Vacation 😌

Best Market

Saturday farmer's market includes beer and ice cream and comic books!

Soothing

Gaming was cancelled. So I'm sitting on the roof in the cool fall weather, having a beer and reading Barrowmaze.

Local 'Bama beer lookin tight!

Brews & Bugbears

Showed up at the brewery to deliver Ben a D&D book for his birthday and there's two randos here talking RPGs. I've overheard the words Gygax, chain-lightning, Steve Jackson, and Shadowrun in about five minutes.

Carrie's 40th

Lake George was awesome. We went up for Carrie's 40th, a boatload of family and a few friends in tow. The stress of planning around 20 people and a couple of intense physical activities had me feeling like I was earning at least half of the beers I drank.

Soothing

If I was at GenCon I'd be playing games instead of reading games. But this ain't the worst!

Scritch Scratch

Father's Day was great. Breakfast on the front patio, new bird feeder and D&D t-shirt, did a bit of geocaching, went swimming, guest'd on Spike and Taulb's podcast, and went to dinner at Las Trancas.

On the gaming front, WeDnD with Larry and Tiff has been great, although we've been on a break for a few weeks. Hopefully we'll remedy that soon. On Saturday we're still doing the always fun AW: GoT. We had a break from that this Saturday so Charles ran AW: Fallen Empires, skinned for Dark Sun. It was a great example of my favorite gaming - cool concept, good system, and everyone being enthusiastic.

Dad has been in town since last Wednesday. We've been to the brewery about every other day. It's not as intense as what we can expect if we were hanging out at Jon's, but it'll do. He's also been undertaking various jobs around the house to stay busy. I approve.

My food choices, health-wise, have been hit or miss lately, and I've been getting absolutely no (yard work and light swimming notwithstanding) exercise. That needs to change, but any drive in that direction tends to evaporate by the time I make the drive home in the evening. And thus far Carrie's been much more successful than me in getting up and working out in the morning.

Went to take the kids for an ice cream/brewery trip yesterday and we got out of the car while it was raining. In an effort to hurry up the kids I caused Owen to collide with Paige who subsequently fell down in the parking lot, suffering multiple scratches. Luckily Sweet Cici's had a well-stocked first aid kit and Paige is a trooper.

Of Tooth and Flame

Abigail cut her first tooth. Also, she's five months old. Crazy. Could be that teething is why she's been waking up about every hour or so through the night. But that tooth is out, and from what I remember once it breaks through the discomfort is over. Sleep issues continue. Speaking of, sitting up with Abby late on Saturday night, I decided to put on the second of the new Hobbit movie. I figured some hobbit and wizards and swords and orcs would be nice. About 15 minutes in I turned it off and bought a digital copy of the Rankin/Bass animated Hobbit. I love it. And it's less than 90 minutes long.

Last Thursday Alex, Ben, and Tony came over for Fire Night, the annual burning of the xmas tree. I had put it off since early in the month and I'm glad we finally got around to it. Was a lovely relaxing evening spent having beers and bourbon and bullshitting on the patio.

The weekend was primarily composed of cleaning out the garage, which seems to be a semi-annual event. We cleared out boxes of stuff to the storage unit, Goodwill, and the dump. Just in time to start up Wednesday garage gaming again!

Last night I made chicken bacon fried rice. It was amazing and delicious, both for dinner and lunch today. Full marks to Carrie for having the idea in the first place.

Make Merry

The hell has been happening?

Wrapped up Burrito Quest 4: Veggie Trek. Managed to coordinate Isaac in on the last episode. We kind of decided to do a BQ5: Bizarro Trek, but my enthusiasm for it is not super high. Maybe I'll see if I can pawn all the work off on Ben, then just coast along.

Xmas went swimmingly, without any actual swimming. Spent the weekend before and up till Xmas day in Carl-Bad. Highlights include:

Trying to find something to do on Sunday before Xmas in Carl-Bad, as nothing beside fast food or Chili's is apparently open. And for your information, the Chili's in Carl-Bad is pretty crappy. Got to hang out with Nathan some though, which is always good.

Played some Minecraft with Ross while in C-Bad. I finally grok why that game is so popular.

