Happy Thanksgiving to our loyal Gribblog readers. Yesterday we gorged ourselves on turkey with all of the traditional trimmings. Of course our good friends Jennifer and Lee (along with their son Alexander and daughter Kaitlynn) were present, and we had a great dinner. The turkey came out well thanks to some directions from Cooks Illustrated, and Jess’s recommendation to sharpen the knives made the carving process somewhat less stressful for me. I’m glad the turkey wasn’t alive for that! One fun addition to the Thanksgiving spread was an eisenbock I’d been planning to make for about a year. Last year at the grotto auction I purchased (much to Jess’s dismay) a $5 case of Old Milwaukee Light (oops).
This is the result (well under a gallon) of ice distilling an entire case of Old Milwaukee Light. Please disregard the label from Wild Mountain; they make a very nice selection of beers.
Obviously I had no real intention of drinking it, but the money went to the grotto. I wouldn’t even recommend cooking with it—PBR is much better by all accounts—but I’d hoped that ice distilling the beer would improve the flavor. Although I froze the heck out of the beer and reduced the volume, thereby concentrating the flavor and alcohol drastically, nothing, it would seem, can tame the Beast. According to the cans, the beer won a gold medal at the 2008 World Beer Cup–I guess they have a category for beer that looks, smells, and tastes (I think) the most like piss. OK, technically it was for best American-Style Light Lager, but is there really a difference? Sadly, more bad flavor is, well, um, worse! Be ye warned, don’t try this at home.
Here’s a quick update for the Gribblog. If you scan down (past all of Jess’s recent posts) or click this link, the pictures and some videos have been added to the Devil Dash and fun with Grammie and Pappy post. I also wanted to add this cute video of Phoebe. This was captured during some fun with daddy time while Jess was on a business trip to Chicago. I had a nice CD of the Vince Guaraldi music (you may know it from the Peanuts cartoons) performed by part of the Marsalis family (Ellis with his trio and Wynton and his septet) playing, and Phoebe jammed on with recorder. She’s such an avant garde jazz musician.
Messing around in the stroller before a trip to the playground.
Caught in a beam of light.
This shirt used to be a dress!
Posing.
Happy toddler!
Phoebe seems to think she belongs to the ministry of silly walks.
She’s just delighted with her own brush and dustpan! And, as you can see, she’s very helpful around the house.
Our friends Beth and Chris are having a baby at the end of December, so the Brinkmans hosted a shower for them. Most of our YABS friends were there. The kids had a great time with balloons and snacks, and Phoebe really enjoyed hanging out with John in the playroom. She thinks about John a lot…he has an easy name to say, and he’s a very dynamic playmate!
She's looking awfully grown up, isn't she?
Playing with stacking rings.
Phoebe loved the play kitchen.
Hi, Mom!
Sometimes when you’re at a party, you’ve just gotta dance!
Phoebe worked very hard at hanging the utensils on a variety of pegs.
Happily, John didn’t seem to notice that Phoebe was completely unable to keep her feet and bottom off the train track.
Trying on Mommy's slippers.
One morning in early November, Phoebe decided to go get the stepstool she uses for everything from getting in the way in the kitchen to reaching for the phone. She brought it over to our new coffee table (handed down from Ben and Christina when they moved) and made herself a little spot. As you can see, she was pretty proud of herself!
A table fit for a queen.
I promised a video of Phoebe saying “thank you,” which she learned in October. I thought it would be hard to get her to say it, but she found a medicine measuring cup in the cupboard and wanted to drink water from it. Every time I topped it off, she thanked me.
Phoebe is taking four weeks of swimming lessons on Saturday mornings. She took the same class a year ago, but it’s so much more fun now! She asks about “swimming” almost every day and tells us all about the ducks the kids get to reach for as they swim along.
In the shallow end.
Mommy and Phoebe get ready for class.
Phoebe loves this bathing suit. She says "dots, dots!"
Playing with a ball she found floating in the shallow end.
Climbing out so that she could jump back in on the count of three.
Practicing with the noodle.
Swimming toward the fish toy.
The kids spend a lot of time floating and kicking on their tummies and backs. Their teacher loves songs, so most of the activities are set to music.
On Halloween, I took Phoebe to school by bike. It was a complicated morning because Dave had to be at the airport extremely early for a work trip to Nashville. So that we wouldn’t have to drive him at 3:00 a.m., he drove to one of the Boulder Park ‘N Rides and took the bus to the airport. I picked up the car by bike on my way into work.
When we pulled up to daycare, I got Phoebe out and took out her lion costume, which I’d managed to finish at midnight the night before. (I’d been away in Chicago for a work trip the previous week.) I ended up not making the pants, since Phoebe has a pair of corduroys the right color. It was a good thing, because the top came down almost to her ankles! I tried to convince her to put it on before we went into school. She vehemently resisted. I begged. She cried. Finally I just yanked it on and marched her into class, where she immediately felt happier. A few of her classmates had on their costumes. She waited for her teacher to admire her before asking to take it off.
I left work a little early to pick Phoebe up in time to go over to the Brinkmans’ before trick-or-treating. They wanted to go while it was still light. Phoebe had worn her costume for a little while at school so they could take photos, so she was more used to it. We put it on and got ready to go out with the group of kids: Ben and Annika, who are Pastor Sara’s 5-year-old twins; Jade, who’s 3; and John and Thomas Brinkman, who are 3.5 and 1.5 respectively. I put some Halloween face makeup on Phoebe’s nose, but she had no idea what I was doing. I had brought her a cat bag to carry around, although I figured I’d end up carrying it myself.
