Birthday Season Visits

Blow, boy, Blow!
Originally uploaded by petemorris.

I missed last week's entry and thus have half of October to discuss. Nonetheless, we're still talking about Tony's birthday! Oh to be seven years old. Oh to be young enough to actually look forward to birthdays and then milk them for all they're worth. Seriously, though, we've had a fun and busy couple of weeks. A cub scout pack meeting and halloween party (and thus costume making for Audrey), a beer club meeting (and thus beer drinking for me--life is tough), a birthday party for friends at the local bowling alley for Tony, a nerve-wracking overtime victory for our Cal Bears, weekend soccer games, and then a just-completed week of more visitors from out of town. This included Audrey's folks, with whom we got to spend each afternoon and evening the last seven days, and culminated with a big get-together at our house yesterday (Saturday) that began at Tony's soccer game. In addition to Al and Bev, we got to see and have lunch with Grammo and Woody, as well as a not-common-enough visit with Kari and Eric. Everyone looked well, and it was a nice prelude to more good fun and conversation this coming winter holiday season. On the beer front, I had a successful two-day (Saturday night - Sunday morning) session last weekend during which I bottled the newest, triple-grain iteration of my American "Wheelmen" Wheat Ale, and brewed a rather generic amber ale--just something (hopefully) drinkable for the holidays that would work well with the recycled Wheelmen yeast. (You see, yeast prices just went up, and I figured I might as well save a few bucks; with apologies to Stone Brewing Co., call this new beer my "Cheap Bastard" ale.) Cheers! and Happy Halloween!!