Woke the kids up Xmas morning telling them Santa Claus came and left them presents, to which Owen replied, "Dada, I'm scared." He got over it pretty quick though, and spent quite a while pushing his new scoot bike around the house. They should hopefully put on the inch or two needed to fit them by the summer. Paige dug hers too, but was more interested in her new backpack.

Fat loots from Santa to me included were highlighted by Fairy Tales from the Brothers Grimm: A New English Version by Philip Pullman and a new Kitchen Aid can opener. We use a can opener twice a day feeding Piper and have generally picked inexpensive models that either didn't work consistenly or broke within a pretty short time period. Maybe I was just doing it wrong. Anyway, the new opener rocks. Also got some socks with monkeys and mustaches on them.

The day after we got back from Carl-bad, Jon (plus Cameron & Derek) and Dad both showed up. Jon stayed till this past Sunday, and Dad is leaving this coming Saturday. Been a busy house full of visitors through the holidays, but not in a bad way.

Made it out with Jon and Dad to the Mimbres Brewery taproom. The beer was better than it has been (helped that they had their Chocolate Pinon Coffee Stout on tap) and we had a good time hanging out, chatting, and having a few beers.

Played some CoD: Black Ops 2 with Derek. The zombie mode on that game is pretty damn sweet, especially the Grief games.

More Xmas with Jon et al. Scored more loot, including a sweet Loveland Ale Works shirt from Jon, a digital photo frame from Mom, cash for a weekend getaway from Dad, and comics and video games from Sage.

Did our annual kickball game. I think I kicked once, then rounded up the kids and took them home. It was cold and they were getting grumpy. But there was a good turnout depsite the cold and I think everybody had fun. May try to do it bi-annually, or maybe even quarterly in the future.

Saw the Hobbit, was underwhelmed. There was a lot of bloat and some weird production choices that would have, for me, been more successful if they had been more understated. Dislikes: too much light in caves in the bottom of the mountain, dwarfs looking weird or not like dwarfs, for kids=goofiness & fart jokes, Radagast. Likes: Bilbo, Riddles with Gollum. I like the old Rankin & Bass cartoon a lot more than I do this version.

Dad and Aunt Nette are both headed back east tomorrow.

And look at this, it snowed.

Various Whatsits

Since last:

• Ran in a 5k with Carrie, taking turns pushing the twins in the stroller. Did a lot better than I figured I would.
• Went to Miami and Key West for work. Miami was ok, Key West a lot cooler. Wish it had been three days there, and one in Miami instead of the other way around. Ate some good Cuban food though and plenty of seafood.
• Mom came back from her trip to Mississippi with Aunt Nette in tow.  Kind of crazy since it was last minute, but it's cool she's finally come out for a visit. It's meant a lot more trips to mom's house. Which is good since we need to get the kids over there more often anyway.
• Took the kids to the State Fair (Southern NM that is). Their highlight would likely be the funnel cake, but walking them around through the show animals was pretty sweet. Never did find the petting zoo, which was disappointing.
• Allergies have been hammering me since I got back from Miami. Every day all day, and most days I wake up around 4am and have to take medicine.
• Annual switch from light to darker beers is right on schedule. Seems to happen every year right around now, independent of what the weather is actually doing.
• We bought a tree yesterday; a 15-20 foot Modesto Ash, for the back yard. Should get it in the ground Wednesday.
• We're slowly working with a contractor on getting the small side patio turned into a room. Got a bid we like, just need to get some final details nailed down.
• Friday game is a D&D4e game where we're leveling every week, planning on heading from 1-30.
• Next weekend I head out to hike the Grand Canyon with Jon. Kind of a birthday present for his 40th last year. Somewhat nervous given my general lack of exercise of late.
• Went out with Alex, Tony, and Alicia for an early birthday dinner for Carrie. Good company and conversation.
• And in three weeks Owen and Paige will turn two. Crazy.

Summer Wrap-up

We had our first non-busy, non-traveling, non-visitor weekend in what seems like a very long time.  Carrie did an excellent job of keeping herself and the twins occupied for the past two months.  Here are some highlights (aside from what I've already posted).

