La Mia Italia: Castello Di Montegufoni

I recently blogged about Tuscany and the little town Montespertoli that we visit every time we go. I mentioned in that post a castle that we stay at: Castello di Montegufoni

We first stayed here in May 2003 while attending a wedding. It was actually the location of the wedding and all the guests stayed here. It is a charming location that has several great amenities. It is very clean and comfortable, but yet has a rustic charm about it. You typically would stay here if you are planning to stay 5-7 days or more. I believe their policy is for an extended stay and not just a couple of nights. All the rooms are like suites/apartments. Most have kitchens in them and they all have private bedrooms. It does not have a hotel feel at all. There is one restaurant that is open for dinner only and one that is open for lighter meals throughout the day. The type of place you go to get some breakfast, a sandwich for lunch, and a couple of pizzas for dinner. The other restaurant is more fine dining and since it is not big, a reservation is typically made. Not so much because the place is that crowded, just so the chefs have a little notice as to how many to plan for. A lot of what they make they buy locally and that day. There is a grocery in the town and we usually go by there and get breakfast breads, meat, cheeses, fruit, and wine to have in our rooms.

The castle also has a nice little pool, which the kids like.

To me...I feel like I am living in times of Romeo and Juliet when we stay there. It is so positively Italian. It is gorgeous with breathtaking vistas. You can see the town of Montespertoli from there, as well as, the Ugolini vineyard. In fact, the Ugolini vineyard has a white villa on top of the hill and we often would look out at it and say how nice it would be if that was our villa. We often wondered who lived there. The next time we visited the region on 2007 we found out who lives there and are now friends with them. We took my oldest daughter in 2007 and she loved Castello di Montegufoni so much that she cried when we left and kept pointing out the window..."my castle, my castle". She was 3 at the time.

La Fattoressa
This is the apartment we stayed in last time. It accommodated me, my husband, my father, and my daughter. The 2nd picture is of the little bed my daughter slept on. She had her one little room!

La Cupola
This was the apartment we stayed in back in 2003. It has 2 bedrooms, 1 bath, and a huge living area.

Il Cardinale
This is the apartment Charlie's parents have stayed in twice. They love it. It has a kitchen and huge family room. 3 bedrooms..so people always stay with them.

Here we are in 2007. Yes, I was about 5 1/2 months pregnant with Lauren.

Me with my dad!

Dinner al fresco on the terrace. This was pretty much our entire group we traveled with.

Castello di Montegufoni and the countryside!

"My castle, my castle"!!

La Mia Italia: Chianti Wine Festival - Montespertoli

We happened upon this charming little festival back in 2003 when we were attending a wedding in Tuscany. We were staying at an old castle called Castello di Montegufoni and our view out our room was of the quaint little hill town of Montespertoli. We went to explore one evening for dinner and much to our surprise there was a little festival going on. The prefect little activity just waiting for us every evening. It takes place every year the last weekend in May and into June. This year it is May 29-June 6. Click HERE to read more about it. (Watch the video..it is in Italian, but you get the idea) All the local vineyards set up booths and let you "taste" all their wine, olive oils, and balsamic vinegar. I put taste in quotations because every "taste" is about a half a glass of wine. When you pay for the festival they give you a wine glass and glass holder you wear around your neck. It is so fun to go around to all the booths. You really get to meet the people who run the vineyards and you get to talk with them about their product. It was at this festival back in 2007 (our 2nd time around and the 50th anniversary festival) that we met our good friend Mauro. His wife's family owns a vineyard just across the hill from Montegufoni and he now runs it. It is the Ugolini Vineyard. They have great wine, but the olive oil is what we love the best! Charlie's parents have started to sell it in their shop: Le Petit Hameau. The first shipment they got around the holidays sold out very fast. The new shipment will be in very soon. The wine he gives us we save for special occasions. I will do a separate feature on Mauro at some point. It is not the worst thing in the world to have an Italian friend. All of us McDonald women love to just sit an listen to Mauro talk.....in Italian.

At night at the festival there are local musicians that play. The local restaurants are all open and usually packed. There is, of course, a wonderful little gelateria there for a sweet treat, too! It is so nice to sit under the stars in the middle of Tuscany sipping local wine, hanging out with the locals and just experiencing la dolce vita. One thing that makes it so nice is that it is not overrun with tourists. I know blogging about it isn't exactly keeping it a secret and I am potentially going to drawn attention to our quaint find, but you guys are my friends and I love sharing travel tips with my friends in hope you would do the same for me. So make your plans to travel to Tuscany, visit the wine festival, even stay at Montegufoni. I will do a separate post about it at some point, too.

There has been talk about the McDonald's making another trip to Montespertoli next year. We will see...our girls are of Disney age, so the rest of the extended family may be taking the trip without us. Here are some photos from our past visits to the Festa di vini!

Town of Montespertoli

Charlie doing a little wine tasting. Note the wine bag around his neck and our friend Mauro in the green shirt!

