Advent 2012 – Days 7, 8 and 9

I am behind. Raise your hand if you’re surprised. This past weekend I had planned on going to Niagara Falls to spend some time with Misty. I found out on Friday that my mum was sick, so I decided to go up a day early to keep her company and make dinner for her and her husband. I made maple Dijon chicken, roasted potatoes and parmesan roasted cauliflower. I did suffer a small injury while making dinner, but my mum assures me that my finger nail will grow back. Here’s hoping.

Before we sat down for dinner I opened beer 7, Shock Top Belgian White. It was nice, fresh and crisp. Ive actually had it before, and it makes a nice summer beer.

 

Saturday, before I went to Misty’s place, I made some spinach and artichoke dip and opened beer 8, Russian Imperial Stout. This is the first beer in three years that I have not been able to finish. It was very strong. I like dark beers, and I like stouts, but this was a little more than I could handle. It seems to be the opinion of most people I spoke to, even though Rob seemed to really like it.

On Sunday I spent some time with my nephew Nicholas before I made the drive back to my place. I had a pretty relaxing afternoon. I was exhausted from being up late with my mother, then up early with Nico. I made some chili and cornbread and opened beer number 9.

Amsterdam Nut Brown Ale was great! Probably one of my favourites so far and it went really well with my chili!

Advent 2012 – Day 6

A quick post from my phone as my mother has my laptop monopolized watching Downton Abbey. Yesterday I wrote my exam, had a very long dentist appointment and celebrated my “beautiful teeth” with my day 6 beer.

Crosswinds Pale Ale from Lake of Bays, Ontario. It was quite good. Different. Not unlike the Red Racer I had on day one.

Advent 2012 – Day 5

I had day 5 off from work to study for my final CIP exam. I learned a lot of things. I learned that I should not have bought an iPhone two days before my exam. I learned that boys will dig through snow on their birthday for cupcakes. And finally, I learned that Krombacher is a tasty little German pilsner.

 

That’s right. Instagram, bitches!

Advent 2012 – Day 4

Day 4 started with my iPod breaking. It’s done this before. I sync it and it deletes everything off my iPod. I’ve even blogged about it. I am sick of dealing with it. My iPod was on a slow decline, and I had already made the decision to get an iPhone for Christmas, so I figured I may as well just get it a few weeks early, so I don’t have to deal with the iPod anymore. So, I made the switch from Blackberry to iPhone. I’m still getting used to it, but so far I’m really liking it. Since I needed a little help getting started, I met Mike at the pub and he gave me a hand getting my music onto the new phone and showing me the ropes. It was a little late when I finally got around to opening beer 4.

Flying Monkey Smashbomb Atomic IPA was beer 4. I’ve had it before. It is good, very hoppy. Now I have to get back to playing with my phone studying.

Advent 2012 – Day 3

Work, work, work. By the time 5 o’clock hit on day 3, I was exhausted. Normally it would be Judgy Monday, but Aly and Sara aren’t feeling well, so it was cancelled tonight. Instead I went to the grocery store to load up for the week. Probably due to my exhaustion, I very nearly got into an argument about bagging, but instead decided I might need to limit my expectations of 17 year-olds who earn minimum wage. I got home, put the groceries away and tore into my beer. I knew it was going to be something good when I put it in the fridge this morning and heard the widget. I was not let down.

Guinness! The perfect way to end a stressful day.

Advent 2012 – Day 2

Day two was a great day! I started it off at Sam’s place. I slept there Saturday night because we were having our annual Christmas extravaganza. We order Festive Specials, drink wine and watch Christmas movies. The movies change each year, but the one thing we watch every year is Love Actually. So many great scenes, but this one kills me every time -

Ugh! Anyway, that is why I was at Sam’s place on Sunday morning. Later that day Sam and I met up with Aly and her little Sara for some lunch. Sara had some fun with cardboard mustaches left over from Movember.

In the late afternoon I hit the gym with grown-up Sarah for her very first hot yoga class. I have been away from the studio for a very long time, and boy did it feel better to get back to it! I got home exhausted and ready to devour the pasta sauce I had warming in the crockpot. Before I got to dinner, I had to open Day 2 in my Advent Calendar.

That picture was taken in the only clean spot in my apartment. I am a bit behind on my housekeeping.

