andy – Page 13 – linsenbardt.net

January 3, 2019January 3, 2019

Review: Spiderman – Into The Spider-Verse

For the past few years, we have gone hiking for New Year’s Day. This year, a few movies came out in mid-December that we simply haven’t had a chance to watch, largely because we’ve been gone on weekends and the only time our theater in town has a movie at 3:00-ish …is on weekends…

Therefore, Brooke and Meg went to see Mary Poppins Returns (and they loved it!) and Calvin and I went to see Spider-man: Into The Spider-Verse.

Every since I saw the trailer for this movie, I wanted to see it. You can see pictures that get the idea across (“it’s ‘just’ an animated Spider-man movie”), but you really need to see it in motion to get a sense for how magical it is. It’s animated like a comic book. You see words from time to time on the screen (like Spider-Ham hitting a bad guy with a hammer and seeing the word “BONK” show up above his head). The animation is even “choppy” sometimes, as if you were paging through comics seeing each page a frame at a time. Seriously: the way this movie is animated is unbelievable and perfect.

Second, the voice cast was exceptional. Some of the actors I’ve never heard of (though they were all great), but others like Lily Tomlin, Liev Schreiber, John Mulaney, Mahershala Ali and Nicholas Cage are instantly recognizable. Heck, even Chris Pine is in it for all of 10 seconds.

However, it’s Jake Johnson, Shameik Moore and Hailee Steinfeld that are probably the three “primary” voices heard throughout. Respectively, they’re voicing Peter B. Parker, Miles Morales and Gwen Stacy. Without getting to “into the weeds” of Spider-man lore, there was a separate timeline where Peter Parker died and young Miles Morales took on the mantle of Spider-man with his own similar powers, but not identical (for example, Miles can camouflage himself while Peter could not. Gwen Stacy famously died at the hands of the Green Goblin decades ago, but in an alternate timeline, it was Peter who died and Gwen who was bitten by the radioactive spider, granting her powers instead (and going by Spider-Woman, or Spider-Gwen).

I should also note that Miles is a person of color, the son of a black man and a latina woman. He’s also still in high school. The central part of the Peter Parker character when he was first introduced was that he was “just like you, Dear Reader, with real-life problems like homework and girls and rent and getting a job.” As Peter Parker got older, he moved away from that life, just as we all do. What better way to make Spider-man relevant in the modern world than by thrusting him back into high school in Brooklyn?

Now, with decades of Spider-man lore across multiple comic series, timelines, characters…how could one tie that all together? How about having a villain create a super collider beneath New York with the purpose of trying to bring his family back to him from another dimension…and then accidentally pulling Spider-people together into “our” world instead?

Yeah, it’s kinda dumb…but I can’t think of a better way, so we’re going with it. And honestly, seeing all of those characters together in the same universe was cool. Star Trek has done similar things over the years, so I can’t really complain.

Overall, I loved it. Because I’m not as familiar with the Miles Morales “Ultimate Universe” side of Marvel Comics, some of the events were foreign to me, so it’s nice to be surprised. The movie is produced by Sony, so it also kinda tied together the Tobey Maguire Spider-man movies into this one, which was fun.

The movie was genuinely funny, too. There’s a part in the movie where Miles’ uncle is teaching him how to meet girls by putting his hand on her shoulder, looking into her eyes, and saying “hey” in a sultry way. In the movie, Miles struggles to replicate what his uncle is doing, but it serves as a funny moment. After this happened in the movie, Calvin leaned over, put his hand on my shoulder, and said “hey.” And it was hysterical.

So yeah, day one purchase for me when it becomes available. It was very good and showed what animation can bring to to these movies rather than always relying on live-action Marvel films. Highly recommended.

January 2, 2019January 1, 2019

State Park #7: Prairie State Park

This post is part of an ongoing series summarizing each State Park in Missouri that our family has attended. We hope to visit each of 54 State Parks before the kids graduate from high school.

We returned from Pittsburg, KS from Taylore’s wedding back in August of 2016 and, at Brooke’s suggestion, we looked for a Missouri State Park near that region that we otherwise wouldn’t visit for a very, very long time. She ran across Prairie State Park, which happened to be just over the Kansas/Missouri border.