• Flo-rida: In mid June we took a family trip to Fort Walton Beach.  Carrie bundled Paige and Owen up with Julie, Rocky, Ross, and Jalie and drove cross country.  I flew.  The original plan was that I would drive with them and maybe fly back, depending on leave from work, but by the time my schedule cleared up the van was full.  I know, hardships.  Dad rented a condo for us and brought Derek (fresh out of Space Camp) down with him.  Spent all week hanging out at the beach, eating seafood, and getting sunburned.  The kids didn't like the beach much at first (sand and loud surf and all) but they warmed up to it by the end.  Also, it turned out Carrie's friend (who also has friends) was visiting their beach house in the area so we got to hang out there some too, which was good because the water was much calmer.
• Sage-fest '12: Sage and Sarah got married!  Mom watched the kids and we spent the weekend in Silver City.  Got to see the happy couple tie the knot and hang out with Isaac, Jenni, Ben, Amy, Paul, and Shannon.
• ColoRADo: Drove up to visit Jon round mid July.  Took Ross and Jalie with us and had an all round good time.  Hit up some good breweries and an awesome burger joint for a 60/40 burger, 60% beef, 40% bacon.  100% delicious.
• Aside from all that, we had a slew of visitors and happenings that kept us generally busy pretty much for the past two months.

This post seems especially apt since Paige and Owen started back to daycare today.  They headed into the two-year-old room, which is kind of crazy since they're about 3 months early.  But they've grown a hell of a lot over the summer.  Their vocabulary especially, as they're not only repeating back whatever we ask them too, but using words we don't expect (octopus) and stringing together words as well (apple sauce).

Look at that, I managed one more blog post before July was out.

Barleycorms

Carrie, at some distant point in our past, was partial only to sweet (often cloyingly so) wines. Unfortunately while partial to them she didn't want to drink them very often. And so we found our wine rack and pantry filling up with Rieslings, Gewurtztraminers, and the like. I, being partial to not looking at the same wine bottles forever, decided to take it upon myself to slowly devour these overly sweet beverages. I made it through two bottles before neglecting my duty. I decided this weekend to get back after it. Made it through half a bottle of Relax Riesling before dumping the rest down the drain. Some wines are just worth it, apparently. This was the same wine Jon and Carrie slammed one New Years because they couldn't stand to drink it any other way. Not as bad as all that, I think, but not good for much beyond a headache either.

In other boozy news, I finally got around to starting my second batch of homebrew. Hopefully this one will taste better than the first.

Yeasty and Lacking

I decanted some of my first Mr. Beer batch when Dad was in town, but it was way too soon and I'd hoped the flavor and clarity would improve with more bottle time, both on the shelf and in the fridge.  I took some to Carl-Bad and it was similar to that first opening, somewhat cloudy and with a yeast flavor I'm not totally fond of.  Even more fridge time has improved the clarity immensely, but there is still an off note on the flavor.  Not undrinkable, but I hope the second batch turns out better.  And Isaac gifted me some cash to get some more brews.  Thanks, Saac!

Speaking of Xmans.  We did pretty shabbily on the gifting to friends front.  I managed to get Legend of Drizzt boardgame for Ben and Amy but aside from that we had nothing to reciprocate with.  Not that it's strictly necessary, but still, this tarnishes our track record for gifting to pals.  We'll have to see what we can do to remedy the situation.

Thanks to Sage and Sarah for the Woodford Reserve.

Family Times

Christmas went off well.  The new van was delivered on Thursday and we immediately packed it up and took off for Carl-Bad.  Luckily leaving a day early got us ahead of the storm.  I heard at least one coworker who headed out for Carl-Bad Friday morning say it turned the three hour drive into seven.  It started snowing Thursday night and kept it up for two days straight.  While there I got a look at Rocky's still and talked moonshining with him, built a snowman and snow fort with Ross, ate some delicious brisket (twice), got some gifts (beer, a necklace, and flatware), and generally had a good time around family.  Having kids of my own now I think having that kind of family time, like we did when I was a kid and we'd visit Mississippi, is getting more important.  Maybe we should have trucked on up to Colorado like last year.  Ah, well, next maybe next time.

