Now We Smell Like Smoke

We just had a terrific evening at our friends Justin and Janna's home. They had us over for tacos, and we brought a fruit salad and nacho chips with queso and homemade guacemole. We started with a tour of their house (we have had them over to our home a couple times, but this was our first visit to their house), which is an older home that they've done a lot of work on--not only painting but also constructing, wiring, plumbing, tiling, etc. It's very cute. Then we gathered at a picnic table in their back yard to eat. The weather was temperate and slightly breezy, making for a bug-free, perfect night to dine outdoors.

Their one-year-old daughter Eva, dog Snickers, and cat Scout kept our girls entertained until Justin started a fire (with the girls' help, actually) in his outdoor fire pit. We gathered around it and roasted marshmallows. I readied the graham crackers and Hershey's chocolate to turn the marshmallows into s'mores as they came off the fire. The night turned chilly as soon as the sun went down (and the breeze from earlier turned into mild gusts), so we appreciated the fire and the sweatshirts and blankets that Justin brought out.

Justin's hobby: winemaking. He had lined up a few bottles for us for the evening, although we started with a bottle made in SD and given to him for his birthday (which was yesterday). It was a strawberry honey wine . . . simply delicious. After that, he had planned to uncork his homemade sugar beet wine followed by his homemade blueberry wine. We never got around to either of those, but he did send us home with the entire bottle of sugar beet wine. That'll be interesting to tap into. We have a crab apple tree in our front yard, and he can turn those into wine, too, so I will happily donate to him as many buckets as he can make use of, since he is so generous to us with the fruits of his labors.