Hop Blossom!

Hop Blossom is Winchester's annual beer festival that takes place along the walking mall.  We thought that it'd be fun to invite some friends and family to join us, so we hosted 5 people and 1 dog for the weekend!  Drew and Kristen (and Bat) showed up in time for some pizza and we hung around and chit chatted until Brent and Jessica showed up.  They all brought beer... we'd also bought beer.  We had so much beer it was insane.  We had also told Ben to bring beer when he showed up tomorrow, so we thought "we should text him to tell him not to"... and then I didn't have his number and Drew got distracted trying to find it for me and... he brought more on Saturday.  Our house has more Bud Light in it than it has ever had (and will ever have).

We woke up far too early on Saturday considering the munchkin stayed at Mom and Dad Ballew's house and the only early risers were the pups.  Everybody was awake by 7:30, except Drew, and Kristen woke him up around 8:30 when the pancakes were ready.  Then we kind of just lounged around.  Aaron mowed the lawn to show off his mower, Ben showed up, and we all took turns getting ready for Hop Blossom.

We showed up right on time because we were all ready for lunch and had decided to just eat there.  We ate off of food trucks and I had a half of a grilled mac n' cheese sandwich.  Holy carbs...  It was good.  But it was filling.

We had a great time!  Lots of beer to taste, lots of FREE beer to taste because the breweries "forgot to mark your wristband", lots of plans to get free beer once our bands were completely marked, and generally just fun times with friends.  There were some really good breweries that are close by that I would now like to visit!  And there were some disappointing new breweries that we were really looking forward to (I'm looking at you, Escutcheon).  All-in-all, a great way to spend a Saturday!  We left before it ended, which seems unheard of, but we were hungry and really just in no state to keep drinking.  Me mostly... I think... Whoops.

Instead, we headed back, ordered pizza, played cornhole, and just hung out in the back yard (and some of us took naps on the ground...).

Everybody went to bed relatively early (day drinking has that effect)...

We woke up kind of early again and everybody started heading home.  Aaron and I cleaned up the house a little bit and lounged around watching TV all day.  The best kind of Sunday... if only it didn't include a hangover...

And now I'm in Tennessee only to arrive back home RIGHT AFTER Aaron leaves for his Italy trip (work related... not as fun of an Italy trip as he would probably like).

2 weeks of no Aaron... :(

Moving East means CONSTANTLY MOVING

So this is our first spring/summer back on the east coast.  And apparently, that means that we attend ALL OF THE THINGS!  And I don't blog because I forget to take pictures of most of the things...

The last post was from Aaron's birthday... The next weekend, we went up to my parent's house for my sister's baby shower (due in 5 weeks!), then I left for a week-long work trip back in AZ (which may or may not have included some hang-out time with old friends!).

I came back on Friday and we had plans to landscape the yard.  Due to the incredible amount of work that would be, we invited Brent and Jessica to help and they obliged!  We worked all day on Saturday (until it poured rain) and then Aaron and I worked all day Sunday after they left.  Since then, the grass has come in, so there are no more brown spots outside of the flower beds.

The next weekend, we planted new trees in the back yard and added another flower bed on Saturday.  Sunday, we went down to Mom and Dad Ballew's house to help watch Emma.  Brent and Jessica had gone to the Biltmore for their anniversary (and brought us a bottle of wine!).  We hung out through Memorial Day and then we headed home without the pups.  I was headed to Georgia that week and Aaron was headed to Minnesota, so the pups stayed at Dog Heaven for the week.  We picked them up on that Friday and spent the weekend at Mom and Dad Ballew's house again.  We house/dog-sat for them while they were in Williamsburg with Joel and Linetta!  Brent came up with Emma since Jessica was at a bachelorette party, so we spend the weekend lounging around the pool, enjoying summer drinks, and teaching Emma to blow bubbles in the water.

The next weekend was supposed to be the weekend when Aaron left for Italy, but they moved the trip AGAIN.  So instead, the dogs spent yet another weekend in Dog Heaven with Mom and Dad Ballew while Aaron and I drove down to Gatlinburg with Mom and Dad Liggett!  Mom had rented an awesome condo in the mountains that had great views of the mountains from wall of almost all windows!

We hiked to a waterfall on Saturday (there was a mini waterfall along the way).  It was just under 6 miles round trip and then after that, we did a 1/2 mile, 45 degree incline hike to an observation tower on the Appalachian trail.  We were all worn out that evening...

On Sunday, we golfed 13.5 holes.  It started thunder storming on hole 14 and we called it a day.  Hole 13 was a 110 yard hole that went from an AstroTurf platform in the woods through a slight opening in between the trees to the green... after that disaster of a hole (plus the impossible 11 and 12th holes with water on every side and woods surrounding the water) we'd had enough anyway.

We had a good time!  We ate far too much food, drank probably too much beer (Smokey Mountain Brewery was great!), taste tested some mediocre moonshine and played games!  Aaron honed his unique euchre skills, Dad unsuccessfully attempted to draw coherent pictures during Pictionary, we played Life, and I taught everybody how to play Phase 10.  It was a good, relaxing, weekend!

This past weekend was just as hectic as the past month, as it is Hop Blossom!  Brent, Jessica, Emma, Ben, Drew, Kristen, and Bat (hooray for dog friends!) came to stay and we went to the beer fest on Saturday.  It was fun!  I'll be sure to post about it... to be continued.