 

We got back in Xmas afternoon.  Got things squared away and even managed to fit the van in the garage with my car, but only just.  Until (or maybe unless) we get some stuff moved out of there it looks like I'm parking on the street.  This was the first morning and I've gotten spoilt enough that I probably ought to rediscover skills at things like scraping frost off of windshields.

 

Managed to hang with Saac a little, what with his limited time in town.  Sunday I went over to Ben's and had some beers with the guys while watching very, very crappy movies.  Blew out of work early Monday and met Ben and Isaac for lunch.  There was much lamentation for Heftymetals and times when people who aren't Ben had a lot of free time around the holidays.

Whuff

Let's see:
Party at Ben and Amy's house.  I did not Rockband, but I got some quality time in with the grumpy old folks in the back room; my people.  Spent the evening talking movies, comics, books, and whatnot with Tony, Amy, Charles, others, and for a brief time Hon. Bill.  Was nice.

Carrie went out of town to visit Alicia up in Denver, and Dad came into town to help out with the kids.  The two and a half days Carrie was gone went pretty smooth.  Had a good visit with Dad too.  Whenever he comes in to town he gets me off my ass and moving, at least a little more than I was.  After Carrie got back we got out twice, once with the kids on the desert trail in the middle of a neighborhood over in Sonoma Ranch, and once taking Piper up to the levee.  We also watched probably the funniest episode of It's Always Sunny ever ("Chardee MacDennis: The Game of Games").  Dad cooked a lot and I even cracked open one of my homebrews before he left.  It was early, but it still tasted pretty good, if a little yeasty.  I wanted to open one while he was in town, what with him buying me the Mr. Beer kit and all.  I'm letting them sit for longer than the kit tells you to, but more in line with what some of the fan communities makes better beer.  We'll have homebrew for Xmas at the very least.

Things with the kids are good.  We are having some small issues with them not wanting to eat, but it could be they don't like the high chairs anymore.  At daycare they sit them in chairs at a table.  Anyway, we got them a chair and table set for Xmas, so we'll see.  We set up the Xmas tree and decorated while they were napping last Saturday.  When they got up they were mesmerized and adorable.  For safety, we extended the fence we have in front of the entertainment center and made a space in the corner for the tree.  Seems to be working pretty well so far.  Oh, and so far this week they have slept through the night, without waking up once, every night.  Nice.

More holidays coming.  Carrie and I are taking the kids to Carl-Bad for Xmas, coming back Xmas day.  Aside from that I'm only taking a few days off around New Years, since Jon's likely not coming down this way.

Lots and Lots

Thanksgiving: Lots of family time, also, unfortunately, lots of not feeling so great. Pulled some kind of sinus business Tuesday, and it lasted through Wednesday. Carrie and I both had some stomach bug Wednesday as well. Jon got in that night and I was well enough to have a few beers with him. We forwent Thanksgiving on Thanksgiving Day and had it Friday instead. Jon was here, Agnes and the kids too, her parents, mom, the Sharons. I found a turkey recipe that knocks out the bird in 2.5 hours. Good food, good company, but with recent sickness and staying up too late (including a perfectly fine time playing MW3 till much too late with Cameron and Derek) I felt worn out all weekend. Saac, Jenni, Sage, and Sarah were in town. Managed to make time to get together a couple of times, including a nice outing to High Desert for both Carrie and I while mom watched the kids. Oh, and we got together a kickball game on Saturday. It was windy and cold, but we ran around and kicked balls with gusto. The past nine months or so of no exercise are readily apparent in the pain in my lower extremities.

Nathan stopped by on his was to Tucson for a quick visit, Sunday. I was feeling poorly most of the day, then contracted a 102F fever in the afternoon. Ended up taking Monday off. Feeling much better, but with the recurrent sinus crap I decided to go ahead and take the antibiotics I picked up the end of last month. Could just be the dry weather but who knows.

No gaming this Friday, again. There supposed to be a RockBand party instead, but I think Conner's 3rd birthday is happening then too, so we'll probably take the babies over to that.

I crammed through Storm of Swords and am on to Feast for Crows. Enjoying it immensely, the story as much as being back in the habit of reading frequently again.

