Hows my little GoatFest?

BockFest 2014 was one for the record books. The food was amazing, the beer quality was top notch, and as always the people made it great. I love this weekend because it's one of the only times I can actually create a worthy excuse to get friends to visit central Illinois.

This the best photo of the beer setup I got.

It's hard to tell but there is food on that workbench.

We had a small hiccup with planning this year. It was originally scheduled to be at Sleepy Creek again but we changed it to our house for a couple of reasons. Since we are seasoned homebrew partiers we rolled with it and had no issues. We had a smaller turnout this year so that helped keep things in the garage and around the fire reasonable. Since it was only in the mid-40s we needed as much space around the fire as we could occupy.

The beers this year were all good! Not just good for a homebrew, but good, solid, and enjoyable beers. Amazingly my beer didn't loose by the landslide it usually does and I got third! Ending my last place streak at 3 BockFests. It was a tight race this year though and the point spread between first and sixth(last) was 10 points! Normally I'm over 20 points away from second to last so that's really a testament to our good quality beers! Our first repeat champion this year was Zack Frazier with his Raisin Bock, He got the traveling trophy stein back along with a prize Bock.

This is the only picture I have of Zack at BockFest. Just imagine him with a big stein and bigger smile.

This year was a throwback year to our first obstacle course and did much of it the same as in 2011. While carrying a beer we hopped on one foot from the back of the house to the front. The teammate in the front was spinning while blindfolded. After person one handed off the beer they shouted directions for the blindfolded person in the front to make a figure 8 around our trees and duck under a sawhorse. Ryan and I came back victorious for the second year in a row and won a celebrator bock each. We are building an obstacle course dynasty.

My sister is practicing Michelle's technique apparently.

Winners of the BockFest obstacle course!

 The rest of the night was filled with good times, eating good food, staying warm, caramelizing beers, catching up with good friends, and a good game of kubb.

Melanie showing off her layers at the end of the night.

BockFest was a fun and successful thing event and we are already planning on hosting our 5th annual BockFest in late march 2015. See you there!

Hows my little Birthday Celebration?

This year was Laura's thirtieth birthday, the big 3-0. Since I'm just a pup compared to her I decided to go all out to rub it in. In fact, I made this decision probably somewhere in 2012-ish. It was just that the final details didn't get ironed out until she was actually 29.

My faithful readers are already familiar with how it ended, but if you're not familiar with the ending it went like this; I surprised her with a vacation to Puerto Rico that was supposed to begin the next day, then our trip had a massive delay due to weather in Atlanta and the East Coast, but eventually we made it to Puerto Rico and had a great time. So if you've already read all of that you know how this story ends. So here is the beginning, and keeping the theme, I'm posting Laura's 30 days of 30 about 30 days after she turned 30.

For Laura's birthday I planned a 30 days of 30 event where for the 30 days leading up to her birthday she got either a present, event, or homemade coupon of some sort. I enlisted some help from some friends and family along the way. I tried to keep a food/cooking theme but really it was just all about her.

For some reason I didn't take too many pictures of the various day's 'gifts' oh well. Each day I gave Laura a card with a note, everything that was from me had an old joke regarding her gift of the day. Some days she got her card first thing in the morning, some days it was right before bed, and every other day it was somewhere between. Sometimes she just got a clue to where the card was and other days she got a clue to where her gift was that was written in the card.

So here is a list of the days (with a few comments) for the curious:

