Homebrew Halloween

Homebrew, pumpkins, and 'maters...OH MY!  I 'll keep this short and sweet with lots 'o pictures!  A few weeks ago, Nathan bottled his first batch of homebrew and his Dad was here to help him bottle it.  This time around, he needed an extra set of hands and I was the man, er, woman, er, only person available for the job!  I've gotta say, the process is really interesting and I'm excited to be his helper the next time.  It was pretty awesome.  Since this batch was a pumpkin brew and they had black bottle caps I named this one Witch's Brew :)



The big glass jug is called a carboy.  When the initial "cooking" process is finished, the goods are strained
and placed into that guy.  Then it ferments for, I dunno, a pretty long time in a cold, dark closet.  Then, it's
time to bottle!



Bottle capping the beerskis!

Sterile bottle caps.

 Dishwashers!  They're not just for dishes anymore!

Happy Beer Boy

'Twas the night before Halloween and our poor round friends still had no faces!  We waited until the last minute to get our carve-on because the damn squirrels eat the pumpkins out here! 

So happy, right? 

Not sure which is bigger...the jack-o-lanterns or my own pumpkin belly. 

Me and Baby E!

Did I mention that we got another foot of snow this week?!  Uh, yeah.  Nearly two feet of snow in as many weeks.  Nice to see Colorado winter has decided to give me a nice warm welcome.  I love the snow...I'm just not a big fan of being cold.  If we could just have the snow with 75 degrees, I would be a happy girl.  I know, I know.  But a girl can wish. 

Since the snow kept me in the house for most of the day yesterday, I decided to be a little constructive.  Nathan's colleague, Drew, gave us about a half a bushel of tomatoes from his little organic farm.  They were close to going bad, so I blanched them and threw them in some jars yesterday!  So pretty!

Weird to be thinking about garden fresh tomatoes when it looks like this outside!

And thank you to Nathan's Aunt Pat and Uncle Jim for the postcard from Peru!  Sounds like you guys are having a blast! 

Ta-ta for now!  :)

I'm Baaaack!

Do you hate me yet?  I know.  It's been a while since my last post, but in all fairness I warned you from the beginning that I wasn't very good at this kind of thing.  But, we're together again.  So that's what matters!  :)

Let's see where do I begin to get you caught up on everything.  Initially, I stopped writing so frequently because I thought that I may spill the beans before I was supposed to, but we're out of the woods now so I suppose I can tell you that we're having a BABY!!  What?  You're not surprised?  Oh, yeah.  It's been so long since I've posted that you already knew that!  Okay, so anyway.  That's why I stopped posting.  I wanted to wait until we hit the 12 week mark to make the big announcement and then 12 weeks got here, like, almost 12 weeks ago and, uh, I guess I got all shy and whatnot. 

Bygones!  Let me just show our little guy off to you and then you won't be mad at me anymore.  :) 

Ain't he cute? 

Super Scary Ghost Face Baby

That's his wittle hand throwing up a 'wesssstsssiiiide'!

His wittle footsie. 

So yeah.  Our lives will soon be flipped upsidedown and quite frankly, we couldn't be more excited!

Next! 

Recently, we were lucky enough to have a visitor stay with us!  Nathan's Dad, Dave, came to play in Colorado for 10 days!  It was a lovely visit and while we weren't all working or eating, the boys were out duck hunting!  I refrained.  I prefer to shoot my ducks through a tv screen that I'm sitting way too close to with a grey plastic gun.  The guys enjoyed themselves though, successfully killing, like, a gajillion ducks.  No turkey on Thanksgiving for us this year.  We're having Daffy!

Daffy's cousin.  Donald.

I've never seen anyone so happy to be holding dead stuff.  :) 

Baby E enjoyed his first visit with Grandpa and next time he sees him, he'll be changing his diapers....#1 only!  :) 

Let's see.  What else, what else?

Oh!  We got our first snow storm of the season.  The news had been hyping up the storm for a few days so I thought we may get an inch or two.  Well, we got an inch or two plus 10!  Almost 12 inches of snow!  It's been a heavy, wet snow which has not boded well for our tall tree friends that still have their leaves.  Lots and lots of branches and trees down, but it has been very pretty.  Aside from the tree carnage, it looks like a Dr. Suess wonderland outside and it makes me very excited for the seasons to change. 

My car, after about 8 inches. 

Backyard

Backyard, smashed laundry line. 

I suppose that's all for now.  I promise I won't leave you hanging like that again.  Okay.  I don't promise, but I will do my very best!  There.  That's more realistic. 



