When I Become a Recluse... and a Movie Reviewer

This past week and weekend, Aaron was out of town.  Cue the sad puppy faces...

They're not sad... they're waiting for a treat.  They're spoiled.

So the 5 days were spent like this:

A book, a beer, and the remote to the Blu-Ray player.  I rented 9 movies, watched 3 dogs, finished 1 book and started another, and enjoyed some of Aaron's home brews.

I rented Divergent (follows the book decently enough and the acting is pretty on par with other movies in the genre), August: Osage County (not good and very depressing), The Spectacular Now (not good and not good acting), The Book Thief (kind of followed the book, but was not nearly as good, which was sad because I absolutely loved the book), Gimme Shelter (pretty good and made me want to be more helpful/charitable), The Butler (good, but not great), Philomena (cute and pretty decent), Winter's Tale (awful and bad acting and crap storyline), and The Other Woman (stereotypical "Romantic Comedy" that was cute and funny and decent).

I'm pretty sure that my only requirement (unbeknownst to me) was that there was at least one doorbell in each movie.  The puppies are still confused as to why the doorbell kept ringing and nobody came to visit them.  They may even know the phrase "There's nobody here, it's the movie!"

It was a nice relaxing weekend.  Naps for all!  And sometimes you just need a anti-social weekend after a month and a half of traveling, visitors, and fun!

Long Distance Visitors

This past weekend was very eventful.  There was a lot going on and one of my bestest friends ever came out to visit!

Rebecca and Clay came out on Friday evening.  We went out for dinner and then went over to the brewery.  Aaron had to drop off his beers for Tim to taste and we never miss an opportunity to bring friends to the brewery.  It was really nice to be able to hang out with Rebecca.  I miss her.  She is all the way in Montana, so it's not like our paths cross often.  And it was great to get to know Clay, too!  I'd only met him briefly at our wedding... which means about 15 seconds during the "Hey, thanks for coming" portion of the after-dinner-before-dancing reception.

We went hiking on Saturday morning.  We weren't sure how Gus would do, but he did great and we made it further than we anticipated.  He was very curious about all of the greenery (he wanted to taste it all) and really wanted to get out onto the rocks where everybody else was taking pictures...

We finally got some decent pictures of the four of us for our doggie picture frame.  It was quite the task to try to get both of them (and us) looking at the camera at the same time.  Rebecca is a pro... and took 100 pictures rapid-fire style in order to do it.  

We took a few detours on the way back down and managed to get a second family picture!  It's easier to get them to stay still when they are getting tired...

Once we got back, we got ready for the beer-tasting/dog-birthday/cook-out!  We used our new drink bucket for outside... and Aaron and Clay managed to spill ice all over the floor.  I had to get a picture of the clean up efforts: 4 adults shuffling around on hand towels to soak up the water while 2 puppies try to lick it all up.

 Aaron proudly set up his new corn-hole boards...

And then managed to beat everybody else (with various partners throughout the night... I believe the most-winning combination was him and Kayla).  

It was pretty relaxing, except for the 7 dogs that were present in our not-so-large backyard that is mostly gravel... so the pups spend 95% of their time inside or on the concrete.  We grilled, tasted beer, chit-chatted, and had a campfire!  It was good to spend time just talking to Rebecca and Clay. Did I mention that I miss her?  I think I covered it...

 Everybody seemed to have a good time.  Plus there was cake!  Some for the people and some for the puppies (I had just enough pup-cakes left over to give one to each of the dogs and still have one for Gus and Lucy yesterday).

Clay and Rebecca left way too early on Sunday.  It was a short stay, but I'm glad they came to visit.  Hopefully we can make it out to Montana next year!  Snowboarding, anyone?  They'd mentioned a ski resort with a "Kid Zone", which sounds like my kinda snowboarding!  We shall see...

It was a fabulous weekend of good beer and even better friends.  Even the pups had so much fun they slept through most of Sunday!  Now if only our fabulous friends didn't live so gosh-darn far away!

Painting and Pupcakes!

It has been a busy week in the Ballew household.  We have friends coming to stay with us this weekend and are hosting a birthday/beer-tasting party on Saturday.  We wanted to finish our corn-hole boards in time for these festivities... plus have a mini birthday celebration for our 1-year old puppy!

The paint, however, took MUCH longer than anticipated...

First we had to sketch the images on the boards.  That didn't take long.  Then, we had to paint.  And then we had to paint again because it wasn't opaque.

And then we had to sleep... so we didn't finish them on Monday.  Nor did we do anything else on Monday because we spent 5-6 hours after work painting.

Tuesday brought more painting...

We still didn't finish them.  And again, we didn't get anything else accomplished.

Wednesday rolled around and all that was left was some outlining and sealing!  I outlined them before dinner and then we took turns spraying the topcoat throughout the night... between cleaning the bathrooms, dusting, cleaning windows, and spraying for bugs.  They look really nice and we are pumped to use them this weekend!

I also made pup-cakes on Wednesday!  I wanted to have enough for all the dogs that will be here this weekend, but I wanted them to be ready for Lucy's real birthday on Thursday.  I think that they turned out really well!

We let Lucy and Gus be the official taste-testers on Wednesday.  They both devoured them in about .5 seconds.  And then about 2 hours later, Gus's came back up... hooray for puppies and their messes.