Day 1: Flowers
-I'm really pleased with this one, I made a last minute decision at the flower shop and picked out a very lovely funeral arrangement for Laura, included with the arrangement was her first card explaining 30 days of 30. The lady helping me said, "That's mean, I hope I'm not making one of these for you soon."
Day 2: 30 Day Plank Challenge
-Because you're going to need a strong core so you don't develop a hunch.
Day 3: Breakfast in Bed
Day 4: Cooking an involved meal together
Day 5: Grocery Planning & Shopping for a week
-Typically Laura does all (well most) of the food planning and directs the shopping cart driver (me) while we're out. I said I'd take care of it for a week, and learned it's a lot of work, no wonder I only ate junk in college.
Day 6: Honey Do (right now)
Day 7: Strawberry Stem remover (gift)
Day 8: Date Night where I dress Fancy
-By fancy I meant a shirt with buttons.
Day 9: Surprise Pot-Luck with Friends
Day 10: Delicious bread making together
Day 11: At home Spa Night
-This included a candle lit bubble bath and her nails painted.
Day 12: Birthday Cake Slideshow (gift)
-Laura's Dad put together a slideshow of all the birthday cake photos that he had taken through her life, it was really great.
Day 13: Just you and me, no electronics
-We played board games and listened to vinyl.
Day 14: A cookbook (gift)
Day 15: A weekend with friends (raincheck)
Day 16: New mix CD (gift)
-All 90's music, to relive her youth.
Day 17: A coupon for having broccoli any time
-As of yet unredeemed.
Day 18: A lesson in bathroom cleaning
-For some reason Laura doesn't think I'd clean the bathroom well enough so she always does it. Well now I have a private lesson scheduled.
Day 19: Learn Laura's Laundry, and do it
-This was surprisingly tricky, I had to do her laundry close enough to vacation so that she wouldn't panic on R-Day because she wouldn't have enough clean clothes for the trip.
Day 20: I've got it covered tonight, you just relax
Day 21: Honey Pot (gift)
Day 22: Pie Crust Recipie (gift)
-Laura's Mom makes a very lovely pie cust
Day 23: Pie Making!
Day 24: A big dinner made by me
Day 25: A handwritten love letter
Day 26: R-Day (reveal day) Surprise, we're going to Puerto Rico!
-This was actually a scavenger hunt around the house for the rest of her cards too. Even though I knew the trip was going to be changed a bit I figured I'd let it play out like I had been imagining for the past month. After the hunt was all over I told her of the first change to our trip. Even though the 30 days plan changed dramatically over the next few days this was the last day of cards.
Day 27: Fly to PR
Day 28: Walking food tour of Old San Juan
Day 29: Caving Adventure
-I was looking forward to this the most on our trip to PR, sadly we just couldn't make it work into the schedule after all of our cancellations. I'm sad we missed it.
Day 30: Travel to Vieques to celebrate your birthday while on a beach vacation.
-This was the best part for me because we actually spent her birthday on the beach despite all of the travel hangups. I planned a beach/warm weather vacation for Laura because I knew she would love it. If it were a vacation for me we would have been skiing somewhere probably.

I had a ton of fun trying to work this all out into a cool experience that was all about Laura. Since we were doing a big vacation my goal was to give her things that cost little or nothing while giving her something. Some of the things might seem trivial or silly but in our house I don't always do them or Laura doesn't always make time for them so they really were gifts.

But Laura had a much different experience with it than I did, and I really wanted to record her side of it. So with no further ado, Laura's first written words on this blog:

Ever since I started dating Tony he has always made fun of me for my age. Apparently being 8 months older than him makes me a dinosaur. As the age of 30 started creeping up, Tony began talking about what he was going to do for my 30th birthday. Well over a year before I turned 30, he said he needed to start planning. I always knew that he was going to do something special but I had no idea what. I was quite surprised to receive a lovely funeral arrangement at work with a card beginning a 30 day countdown. Every day I would wake up and be excited about what he would do or what I would receive that day. Not everything was old person related and he even got my parents and his parents involved. My co-workers started asking me everyday what I got. I was a little concerned when Tony was out of town for a fews days for work that I wouldn't get anything. By this point we were about 15 days into it and I was really enjoying receiving my cards. Luckily he had it all planned out and had the cards hidden around the house. Each morning I would get a text message with a clue as to where I could find the card. I had no idea that this 30 day countdown would lead to a surprise trip to Puerto Rico. I honestly thought I would get a walker or a cane on my birthday, not a day on the beach with Tony. He made me feel so special and gave me the best birthday ever!