August 18, 2008
how long have you got
seriously. despite the fact that i just had an uber relaxing weekend, i’m definitely ready for a vacation. the kind of vacation that i just do absolutely nothing for like a month. yeah, that would be awesome. and can someone please come and clean my house for me?
can i backtrack a little? i guess it all goes back to the first weekend of august, which is when gerry and i made the trek out to cooperstown, ny for the belgium comes to cooperstown fest at brewery ommegang. words can’t even describe how fucking awesome this was, and we cannot wait until next year!! the brewery, and all the land they own, is beautiful and huge and perfect for a ginormous camping weekend fest such as this. we got to camp at a site with a ton of our beer geek friends, including matt and rebecca, which meant we had lots of free-flowing mayflower, daniel and jason, who brought a cooler full of rare beers to share, and many more wonderful friends who brought food and beer aplenty to share. and to top it all off, ger and i were in attendance for free because we volunteered to work the fest. we had to pour beer for two hours and then help clean up for about an hour, and for doing that we got to camp/attend for free, plus they sent us each home with a case of beer. now you just can’t beat that. the weather was perfect.. about an hour of rain each morning, but it was sunny and clear the rest of the time. now that i know what to expect, in terms of equipment availability, rules of the campground (pretty much none), etc, i can plan to bring even more tasty bits to share next year. it’ll be tough to beat the lobster quesadillas, grilled chicken quesadillas, red chili pepper pasta, couscous w/ veggies, pasta w/ meatballs and sausage in sauce, bagels and lox for breakfast w/ a side of porter, plus more.. but i think we can do it! thanks to all for such a great time! i took lots of pics.
some other recent celebrations…
auntie rie’s birthday. we did a big spaghetti and meatballs dinner at gram’s house and stuffed ourselves silly. my sister and i also took this opportunity with the family together to call off christmas. not completely.. we’re all about getting together to celebrate with lots of food and hugs and stuff, but we’re cutting out the gifts part. so yeah, we’re not giving gifts this year, which also means we will not be accepting any gifts this year. i think jessie and i will still plan to do our cookbook, as long as we’ve got the time and content, but other than that no gifts please.
there was also auntie rie and uncle dave’s housewarming party. they bought a house in feeding hills (woo fhp represent!) at the end of june and we’re all so happy that they’ve moved to massachusetts! we all converged at their new place last weekend to break it in with lots of charred flesh on their new grill. i have some pics from this too, but i haven’t posted them yet. soon.
last sunday was a bbq at krysten and joe’s. we had some wicked tasty food and got to spend some time with my adorable godson. what a cutie. 8)
last tuesday was birthday dinner for kyle at sierra grille. i love that place so much, and i think kyle liked it too. woo! congrats to OB, the owner, who got married this past saturday.
i’ve had lots of massages the past few weeks.. i’ve pretty much been averaging 2-3 per week since i finished school. more than i thought i’d be doing, but it’s good. keeping me in practice. i even got massaged myself this weekend. i cashed in on a trade w/ wendy so she came over to work on me on saturday, which was awesome! saturday was a lazy day. went to the farmer’s market w/ jess, mom and rie. stopped at the csa on the way to pick some flowers. hit up whole foods for some grocery shopping and bucks for the caffeine. came home, got massaged, went to jessie’s house for a delicious lunch of make-your-own salad w/ rotisserie chicken, and got to spend some time with dad, who i hadn’t seen in about 2 months. sunday (yesterday) ger and i decided to do a hike since we’ve done next to nothing in terms of hiking this summer. we parked on 47 at the south hadley town line and hiked the 6.6 miles to the notch. took us about 4.5 hours to hike the 7 sisters and it was well worth it. gorgeous views, which we’ve seen before but they’re always breath-taking, and the exercise was definitely something that both of our fat, beer-drinkin asses needed. i took some pics and will hopefully post those soon as well.
this week gerry begins his online course with the siebel institute of technology and world brewing academy. wednesday we’re looking forward to the hops club dinner at the munich haus. friday we get to see greg!! he moved out to utah last year and is coming home for a visit this weekend. friday night we’re doing a big group dinner at pintu’s. let me know if you’re interested in coming, i’ll be making the reservation soon. and then saturday morning we leave for maine. 13 of us beer geeks are heading to portland on saturday to hit novare res and spend the afternoon drinking and eating and visiting with eric, who we miss at the moan and dove and dirty truth. then we leave for lovell, maybe stopping at bray’s on the way, check in to our cabin and chill out at ebenezers with chris, jen and the de struise brewers. sunday is the kickoff of the ebenezers belgian fest, as well as chris’ birthday, so i imagine it will be nothing but a fantastic time! monday we check out, head back to portland, maybe hit allagash for a tour and tasting, maybe portsmouth and/or a few others on the way home, and then crashing. back to work tuesday. damn. i am so ready to leave for that trip right now! definitely a lot to look forward to, but don’t mind if i seem a bit busy or tired lately. ;)
