Catch-Up

I haven't posted in a while... We've been busy.  Here's why...

Moving:

We got everything arranged REALLY quickly.  As in, we were told to shoot for the end of Sept. and somehow managed to get the moving company and relocation company to cooperate.  So our house is currently full of boxes, both empty and full, and not so full of food as we try to purge the last remaining bits before leaving.  The disorganization is killing me.  I just want to clean and organize.  And the thought of living out of a suitcase for a month?  Not so appealing.  But.... it will get us back to the east coast and into jobs that we are both excited for... so this is a good thing.  It's just a stressful good thing.

 

House Hunting:

Aaron somehow managed to talk me into going on a house hunting trip a few weekends ago.  He had this spontaneous idea on Tuesday and wanted to leave on Friday night.  ANOTHER stressful scenario.  It all got arranged really quickly and Sam willingly agreed to puppy-sit for us so that they could "spend time with Uncle Sam before they leave" (his words, not mine).  Sam also tried to convert Gus to a Philly Eagles fan.  Lucy was smart enough to run into her crate, but Gus looked like this for a while:

When we got back, Aaron had a stern talking to with Gus about the Redskins and how he should not be tricked into supporting the other team.  Gus was less than concerned.

Anyway.... off we went in search of the most expensive thing we will ever purchase.  It went really well.  We saw a handful of houses on Saturday and we were pretty convinced that this one foreclosure was a good fit for us.  We planned to visit it again on Sunday and headed back to the hotel.  I didn't sleep that night.  I decided it was NOT the right house.  Sunday rolled around and we saw a few more houses and then went back to the foreclosure.  Luckily, one of the first houses we saw was PERFECT.  It just needs a fence and the price was lower than our budget so that we could afford a fence!  We put in an offer on Monday...

And, after a few negotiations, it was accepted on Wednesday and we are now working on closing on our first house!!!!!!

Puppies:

They are as cute as ever!  See for yourself!

Disregard Lucy's crazy face... they were munching on bones.  Snacking is WAY more important than posing for the camera.

Aaron has taken to inviting them up onto his chair on a regular basis now.  It's cute, but they've laid claim to that spot now too.

Gus thinks it's his chair.  Lucy doesn't really like the rocking... she still prefers the couch.

And sometimes there is not much space on our furniture for us.  Whoops.

Beer:

And in the midst of all of this change, there is beer.  Aaron's pumpkin beer was bottled a few weeks ago and we got to taste it this past week.  It's delicious!

This is his "not to shabby" face... 

So the posting may be rather infrequent until this all settles down.  Wish us luck with the move!

Random Happenings

This weekend was a mish-mash of things... cleaning cars, playing giant Jenga at the brewery, watching football...

So really, it was uneventful and fun!  Enjoy some pictures...

It was a long week.  So I bought myself flowers.  

I tried to keep the pups off of the bed, but Aaron likes them up there.  I just wish that they would sleep on his legs instead of mine...

Also, Gus can't sit still and he tends to disturb Lucy, who could stay still forever.  It leads to very little sleeping.

We cleaned cars... Sam doesn't own a hose, so he came over.

Like I said... Giant Jenga!  A fabulous accompaniment to delicious microbrews.

Gus has laid claim to Aaron's chair.  It's hilarious.  So Lucy and Aaron watched football from the floor.

Puppies and Pumpkin

The Pumpkin Ale got switched to secondary fermentation on Saturday.  Apparently, it wasn't 100% necessary to actually switch it over, but it helped get some of the sediment out of the beer.  Also, it entertained the pups.  Win win.

As usual, Aaron did all of the work... I documented the process with pictures and played on the floor with the dogs.  It's a tough job.

Very soon after these pictures, the pups were banished outside to eat leaves and run around... and NOT contaminate the beer with their slobbery licks.  It smelled good!  They just wanted to taste it!

So now there is more waiting. 2 more weeks, actually.  Then we bottle... and stare at it some more before we can enjoy it.

 This beer making thing is testing my patience.  Also, this beer tastes like it may have too mush hoppiness for me (it's a word, I promise); but maybe it will taste less hoppy once it's done?  Here's to hoping... or else Aaron will have a LOT of pumpkin beer to drink before we move.

We can't go into Home Depot Without Buying Things!

We went to Home Depot with some friends so that they could purchase the wood for their cornhole boards that Aaron was going to make them (for a small fee... of 8 Dogfish Head Punkin' beers).  But we couldn't possibly go into the store without actually purchasing something ourselves... so we made a raised feeder for the pups!  They were both leaning over a lot to eat, and Gus is only going to get bigger (boy is 50 lbs and he's not even 6 months old), so it only made sense to bring their food and water to the right height!

I supervised (and enjoyed some of the remaining home-brewed Raspberry Wheat) while Aaron build the cornhole boards.  Supervising is a tough job.  Then it was time to plan out the construction of the feeder.  We settled on using a LOT more wood glue than we ever had before because those darn pieces were just a little too little and flimsy to us and we didn't think that they would easily support the increasingly large amounts of food that Gus will consume in a sitting... Luckily, we had more than enough wood glue and plenty of automobile-like fluids to help keep pressure on it while that wood glue dried.

He did a great job of constructing it, and then it was painted and ready for use!  After much sniffing and inspection, the pups approved!

Hopefully this is the last DIY we have until we move to VA (where we are planning on buying a house and I'm sure we will have plenty of projects...)!

Roughin' It

Instead of doing major cook-outs, as is our usual go-to for holiday weekends, we spent Labor Day up in the mountains camping!