Phoebe with her lion.
Thinking about what might happen next.
On the contrary! Phoebe figured out how to trick-or-treat within minutes. She insisted on carrying the bag herself, and she followed the older, (much) faster kids with aplomb. She was able to take the candy from people and put it in the bag herself. She wanted to go to every house, even those with no light on. I had a hard time capturing a photo of her smiling, because she was so intent on the chaos of the other kids and trick-or-treating. She had such a good time!
Here's a smile!
These kids can't stand still; they're too excited!
Ready for action!
Trick or treat!
Thomas and Phoebe: two little lions.
Look at that great tail!
After trick-or-treating we all got back together at the Brinkmans’ for Emily’s famous chili and some very impressive pumpkin-themed rice krispy treats. Back in the house, I had Phoebe go look at her nose in the mirror. She was totally shocked. Since then, she’s been saying “hat, coat, nose!” every time we talk about Halloween and her lion costume. It was a very successful evening, although we really missed having Dave there.
Phoebe in the Chariot with her yellow raincoat all ready to cheer mommy on in the Devil Dash.
There’s no doubt that fall is finally here. While last weekend was pretty gorgeous (even without traveling to Ithaca), the weekend before was a bit nasty. Jess and her coworker Karen had planned weeks earlier to run the Devil Dash in Lyons, and the forecast promised to make the course even more devilish. The race, for those unaware, is your basic 5K run featuring the seven deadly sins (or various obstacles loosely based thereupon). There was a pit of blood (actually red water) you had to cross, a slip-and-slide into a mud pit, and a barbed-wire-covered mud trough you had to “swim” through—and that was just the last 200 feet before the finish line! There was also a steep hill climb that didn’t allow for passing (especially on the rain-slicked rocks) and a couple of big obstacles you had to climb over.
Jass and Karen making it through the dirt jumps. No style points for this duo!
For Jess the rain (nearly snow) seemed to add to the mystique of the event, but I think she was the only member of the family thus moved. The rest of us were moved to shiver, despite knowing full well that it would be raining off and on and cold throughout. I feel especially bad for Grammie and Pappy, who had to endure this on vacation! By the time Jess and Karen started, we were all pretty wet. Grammy and Pappy found an awning near the start/finish area to huddle under, and Phoebe (dry in the Chariot) and I set off to check out some of the course. We found a couple of women watching the race on a covered picnic table and joined them for a bit. We were parked right in front of a series of dirt jumps in Lyons that had been used to add a bit of excitement to the race course. Some of the racers tried little jumps and spins off of the obstacles, but others struggled to even summit the little muddy hills (speed was the key to clearing the short but steep ramps). A few even wiped out spectacularly! Best of all, Phoebe met a couple of dogs; she really likes dogs, as long as they don’t get too close. It’s rough when your face is right at sniffing/licking height and you have short arms.
When Jess and Karen went by, we cheered quickly and hopped back into the Chariot (Phoebe) and raced towards the aforementioned mud pits. We arrived just in time to get a little video of Jess getting down and dirty. At this point I should mention that we were using the little point and shoot camera because I couldn’t find the Nikon as we were getting ready to leave. This along with the weather conspired to make me a generally grumpy and unpleasant person to be around. I would later remember that we had the camera the previous weekend when we helped Ben and Christina move into their new house, but that realization was still a couple of days off. In retrospect, I’m glad a didn’t drag the good camera all over Lyons in the rain anyway, and we still got some video evidence (along with Jess’s ruined sneakers) to prove the debauchery.
Jess and karen complete with mud after the Devil Dash.
After the race, we snapped a couple of muddy shots of Jess and Karen before racing to the car. Jess tried to quickly strip down, towel off, and get dressed into some clean and dry clothing, but she was only moderately successful. It’s hard to get dry while standing in the rain (insert mental images of Sisyphus or Pyrrhus or your favorite doomed-to-fail Greek here). Tearing apart the Chariot in the pouring rain and stuffing it into the trunk wasn’t fun either. I’m beginning to see the appeal of a monster SUV. Once we were all in the car, we made the short drive over to Oscar Blues (along with half of the participants) for some good food and beer. The wait wasn’t too bad, but the sudden onslaught seriously slowed the procession of food from the kitchen.
Phoebe and Pappy playing with Noah's Arc. At this scale, it would have been a pretty crowded cruise!
The rest of the visit from Grammie and Pappy was pretty typical. Phoebe seemed to warm up to them pretty well, which was great, as she took her sweet time adjusting to the GPs Hazelton a few weeks earlier. Somewhat infrequent visits with family (along with a general lack of rain and the somewhat frequent devastating wildfires) is one of the only problems with living in Colorado. It’s been a great summer and early fall with so many family visits.
We just finished a crazy two-week span where Jess traveled to Chicago to do some campus travel for a whole week only to return just in time to relieve me from the joys of solo parenting. I then promptly left for Nashville where the American Vacuum Society was holding its international symposium and exhibition. You’d be surprised by how much there is to study after removing almost all of the gas, and you’d also be surprised how much it costs to do those studies.
Grammie and Phoebe having some fun.
Now we’re back to our normal weekend routine. The snow forecast for this weekend isn’t going to come, so hopefully we can get in some hiking or biking.