I owe Kenny a callback. My apologies.

Finally, I put up my first Mr. Beer batch weekend before last. Dad sent the kit to me for my birthday. I'll bottle it in the next few days and it should be ready to drink by the time Dad comes in to town next week.

Surprise, Thard!

Regular-type Friday gaming continues to elude. In its place we gamed some 4e with 4e-virgin Nathan, and Bill, with Ben running. I made a minotaur who worshiped a potbellied, tattooed, crocodile helmet-wearing god named Thard Harr. That was as far as I got in the description of the god before deciding it was definitely the god for Bjorkus. This, naturally, drove the game. Turns out Thard Harr is some kind of dwarf jungle god. Still awesome.

Saturday was birthday day. Started with a nice little outing, just me, Carrie, and the kids. We Arby-ed the crap out of lunch. After Paige and Owen settled in for a long nap, which left me time to crack open (Carrie's gift) Modern Warfare 3 for two solid hours of shooting bad guys. After that, High Desert with Alex and Traci. After that, Carrie surprised me by hiring a babysitter so we could go out to dinner. We had a beer at the bar then headed out to Luna Rosa where we were met by Alex, Traci, Joe, and Ben. After that, we stopped briefly at Joe's then went home. That's right, we were home before 9:30. 37 and still rockin.

Cooking chicken and dumplings tomorrow.

Crotchety

Post, dammit!

Last Friday was a lack of gaming, but an abundance of Novembrew. Headed out with Alex and met up with Jason, Lynn, and Steve Nelli. Drank lots of delicious beer in 2 oz portions. Almost didn't finish out all 30 tastings in the allotted 3 hours, but High Desert hooked us up at the end. Of note was the Chocolate Coffee Piñon Stout from Mimbres Brewing out of Deming, and Woodchuck's Summer Cider. Not usually a fan of cider but that stuff was mellow and tasty, without the bite I get from most cider (which reminds me of the ham/cider story from my trip to Seattle...Sage and Sarah had some cider in the fridge at the same time as a ham and complained that the cider tasted too much of ham...maybe you had to be there). After the tasting, we hit up Zeffiro's for some pizza, and Starbucks for some coffee. Made for an satisfyingly inebriated early evening.

Saturday Carrie took the kids to Carlsbad. I jumped on the opportunity of an empty house (coupled with lousy weather) to spend a whole 24 hours eating fast food and playing through all of Gears of War 3, campaign and multiplayer with Cameron. Also spent hours reading more of Storm of Swords. A very quiet weekend. Unfortunately I missed out on both Saac and Renn Faire-ing.

Paige has been tottering all over the place, even going so far as forgoing crawling despite falling on her butt repeatedly in a very short timeframe. Owen is taking his time catching up, but he's getting there. Last night mom had us over for delicious chicken stew and lots of kids exploring mom's house.
Turning 37 on Saturday. Wow.

Walker

Back from Seattle. Had a fine last day there, including

• Breakfast with the Gilberts
• a lovely Pilsner-soaked trip to Feierabend with Sage in which I did not get so hammered that I couldn't function (that's 1-for-1 for me and German pubs in Seattle)
• and finally getting to see Paul, even if just for five minutes

Trip back went fine, and I was more than ready to get back to the family. Turns out, of course, that Paige took her first step while I was gone. It was bound to be either then or more likely while at daycare, so I'm more excited that she took that step than disappointed that I missed it.

Don't think I ever posted about Carrie's birthday. We got a bbq put together last minute on the 9th, and I was worried we wouldn't have many people show up. Turns out there were a dozen adults and about as many kids. Alex, Joe, Joe and Melissa, two of Carrie's coworkers families, and even Todd and Traci, who I had waited late enough to text about iti; all with kids in tow if they had 'em. Turned out to be a great evening, which of course, Carrie deserves. Oh, and there was pralines and cream ice cream cake. A happy, happy birthday to her, even as late as this sentiment is hitting my journal.

Just scheduled delivery of our new chest freezer. The old one went out a while back and I, figuring it was out of warranty, waited till the warranty was really almost gone before calling Sears to come look at it. Turns out it's getting replaced for free.