I got back from Maryland on Friday and Aaron had everything packed and ready to go.  I did a quick packing of warmer clothes, showered (yes, I know it doesn't make sense to shower before camping, but traveling makes me feel icky), and we headed up!

Friday night was a quick night.  We got there around 7, set up camp, and make campfire pizzas in our new (crappy Walmart version - I want a nicer one someday) campfire iron!  (Disregard the burned part... it tasted fine!) Then we were lame (and I was on East-coast time) and we went to bed a little earlier than normal.

Saturday morning started at 5:30, when the pups internal clocks said "this is what time we go outside, so since we are not contained in crates, we will sit on your faces until we can go outside."  Literally.  Gus took over my pillow while he licked Aaron's face... Lucy took over my shins and whapped her tail back and forth on Aaron's knees.  So outside we went... Luckily, they were convinced to go back to sleep until 7.

Aaron made egg-in-a-nests for breakfast while I packed us up for hiking.  While we were cleaning up from breakfast, we saw some elk on the other side of the ravine from our site.  Gus was determined to make it known to all in hearing distance that there were large animals over there.  We got it.  They were big.  There were 3 of them.

So after all of the excitement, we headed out for a "hike".  Turns out, the trail was about 100 yards and led to more campsites in the area that you cannot access by car.  Cool,  but not really enough hiking to tire out the pups or us.  So we walked down the Fire Evacuation Route.  It was nice... Gus chased lizards and ate all of the plants, Lucy tried to stay in the shade and shied away from any 4-wheelers or dirt bikes.

Once we got back, we napped, ate snacks, and I read my book.  Sometime in the snacking segment of the afternoon, Gus and Aaron simultaneously spotted one of those very large elk right next to the Jeep.  Lucy was NOT thrilled.  She shimmied out of her harness and ran to my feet, realized the elk was closer in that location, and ran to the tent.  Aaron let her in while I grabbed Gus and climbed into the Jeep with him (mostly so that he would be quiet and not scare that very large animal into doing something not good and also because I was equally NOT thrilled with the enormous wild animal in our campsite).  Aaron originally climbed mostly into the tent with Lucy, and then decided to make a couple trips back and forth from the picnic table that housed our snacks) to the Jeep so that the elk would not consume our evening snacks.  The elk, clearly accustomed to humans and camping and whatnot, mostly just hung out and disappointed-ly watched Aaron relocate the food... and then tried to eat our paper plates.  Aaron was on the other side of the picnic table the whole time.  He is a brave man.  I would not have stood there.

So once everybody was calmed down from that, we went for another walk.  Not long... it was hot, but enough to help the pups release some pent up elk-inspired-energy.

After the second walk, we got back to camp and had a few brews while we waited for a more appropriate time to start dinner.  As we were sitting there, the damn elk came back with its friends!  Once again, Gus and I got into the Jeep, accompanied this time by Lucy, and my brave (and slightly delusional) husband, took video of these gigantic things while they surveyed the site, decided they didn't want our beer bottles (they missed out... it was a Raspberry Brown Ale and some Founders IPA), and moved on.

We then decided a fire would keep them away and started making potatoes and hot dogs for dinner.

A few un-eventful hours, some more brews, and some s'mores later, we went to bed.

Around 5am, Gus woke up and barked at something (cue all of the possible worst case scenarios my mind could come up with... random people, elk, mountain lions... I'm nothing, if not reasonable and sane).  About 2 minutes later, an elk somewhere not-too-close-but-close-enough made their weird calling noise.  Well, let me just say that my paranoid mind jumped straight over the reasonable "they are elk and they call each other and they are not going to come near us" to "there is a mountain lion outside of our tent and the nearby elk are scared of it and we are going to die."  Paranoia, it's a thing... I have it.  Also, to make matters worse, I had to use the bathroom.  So being the super nice and normal wife that I am, I woke up Aaron, leashed up the pups, and forced them into making a group bathroom trip with me!  There were no elk... there were no mountain lions...

After a few hours of very interrupted (thanks to many subsequent elk-calls and fidgety puppies) later, we woke up, had breakfast (College Street Brewery's Sweet Devel Stout mixed with some iced coffee and some egg-in-a-nests shaped like Browns and Redskins logos, in honor of the impending NFL season), and headed out.

I have to say it was the most eventful camping trip that I can recall; but we survived and I would totally go back again!  Plus, it tires the pups out for about 2 days...

I don't know what kind of wild animals Virginia has in it's campgrounds, but I'm sure my mind will imagine something insanely unrealistic when a harmless bunny hops by...

Still trying to make "Fall" happen

There really is no such thing as "fall" in Arizona.  Really, there is just a brief 2 week period where it's no longer 110 degrees, but not quite 40 degrees.  It essentially skips the delightful, mid-50s, leaf-changing colors season.  Aaron's favorite part of fall is (surprise, surprise) the beer.  Pumpkin beers, mostly.

So that's what his next beer is going to be, in an attempt to make Kingman, AZ into a "fall-ish" location.  A Pumpkin Amber Ale where we will probably add in more cinnamon and nutmeg.

He brewed it a few weekends ago.  Our house smelled like beer for approximately 24 hours.  It smelled delicious!

I mostly slept through the whole thing... we had been hiking that morning and I was sleepy.  And my fabulous husband let me sleep while he toiled away at the stove (mostly, it consists of watching it boil while you time the hops correctly and then watching it cool until the thermometer reads the right temperature for yeast).

This weekend, we are going to swap it into secondary fermentation.  And dream sweet dreams of pumpkin beer to come!

Also, we may have to drink this beer very quickly, as we will probably be moving to VA just a few weeks after it's ready.  Good timing, right?  Hopefully our friends like it and can clear it out at our going-away cookout!