Wine Time

We're members of the Chateau Ste. Michelle Winery wine club so we're always stopping by to take advantage of their space and hang out.

Ernie was eating Lydia's jacket drawstring like a delicious linguine.

I think the story is that Chateau was a sponsor of a Kentucky Derby that was held without fans present due to covid, and so was stuck with a ton of rose wine with no one to drink it. So they were selling it at $5 a pop to club members. I was a fan so I bought tenish cases to store in my wine cellar/bedroom.

After a few sips we headed to lunch at the nearby Woodinville Cut Shop Restaurant and Lounge.

Brusha, Brusha, Brusha

Today we went to Chateau Ste. Michelle Winery in Woodinville, Washington for some sips.

Ernie is becoming quite the fried tuber aficionado.

Ernie got a nice Halloween card from his Grandma and Grandpa.

Part of Ernie's bedtime routine is now a chocolate flavored iron supplement. Until he starts eating more solid foods this is part of his deal. Anyway having never had actual chocolate he is a pretty big fan.

When we brush Ernie's teeth we sing the 1950s "Brusha, brusha, brusha" jingle from Ipana toothpaste referenced in Grease. We are the keepers of American culture.

Winery Baby

Ern is sort of a gym rat at this point.

We did this support group thing of new parents for months. It was one of those things that I dreaded, it was two hours long each meeting, but usually I was happy I did once it was over. It was nice to hear that other new parents were having similar issues to us. It was also nice to hear when they were having a worse time than us so I felt like we were doing better by comparison. Sometimes I wonder if I am a bad person.

Anyway we made a couple of legitimate friends from the group and invited them out to Chateau Ste. Michelle Winery for some wine tasting. They are German and I think we have this weird thing where we make friends with foreigners better than Americans sometimes. I guess people that have moved here necessarily already have more of an international mindset that we appreciate? I'm not really sure what it is. We had fun anyway. Their baby is funny because he is very stoic and serious compared to Ernie. Comparing Ernie to other babies is a fun way to get to know him better because I don't have a ton of baby experience other than him so it's difficult to know what is his personality and what is just standard baby behavior.

The Very Hungry Johnerpillar

I hope that we don't do so much fun stuff with Ernie that he's unable to cope with how dreadfully boring life can be at times. I guess we'll cross that bridge when we've reached it.

We hit the Chateau Ste. Michelle Winery and had some food and some wine samples. The food here is way better than it has any business being.

Are you kidding me with this? The food miracle workers here have devised a bao BLT. That's what I'm about.

My mom won a humorously giant teddy bear from Crayola in a drawing when I was a kid. I think about it whenever I see other large ursine cuddly things.

Speaking of cuddly things, here's my baby.

We met up with Zoe and her boyfriend Colton at Agua Verde Cafe in Seattle.

There's a self serve boba place in U District that I've been wanting to try for a while and we finally checked it out.

There's a ton of choices.

I was kind of overwhelmed by the choices. Also I like the boba balls so much that I sort of don't want to tarnish their awesome flavor with a bunch of weird crap. Trying all of the different tea flavors was more fun for me.

They made a mistake and gave me two cups so, honest guy that I am, I drank two boba teas.

Sometimes Ernie decides that he is a little bat boy and arches so that he can look at things upside down. He especially likes lights so if those are around he'll contort himself around for a better view of them.