Note: When searching for a good Chianti...look for the Gallo Nero "Black Rooster" seal. It is the official seal of the Chianti Classico region. If you see it, you know you are getting an authentic bottle of Chianti from this region!

Toulouse Dallas

This weekend I was treated to an evening away from the kids and dinner in Dallas. My husband and I thought and thought about where we might like to go being that we don't get to do date nights very often. We settled on Toulouse. One of our favorite Dallas restaurants.


We almost went with a steak/seafood place. Dallas is full of good ones. Some we have tried and some we haven't, but our favorite is Del Frisco's and we were not in that part of town. We figured we would save a good steak night for a night we could go there. We also thought, well we are in Dallas..let's go somewhere fancy schmancy..... Somewhere that is up and coming with a hot new chef or something, but in our minds...those places are usually over-priced and the menus a bit strange for our taste. So we decided on Toulouse because it is one of our favorites and (there are about 10 things on the menu that we just LOVE!)

So this is what we had and highly recommend.

Starters:
Mussels Provencale
French Onion Soup Gratinee
(yes, it has lots of cheese on it!)

Main Course:
Filet Au Poivre with Frites

Dessert:
Beignets & coffee

Other items we have either tried and recommend from the past, or want to try are:
The Mussels Mariniere
The Lobster Bisque
Macaroni & Cheese
Lobster and Rock Shrimp Risotto
Sweet Potato Gnocchi

If you ever find yourself in the Knox/Henderson part of Dallas for lunch or dinner, I highly recommend this place. It has a lovely atmosphere and even has a little covered patio. Makes you feel sort of like you are at a Paris cafe. We had such a nice evening to sit outside and it was perfect. We felt like we had made the perfect choice!

May Day/Derby Day Party 2010

You might remember that last year me and friend of mine threw a May Day Party for our daughters and their mutual friends. Well, we did it again this year. Only this time....Derby Day landed on May 1st too, so we decided to incorporate that into the theme as well! It turned out to be so great. The rain held off for us and it was perfect weather. The girls enjoyed a nice little tea party, complete with real china, pink "tea", and a light lunch! They loved doing the tissue paper flower craft and playing with their ribbon wands. I will have to admit it was hard to keep them off the swing set, but they all had a great time. The moms enjoyed getting some cute photos and catching up a bit!

Party Details:
Theme: May Day/Derby Day
Decor: Maypole, Candelabras, bright spring flowers, mint julep cups
Food/Drinks for Girls: Chicken nuggets, fruit, cheese/crackers, Derby Hat Cookies, pink "tea" lemonade
Food/Drinks for Ladies: Strawberry/Chicken salad, spinach/Parmesan Dip with pita chips, Pineapple Mimosas
Craft: Tissue Paper Flowers in spring colors
Favor gift: Ribbon Wands
(find them here at ZuZu Girl)

Derby Hat Cookies (Celebrity Bakery)




Tea Party Time



The Hostesses with their older daughters! One younger sister was napping, the other was probably wanting too! Did not quite make the picture!

Quick run with the maypole!
(Note on the maypole: As with last year..they are still too young to get the maypole dance concept. Maybe when they are all like 8 or 9!)

Here are some of my inspirations for this party:

Photo from Chasing Fireflies

Photo from Martha Stewart

Photo From Martha Stewart

Photo from Martha Stewart

AXO Reunion Weekend

It was 2 years in the making and now it is 2 weeks in the past. My how time flies! So Alpha Chi Omega has been on the TCU campus for 20 years now and we had a big weekend to celebrate that a couple of weeks ago! It was so much fun to see so many of my sisters. Many of whom I have not seen since I graduated! The weekend started off with a Re-creation of Bid Day at Paula's house. Every year in August on Bid Day Paula hosts a dinner at her house to welcome all the new members. So we thought that would be fun to re-create that experience since it is one that is a fond memory to us all! It was complete with the Mexican food, Flash photography, and margaritas! (Margaritas are never present on Bid Day)

AXO Alumnae in attendance

Becky, Me, and Kortney

Me, Ashley, Brandi, Kortney, Becky

Us again...add Alesha

Ryan, LeAnn, Me, Alesha, Kimberly

On Saturday during the day we had a little outing to the zoo. This was a nice way to meet some of the kiddos. They had a blast. It was a great day to be at the zoo and the new exhibit at the Ft. Worth Zoo with the snakes and such is really great!

Sarah was going crazy that she was this close to the tiger!

My girls have no fear of the snakes. I would never have walked into this place when I was their age.

Saturday night we had our big Red Carnation Ball. It was held at Colonial Country Club. The collegians were all there with their dates and we had a nice evening. The weather was perfect and everyone really enjoyed each others company.

Me, Lori, Ginny, Elaine, Carla

Becky (my college roommate), Me, Brandi (my lil sis!)
Love these girls! They were both in my wedding!