Every once in a while you gotta celebrate.  There are moments in life when you know you’re going to need to have a glass of wine handy to toast.  In many cases, the need to toast comes after  a long and arduous journey.  Tonight we have two reasons to lift our glasses in celebration!  While we’ve shared over the past year the exploits of daughter #1 wrapping up her four years of college culminating with graduation back in May.  We haven’t yet had the opportunity to raise a glass in toast to her first professional position in education.  Now–we could-as parents-shamelessly yell and shout that we’ve finally got one off the payroll!  Woo-hoo!  But, that would be self-serving and unprofessional. . .hmmmmm, SORRY—wooooo-hoooo!!!!!!  How cool is that?  We’ve got a reason to ‘think’ about retirement!  And, just as important–daughter #2 has officially ended her teenage years by celebrating #20!  We only wish that we could have been with her to celebrate!  Next year–count on it!!

Yeah, so education is a tough field right now.  With the Legislature nose deep in funding every two years, finding teaching jobs isn’t like it used to be.  Time was a person could get a degree and a certificate, interview a few times and boom, a job offer loomed.  Today, well, teachers tend to stay longer which means fewer opportunities for those who are graduating.  Add to that the number of graduates from large schools like UT, Texas State, Texas Tech and others–guess what?  Those positions disappear—-quickly!  Fortunately, there are a lot of opportunities for teachers to ‘cut their teeth’ at private schools.  And, for many of them, not having to deal with state mandates and overly burdensome testing dates is a relief.  Imagine actually being able to TEACH and not to the test!  We are exceptionally proud of daughter #1’s new opportunity and wish her the BEST–because the kids she’ll be teaching will be getting the BEST!!! (Just a little biased!)

It’s never easy having one of your kids living so far away that you can’t be there for milestones in their lives.  Yes, we get the fact that they have to grow into their independence, but as parents it’s never easy.  We’ve been to visit her–within the last 10-12 days–and while that helps in the short term, it doesn’t do a whole lot for the long term.  All that being said, we are so proud of daughter #2 and wish we could have been there to help blow out all of those candles!  As a side note, it’s also Brian’s Mom’s 87th birthday, so when you start adding up all of what’s going on in our world, today has been a pretty good day!

So, since we were in the celebratory mode, we opened an amazing bottle from our friends at Castoro Cellars…a 2006 Due Mila Otto–a blend of Cabernet Sauvignon, Petit Verdot, Merlot, Malbec and Cabernet Franc.  We  have to say that this was a truly spectacular bottle of wine.  Whether it was the fact that it was 7 years old or whether it came from Castor Cellars or the variety of grapes used in the blend, this wine was delicious.  From the nose–full of dark, rich fruit, oak, smoke, and a mellowness that had to come from 7 years in the bottle, to the taste, full frontal fruit!  Holy Smokes!  There was more fruit on the front end of this wine than a whole lot of others we’ve had over the past 312 days.  The finish is where this Castoro wine wins BIG.  To say that it was long-lasting is an understatement.  To say that it kept going like the “Everready Bunny” is a gross misrepresentation.  No the finish on this Castoro gem–goes on and on and on and on!  Yep, it’s that good!  It was the perfect wine to celebrate with tonight!

Whether it’s a professional accomplishment or a family-member birthday, a good wine helps make the moment just a little more special…we found that out this week!  As your Wednesday gives way to Thursday, we hope that you’ll enjoy your favorite wine responsibly and remember to recycle whenever possible.