I've had a fabulous birthday weekend full of fun and food and most of all family.

My sister Karen arrived late on Friday night, but that just meant we could get an early start on Saturday. We grabbed Katie and Mom and went to the first of Appleton's winter indoor farmers' markets. I actually seem to get to the winter market there more often than the summer -- I think because the summer one is so incredibly big these days and there is a much smaller market, closer to home, that suits my needs. Plus there was the CSA membership this year. Anyway, between the farm market and the meat market, we bought what we needed for lunch and dinner and headed home.

When Annie arrived on Saturday afternoon, we drove out to Ledgestone Vineyards for sampling and visiting -- it was one of the local wineries that we missed on our Sister Weekend Winery Tour last summer, so we had to make amends.

I chose the menu for dinner and we all cooked together -- Mom was sweet and let us use mess up her kitchen (I helped with clean up afterwards) -- Annie made steak & onion pie, I made chicken pot pies with sliced potato crust (inspired by a recent Martha Stewart LIVING cover story), Karen made a Greek-inspired salad, and we served with some wonderful Renard's ciabatta and gorgonzola butter, and wine. Annie's incredible carrot cake was for dessert! It was all very yum.

Today started with an extra hour -- not normally a fan of DST, this is tolerable! We did a little shopping this afternoon -- from The Dollar Store to the Godiva shop -- and my sisters treated me to a 25-minute chair massage (and also treated themselves!) -- which was so great and reminds me that I need to get that back into my self-care routine. 

This great weekend wound down with a Packer win. It's been grand.

(The photo is from our UK trip last spring, on the Isle of Anglesey, definitely one of the biggest highlights of the past and possibly future few year(s), I still get the warm fuzzies when I think of that trip -- how beautiful it was and how much fun we had.)