I guess the official end of the summer was September 21, but tonight it really feels like summer is over. It's too cold to sleep with the windows open anymore. I love summer and being outside at night when the temperature is the same as your skin and the only way you know there is still air is from an occasional breeze. I start to feel gloomy this time of year when I have to start layering my clothes, but Brian loves it. I guess I would too if I got sweaty like he does! Of course I love football season and all the fun and food that comes with it, but in the back of my mind I know that chills and darkness are lurking.
We had some great times this summer. We went white water rafting in West Virginia with a group of friends. Brian and I had our first experience of setting up a tent together (and those of you who've done know it can make or break a relationship!) So, we survived that and had a great time.
We attempted golfing a few times and fit in numerous tennis matches. Brian continued his autocross events, made many improvements to the Neon, and even got me and my mom to sign up and race the BMW. We attended the Ohio State Fair, the Rose Festival (pictured above), the Greek Festival, and too many barbecues and backyard bonfires to count. We went to the weddings of our friends Cole and Lauren (where Brian was the best man and gave a great speech) and Pavlo and Nicole.
Our roommate Liz moved out, so now we have the apartment to ourselves which is nice, but now there's no one else to blame for the mess in the kitchen. Oh well.
We survived a whole summer without cable or air conditioning! We saved some money, helped the environment, and made better use of our time. We would recommend it to anyone even though some people thought we were crazy at first. Now that all the new shows are coming on this fall, I have just started watching them online. I don't think the cable is coming back, but when Brian suggested that we go all winter without heat, that idea was quickly vetoed.
As sad as I am to see summer go it wouldn't be Christmas without snow, and we've got to get there somehow. Maybe my mood is residual from the past 19 years of the fall meaning back to school. Maybe it's because I am not going back to school. At least we have a summer full of memories and some holidays to look forward to.
~Kate
9/30/08
9/14/08
Microbrew Festival... do we drink too much? Don't answer that.
Yesterday, we went to the Columbus Microbrew Festival at the North Market. We got to sample all of the beers we wanted. It cost $15 to get a commemorative beer glass and ten beer tasting tickets. We highly recommend going because it's a great way to sample all kinds of beer for a fraction of what you'd pay at the bar, and since it's at the North Market, you have an amazing assortment of foods to choose from to eat along with those tasty microbrews.
Some friends of ours, Mike and Nate, decided to join us in going to the festival. What a great way to kick off the weekend on Saturday morning... but then again, we actually start off our weekends with our Friday night indulgence/guilty pleasure... 5 for 5 at Whole Foods (which is a wine and food sampling event). We arrived at the North Market shortly before noon, and the festival was scheduled to have its participating breweries tap into their beer and serve at noon. Good timing.
We got in line to purchase the wrist band, pint glass, and beer sampling tickets. By some stroke of the gods, I got an extra strip of 5 beer sampling tickets bringing my total to 15. I think somehow, through a 6th sense, the lady working the booth just knew that I really love my beer, and that she would be doing me an injustice if she hadn't slipped some extra beer tickets in there. In the end, I ended up sharing my extra tickets with Kate, Mike, and Nate anyway.
Some of the participating breweries were Columbus Brewing Company, Gordon Biersch, Barley's Brewing Company/Smokehouse and Brewpub, Elevator Brewing Company, Weasel Boy Brewing Company, and Hoster's. We made our way around to all of them and sampled a significant number of beers between us. We typically shared our samples so that we could all try as many of the beers as possible.
By the time we were down to our last tickets between us, we decided that we needed to try the only non-alcoholic item at the festival - the Hoster's Root Beer. This was, of course, Kate's favorite. What was funny about the root beer is that we wanted to taste the Hoster's Root Beer to see how it stacks up against Jones Soda, IBC, A&W, and Mug. Even funnier was the line we had to wait in to get root beer. They ran out of root beer while we were in line, but we weren't going to let that stop us. We waited for one of the Hoster's guys to return with a new mini keg of root beer, and it was worth it! When the Hoster's guy did return with the new keg of root beer, he realized that there was a ridiculously big line formed by people wanting to taste this root beer. Many of us shared a good laugh about how funny it was that we were at a microbrew festival where there were not typically lines of more than 3 or 4 at the most, but the root beer line was at least 25+. As it turns out, their root beer is top notch... up there in our books with IBC for top dog in the root beer world.