We aren't sure if he's allergic to something in the cupcakes (wheat? carrots?) or if he ate some bug that had been subjected to the bug killer (that says it's safe for pets once it's dry... which it was), but he did not have a good night and we didn't sleep very well either.  Needless to say, we don't want to repeat that episode, so Lucy will be enjoying the rest of her pupcakes on her own.

Thursday was Lucy's birthday!  We finished cleaning the house and then had a little celebration!  Gus got a bone to occupy him inside while we went outside with the birthday pup!  She was not a huge fan of the candle...

But she very much enjoyed the pupcake after that candle was removed!  (Elapsed time between the picture above and the picture below?  About 1 minute... and that included taking the candle out and giving her the plate...)

Happy birthday Lucy!

And the Verdict is?

Last night was the night when Aaron and I finally got to taste our beer (I say 'our' like I helped... it was his beer)!  We had made a bet about the World Cup... I lost... mostly because I know nothing about soccer, watched none of the games, and did zero research into who was actually a good team before we made the bet.  He picked Germany.  I picked Argentina.  I was lucky that my team made it into the finals, but apparently the terms of the bet included them winning... so I had to make dinner.  Stupid Argentina.

Before I began making dinner, we had quite the eventful 10 minutes.  A storm was rolling in, so we started cleaning up the yard and getting everything put away from our productive day.  While attempting to keep the dogs contained (because of course our 4 month old puppy figured out how to open the doors), Aaron managed to lock us out of our house.  Seriously.  Luckily, it seems as if a previous renter has also encountered this little obstacle and pried the door open.  So Aaron took a screw driver to the lock and in about 2 minutes, the door was open.  Crisis #1 solved.  Once back inside, Aaron discovered that our monster puppy had knocked over a candle... Luckily (again!), he didn't burn himself or catch our house on fire.  He just spilled apple cinnamon scented wax all over our carpet, Lucy's food bowl, the wall, the bookcase, and the rug that holds Lucy's food bowl.  At least it smelled nice.  It actually cleaned up rather well... so Crisis #2 solved.  As we ironed rugs and scraped wax, the puppies sat innocently nearby.  They're cute enough to fool anyone into a false sense of security.

Once we had cleaned up from the crazy 10 minutes, we began the fun!  Aaron baked Brie for an appetizer (that was not part of the bet... it was a last minute addition) and poured his first glasses of beer.  Notice the forced smile?  He really just wanted to taste them.

Here they are... the Raspberry Wheat was just fruity enough to give it a subtly tart-ness, while still tasting beer-y (it's a word).  It had a lot of sediment in it from the raspberry seeds, but it was delicious and bubbly!

The Honey Vanilla Brown Ale had just a hint of vanilla in the scent and the aftertaste.  It was very smooth and, despite not really liking Brown Ales, I thought it was also delicious!

We drank beer and ate Brie while the Chicken Cordon Bleu and Baked Potatoes finished baking.  Then I set the table and we sat down for dinner.  I had to take a picture because this is the first time we have used those place mats since my family came out for Christmas.

It looks nice... we should do that more often.

Then we cleaned up and watched Monument Men.  Not a super good movie. It was alright.

When we'd finished the movie, we sat outside in the dark, lit some candles (and kept Gus away from them) and listened to the rain.  It was peaceful...

It was a fabulous night!  The beer was delicious, the rain was soothing, and the company was spectacular (but I might be slightly biased).  Now we get to clean, clean, clean for visitors next weekend, Lucy's 1st birthday party, and our official beer tasting party!

Stepping Out of Our Comfort Zone

A few weekends ago, Aaron and I headed to Vegas to help his friend, Drew, celebrate his 30th birthday!  Drew and his wife, Kristen, had been in Vegas all week celebrating, but we joined them for 1 night of fun!

We went to the Marquee Dance Club in the Cosmopolitan.  It was fun, but probably not something I would do again... it was pricey!  And there wasn't a ton of space.  I suppose that's the idea, but not really my thing.  It's fun every once and a while though and we had a really good time!

After the club, we went to the Paris casino so that Aaron could gamble and Drew could learn how to play roulette.  Aaron lost $45 bucks... but he didn't do that poorly.  There was a guy at the table that was losing money very quickly... and I'm not sure he was in the proper state of mind to realize it.  Oh, Vegas.

After that, we went to a unlabeled, unadvertised, "secret" pizza place in the Cosmo and got a delicious pizza to end the night (or the morning... because by then it was 5:30am).  It was a great night, but the next day was rough... especially considering we left the hotel at 7am to drive back to Kingman so that I could go to work for 3 hours.  Ugh.  I spent the rest of the week recovering from lack of sleep.  But it was worth it to help a friend celebrate and spend time with some people we rarely get to see!

And then this past weekend, we went to Randy and Lauren's house to do a wine tasting!  They had 17 different bottles of wine to try.  Various whites, various reds, and appetizers to share!  Turns out, my taste for wine is... nonexistent.  I couldn't tell the difference between different types, couldn't figure out if it was a nice $100 bottle or a $4 grocery store bottle, and couldn't consistently rank the wines from least favorite to favorite.  I ranked the reds after trying them all and then, when I went back to re-taste them, didn't agree with my original ranking... not even close.  It was sad.   I was slightly better with the whites, but not by much.  Moral of this story = Give me a cheap bottle of wine and I will be happy... or give me a beer and I will be exponentially happier.  It was fun though!