Bards was very light, and didn’t have a very strong flavour. That makes it sound like I didn’t enjoy it, which isn’t true, it was so unoffensive that you couldn’t really dislike it. It was a good way to end a relaxing Sunday.

Advent 2012 – Day 1

Yesterday was the big day! The first day of the 2012 Advent Calendar of Beer. I was over at Sam’s place for our annual night of Festive Specials and Christmas movies, so I brought day 1 with me.

Before…

And after…

Red Racer, a craft brew from British Columbia. It was good, but had a strange fruity taste about it. Like lychee or something. Can’t wait to see what tonight brings!

It’s Almost Here…

That’s right! The time is almost upon us…

*cue drum-roll*

For those of you that have been here for a while, you might remember that my friend Kevin makes these advent calendars each year and sells them to friends. Each day you get a new surprise beer. This is my third year getting a calendar, and this year even a few of my co-workers are in on the deal. The great thing is that each day is individually wrapped and matches all the other calendars. That means my Day 1 is the same as Aly’s, the same as Sam’s and the same as Rob’s (hey Rob!) . Check back often because I am going to be blogging each day to show you all our newest selection. Happy holiday drinking!

Halloween Recap

It’s been a festive week here in these parts! On Judgy Monday we took the time to celebrate Andrew’s birthday a little early. His actual birthday is right on Halloween but I decided to give him his cake on Monday since he would probably get enough sugar on his actual birthday. At first I was worried that I wouldn’t be able to out do last year’s cake, but when I asked him what kind of cake he wanted and he replied, “one with sprinkles”, I knew exactly what to make!

Easy enough. I used a boxed funfetti mix, so that there were sprinkles on the inside as well, made a homemade butter-cream frosting, then once it was frosted, I put a cut out of a five that I printed earlier in the day right on the top, covered the cake in sprinkles then peeled off the five. Andrew loved it. When I showed it to him his exact words were, “that’s exactly what I wanted!!”. I love making the kids special cakes on their birthdays. After we ate a delicious stir-fry made by Aly, we lit the cake and sang Happy Birthday to little Andrew.

 

 

After the kids went to bed we really got into the Halloween spirit. Aly bought pumpkins for all of us to carve.

My pumpkin was not entirely fresh. To be more accurate, it was rotting. I decided to just go with it. This was the result…

He wasn’t feeling well. I actually made a similar face when I discovered that he was rotting.

Last night I went back to Alyson and Jeremy’s place to hand out candy while they took the kids around the neighbourhood. It’s something I have done every year since the kids were born. Last night however I wasn’t feeling well (see life imitating art, re:my pumpkin). I went to their place, gave Andrew his birthday present and saw a few adorable children, but when Meghan got there I decided I was better off in bed and went home before the kids got back. I was disappointed that I didn’t get to see their haul, but at the same time I’m glad I got to see them before they went out.

Hope you all had a great Halloween. I will leave you with a picture of my pumpkin all lit up on the big night.

Adventure to The Badlands

Every once in a while I get a text message from my friend Mike (hi Mike!) asking me if I want to run away with him. My answer is almost always yes. Recently we have crossed the border into the US to shop in Buffalo and gone to Hamilton to take photos of old steel yards. I don’t always know where we are going before we set out, which is why I packed my passport and $11 in American cash before heading out. Mike had something different in mind though. Truth be told, I’m not sure Mike had anything in mind. I think the idea was to just get in the car and drive. This is what we came across…

The Cheltenham Badlands. Excuse the poor picture quality, these were taken on my Blackberry. Mike is the real photographer.

The formation of the Badlands was exposed by poor farming practices in the 1930s that lead to soil erosion, exposing the underlying shale. The formation is mostly red in colour due to iron oxide deposits with some faint green streaks due to ground water percolation changing the red iron oxide into green iron oxide (source).

It was really cool. We walked around and although it looks like it would be really hard, it was soft and almost bouncy, like the fake rubber tarmac that they have at children’s play grounds.

After exploring the Badlands, and a minor slip from the less graceful among us, we continued on our drive down winding roads under a canopy of bright orange leaves. I wish I had a picture of that, because it was truly beautiful. We stopped at the Spirit Tree Cidery where I spent more money than I planned on goodies like apple butter, maple butter, and cheese buns and Mike  bought us some amazing chocolate chip cookies.

Considering I had initially planned on spending the day at home studying and doing laundry, Sunday turned out to be a great day! Thanks for the adventure, Mike!