Weekend Trip - Part 1

I spent a very nice weekend with my sister, who lives a couple of hours away from me in the big city. We toured an olive mill, where they have olive groves and make their own olive oil on site. It was a lot of fun, here are some pics:

The above photos are of some of the equipment they use to extract the olive oil from the olives. It was interesting to learn about the process, and to discover that they only have a two month harvesting time (Oct. thru Dec). Here is a photo of our tour guide, Chris:

He was very funny and informative.

This photo shows some of the processes involved. Since they don't use any pesticides, all they have to do is rinse the olives before putting them into the machines to extract the oil. While we were there, we of course had to purchase some of their products:

I bought some of their olive oil, as well as a couple of jars of olives (one is olives stuffed with feta cheese, yum!) The bottle on the left is Meyer Lemon olive oil that you use for baking. That's right, I said baking! We tried one of their Meyer Lemon cupcakes and it was to die for. I had to purchase some:

I'm going to try to make these, as they were the most moist and delicious cupcakes I have ever had.

Then I spotted these in their gift shop:

Aren't they cute? They are called oven door dresses, and are like the dish towel toppers only they made them into a little dress. I tried to find a free pattern on line last night with no luck. If any of you have a pattern for this, I would love to get it.

I have more to show you, but will save some for tomorrow, including a picture of yours truly! Have a happy Monday.