norton wines. It is a very dry red wine made of Norton grapes, which I believe (but am not sure) is unique to this area.

After a day tasting wine, we came back to Punkn's Place and I fixed a tasty meal of brisket, corn on the cob and potatoes. I made a cherry pie for dessert. Dang it was good!

On Sunday we headed to the Osage Beach Outlet Malls at the Lake of the Ozarks. Amazingly, the guys stayed right with us while we shopped. Back to Punkn's Place for home made pizza for supper. And what am I doing this week? Dieting of course!

Hope everyone is doing well!