Red, Red Rocks

Let me just tell you a little something about my friends.  They are the BEST.  Hands-down.  Well, you probably already know that because chances are if you are reading this blog - you're one of 'em.  You guys know you're great.  There's some people in your life that go above and beyond the definition of friendship.  They fall into this category of chosen family.  This chosen family of mine started because we are all just plain crazy about music.  Eventually, we became pretty crazy about each other.  Our lives were scattered across Florida from Tallahassee to Miami, so we all gathered in an online forum to make plans to see music with each other, to make fun of each other, and to support one another.


Now, we're scattering ourselves across the United States.  How we've managed to stay so close is beyond my comprehension. Maybe we have social media to thank, maybe we have music, but maybe we just really like each other.   


All that mushy stuff being said, it's pretty safe to say that I was really excited to see the latest Florida refugees make their way through Colorado last weekend!  Matt, Krys, and their beautiful daughter, Kali, made a pit-stop in Denver while making the cross-country trek from Gainesville, FL to their new home in Portland, OR.  And because they're such extraordinary planners, their three day "vacation" from driving just happened to coincide with some really good music at Red Rocks.  If you've never been, GO!  It's one of the most beautiful and legendary music venues in the world.  It's a natural amphitheater that's nestled into, naturally, red rocks jutting from the earth.  Performances have taken place there since the 1800's and anybody who's anybody has performed there.  Plus, Nathan and I were married there so it holds a special place in my heart.  


On Sunday, we managed to be lazy in the backyard.  Kali rocked it out in the pool, Matty smoked up some awesome chicken, we streamed Bunny Radio, and there may or may not have been some tequila involved at some point.  After our bellies were full and Krys was in her sparkliest ensemble, we headed off to see The New Mastersounds, Easy Star All Stars, and Umphrey's McGee!!  It was a beautiful night.  

  Bunny Radio

    New Mastersounds!

I took the rest of these photos I shot with my phone.  Something just didn't feel right about lugging around a big camera in such close proximity to so many rocks.  

  Umphrey's

I'd like to dedicate this post to my friend, Chris, who was at Phish's Superball XI.  This is the first time he's ever read a blog! Congratulations, Rookie!

Mount up!

Wanna know something really funny?  I just spent the last few minutes cleaning Ben & Jerry's Chocolate Fudge Brownie ice cream off of my keyboard.  Know why?  Because I'm still five years old and apparently, I had no idea the carton was covered in chocolatey goodness when I picked it up to shovel it into my mouth.  True story.  Bygones!


I don't have too much to say today except that we had a ridiculously good time at the rodeo last night!  We're turning into cow pokes around here, lemme just tell you!  We met our friends Kari and Brent in Greeley, CO last night for the 89th Annual Greeley Stampede.  I wasn't really sure what to expect, except for oversized portions of fried whatever, steel contraptions held together with duct tape called "rides", and maybe some cowboys. {sigh, cowboys....} It just happened to be "tough enough to wear pink" night, so all of the cowboys (and girls) were wearing pink shirts to raise breast cancer awareness.  Pretty cool.


Much to my surprise, this was, like, a real pro-circuit rodeo with cowboys ranked, like, the best in the world and whatnot.  For most sports, I'm pretty familiar with the rules and regulations, what the object is, and how the game is played.  Well, buddy, let me just tell you something - I got learned last night.  I had absolutely no idea what the hell was going on except everything just looked like it hurt.  Bad.  Wrestling some kind of animal is just not for me, but I didn't mind watching those cowboys do it! {whistle!!}


In the next two photos, I'd like to play a little game called "Where's Waldo Nathan".

Okay, this was my favorite part.  Are you sitting down?  Adult supervision may be required for the next segment.  You've been warned...

Mutton Bustin'!!!!  Absolutely, hands-down, one of THE most ridiculous things I've ever seen in my life.  Basically, you take a toddler and dress him all up in cowboy gear, throw a helmet on the kid and set him on a sheep!  Go ahead.  You can take the time to read that again.  Yep.  You read right.  They literally take a SMALL CHILD and put him/her on a sheep and then send the sheep running down the arena to see how long the kid can hang on!  You've gotta see this for yourself.  INSANE!

Look closely.  See the kid HANGING from the sheep!  I'm still in shock. 

Crazy, right?  The rest of the night was pretty wild too...

Brent and Kari

Yes, ma'am!

Uh.  If you take your laptop to the rodeo, you might be a redneck?

Here's another good one.  Kids in a bubble trying to walk on water.  These poor twins busted face over and over and over again.  

Sittin' on top of the world with our legs hangin' free.