My favorite beers at the festival were the IPA's (no surprise if you know my taste in beers). For those of you who do not know, IPA stands for India Pale Ale. The one that really made my heart sing was the Barley's Hop Envy IPA, and the name is appropriate. It was a hoppy IPA that would make any other IPA envious of its hoppiness. Hoppiness is happiness.
Among the others that we sampled and really enjoyed include:
-Barley's Rasperry Wheat
-Barley's 5 Year Old Barley Wine
-Columbus Brewing Company's Apricot Ale
-Weasel Boy's Brown Stoat Stout (Mike's favorite)
-Gordon Biersch's Marzen
We followed up our microbrew festivities with a trip to Dingo and Adam's to watch the OSU v. USC football game. Neither of us care to talk about the game, but we did have a good time aside from the game itself. Look for my posts about the game in my blog (insert blog link here). They made jungle juice and had jello shots too. Let's just say that our fervor for drinking subsided, but we certainly ate ourselves silly. Dingo made some cheese and venison (deer meat) dip that was outstanding, and we picked up some lemon almond chicken salad from Giant Eagle that was surprisingly good. We finally called it a night around midnight, which ended 12 straight hours of food and alcohol consumption. What a great day!
Some friends of ours, Mike and Nate, decided to join us in going to the festival. What a great way to kick off the weekend on Saturday morning... but then again, we actually start off our weekends with our Friday night indulgence/guilty pleasure... 5 for 5 at Whole Foods (which is a wine and food sampling event). We arrived at the North Market shortly before noon, and the festival was scheduled to have its participating breweries tap into their beer and serve at noon. Good timing.
We got in line to purchase the wrist band, pint glass, and beer sampling tickets. By some stroke of the gods, I got an extra strip of 5 beer sampling tickets bringing my total to 15. I think somehow, through a 6th sense, the lady working the booth just knew that I really love my beer, and that she would be doing me an injustice if she hadn't slipped some extra beer tickets in there. In the end, I ended up sharing my extra tickets with Kate, Mike, and Nate anyway.
Some of the participating breweries were Columbus Brewing Company, Gordon Biersch, Barley's Brewing Company/Smokehouse and Brewpub, Elevator Brewing Company, Weasel Boy Brewing Company, and Hoster's. We made our way around to all of them and sampled a significant number of beers between us. We typically shared our samples so that we could all try as many of the beers as possible.
By the time we were down to our last tickets between us, we decided that we needed to try the only non-alcoholic item at the festival - the Hoster's Root Beer. This was, of course, Kate's favorite. What was funny about the root beer is that we wanted to taste the Hoster's Root Beer to see how it stacks up against Jones Soda, IBC, A&W, and Mug. Even funnier was the line we had to wait in to get root beer. They ran out of root beer while we were in line, but we weren't going to let that stop us. We waited for one of the Hoster's guys to return with a new mini keg of root beer, and it was worth it! When the Hoster's guy did return with the new keg of root beer, he realized that there was a ridiculously big line formed by people wanting to taste this root beer. Many of us shared a good laugh about how funny it was that we were at a microbrew festival where there were not typically lines of more than 3 or 4 at the most, but the root beer line was at least 25+. As it turns out, their root beer is top notch... up there in our books with IBC for top dog in the root beer world.
My favorite beers at the festival were the IPA's (no surprise if you know my taste in beers). For those of you who do not know, IPA stands for India Pale Ale. The one that really made my heart sing was the Barley's Hop Envy IPA, and the name is appropriate. It was a hoppy IPA that would make any other IPA envious of its hoppiness. Hoppiness is happiness.
Among the others that we sampled and really enjoyed include:
-Barley's Rasperry Wheat
-Barley's 5 Year Old Barley Wine
-Columbus Brewing Company's Apricot Ale
-Weasel Boy's Brown Stoat Stout (Mike's favorite)
-Gordon Biersch's Marzen
We followed up our microbrew festivities with a trip to Dingo and Adam's to watch the OSU v. USC football game. Neither of us care to talk about the game, but we did have a good time aside from the game itself. Look for my posts about the game in my blog (insert blog link here). They made jungle juice and had jello shots too. Let's just say that our fervor for drinking subsided, but we certainly ate ourselves silly. Dingo made some cheese and venison (deer meat) dip that was outstanding, and we picked up some lemon almond chicken salad from Giant Eagle that was surprisingly good. We finally called it a night around midnight, which ended 12 straight hours of food and alcohol consumption. What a great day!
9/7/08
Our First Post on our New Blog
We've decided to start a blog about the two of us. We think that this is the best way for our friends and family to know what is going on with us and keep in touch.
Enjoy!
Enjoy!
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