1 Year Anniversary Date

Obviously this is gonna have to be bigger and better than a typical date night. I opted for a weekend getaway in central Texas.  As discussed on previous blogs my wife is a huge wine fan. Also, we have a trip planned to Europe later this year so I wanted to do something to help lead into that.

It started out Saturday morning with a nice drive through the hill country and we had lunch at http://www.trattorialisina.com/. For those that have not been. This is a Tuscan style restaurant at the Mandola Vineyard. We went before on a wine tour and always thought it was neat. For reference the restaurant is about a minute drive from the Salt Lick. 

After lunch we headed to Bella Vista Ranch. This is Texas’ first olive oil company. It is about a 30 minute drive from the restaurant. They offer 3 different olive oil tours a week.  Sat. 10 & 1 and Sun 12 (noon). The owner gives the tour and more information about olives than you could ever imagine. I always find it fascinating to hear someone talk about subject matter that they are an expert on and passionate about. To be honest I never really gave olive oil much thought before the tour. After the tour there is olive oil tasting. I warn you they just put olive oil into small shot glasses and then have you shoot them. I was hesitant at first, but after all the other people in our class (12 or so) I followed suit.  Another nice benefit is that Bella Vista is a vineyard and produces wine also. They have typical Cabs and Syrah wines and also a Blackberry wine.

Following our olive oil tour we headed to our main destination The Lake House Bed & Breakfast at Canyon Lake. It is a small house on canyon lake. The owner actually was raised there and now resides down the street and rents out his home to lucky guests. There are 4 rooms available and for weekends they require 2 night stays. I called in advance and he told me if there was availability a week out he would book it for the 1 night. Luckily 1 room was open and I jumped on it. Some of the amenities – lake front property, pool, hot tub, breakfast, … We barely saw anyone the entire time we were there. We spent the afternoon enjoying a nice bottle of wine by the pool.

We headed to dinner at Lucky Sailor, Canyon lake’s only restaurant on the lake. Think a small scale carlos n’ charlies. We enjoyed some live music and drinks at sunset.

Heading back we to our lake house we spent the rest of the evening eating frozen wedding cake, sitting in the hot tub, and finishing the bottle of wine from earlier.  Breakfast the next morning was included and quite elegant. You could tell the chef made the same menu week after week and made it well. We headed to church in Canyon Lake and then headed home. All-in-all a great weekend and hopefully one Jen will cherish for a while.