In all honesty, it doesn’t seem like there’s all that much to do there. They’ve got multiple hiking trails, including one we went on that, literally, involved walking through a field. There are some backpacking trails that are a bit longer and further out, but again, given the terrain, I’m not sure that it would be all that “hilly” or otherwise difficult to make good time on a long trail. Shade was certainly at a premium out there…

...the boy was very slow... — …the boy was very slow…

The “claim to fame,” at least so far as we could tell in our limited time there, was that this open field we were hiking through also contains bison and elk. When we first drove in, the sign informed us that there were free roaming elk and bison moving through the area and, while we didn’t see any, unfortunately, we did see signs of them…

…but with multiple buffalo patties around, it was clear that large animals move through the area frequently. They were easily identified by their similarity to their other bovine brethren (and the fact that we saw tons of the elk variety in Colorado and it looks nothing like this).

A nest for something...big... — A nest for something…big…

We also saw multiple spots in the grass that clearly used to bed some kind of large animal. It wasn’t obvious to us whether we were seeing elk or buffalo “beds,” but they must have been recent, as the grass looked like it would pop back up given enough time.

"You may experience bison/elk"...is that a combination organism?! — “You may experience bison/elk”…is that a hybrid organism?!

Overall, it was a nice, brief little stop. They’ve got camping, but we didn’t see much of a shower house available: only a single in-ground outhouse near the picnic area. It looked like mostly primitive camp sites and, although they actually looked pretty nice and spacious, only one was reserved for the coming days. I suppose August isn’t exactly prime camping season.

We want to go back and see some bison up close, though! Perhaps another time, when we happen to be down in southwestern Missouri!

December 31, 2018December 30, 2018

State Park #6: Pershing State Park

This post is part of an ongoing series summarizing each State Park in Missouri that our family has attended. We hope to visit each of 54 State Parks before the kids graduate from high school.

Back in May of 2016, we went camping at Pershing State Park. It was named for Gen. John J. Pershing, who grew up in the area and explored it as a kid. It’s located in the north-central part of the State, so Brooke and I had visited the park back when we were in college, so we thought it’d be cool to check it out with our kids.

The campsite we stayed at was just a short walk to a small pond. Calvin and Meg weren’t particularly great at fishing, but they still had fun! If I remember right, the kids got their lines stuck in branches a few times and didn’t catch anything, but oh well – it killed some time.

The campsites were pretty flat and covered in trees. It was easy enough for them to entertain themselves around the campground. We were there in mid-May, so the temperature was pretty reasonable: chilly at night, nice during the day, not many mosquitoes yet. There was plenty of wood around to make a fire with, and that’s always entertaining to 2- and 5-year-old kids.

We didn’t do a ton of hiking, but Pershing has a pretty cool walking trail through some tall grasses. There wasn’t much wildlife aside from birds we could see, but the kids enjoyed hiding from each other, darting around corners behind brush. The boardwalk pictured above is a short loop within walking distance from the campsite. We did our best not to carry Calvin all that much, but we didn’t have much of a choice unless we wanted to sleep on the trail forever…

There was also a cool observation deck where you could watch for water fowl in the marsh. The kids took their sweet time climbing up to the top, despite the fact it wasn’t even really that tall. Remember, Calvin is among the slowest people on the planet and it was even worse when he was 2…

Overall, we had a great time! It was also a relatively short drive for us, which is always appreciated. I don’t remember there being a playground all that close to our campsite, which would have been nice, but our kids were of the age where they could “make their own fun” so it wasn’t a big deal.

We’d go back! It’s definitely worth the return trip someday!

December 30, 2018January 2, 2019

State Park #5: Rock Bridge Memorial State Park

This post is part of an ongoing series summarizing each State Park in Missouri that our family has attended. We hope to visit each of 54 State Parks before the kids graduate from high school.

So, I last posted about State Parks last May. For real, this time, I’m going to get a few more in the virtual can. It’s on my “Christmas Break list” and Brooke keeps reminding me to work on them.

We last visited Rock Bridge Memorial State Park near Columbia in April 2017, though Meg first visited back in 2012, before Calvin was born. As close as we live, and as often as we’re in Columbia, you’d think we’d go more often, but alas.

The park gets its name from an unusual rock formation carved out by a creek over many years. Growing up, we used to be able to actually walk through the bridge, but a few years ago, they removed the wooden walkway. To be fair, they’d have to close the walkway any time the creek flooded, so perhaps it’s for the best.

Brooke and I both went to the park growing up, actually. Mom and Dad took my sister and I and we both went on school trips relatively frequently. I never got to go down in the “Devil’s Icebox” cave, but Brooke got to back in high school. I also participated in an orienteering activity there in 8th grade, which Mom fondly remembers.

Some relatively light hiking around the park

The hiking around the park can be as strenuous or as simple as you want, with many trails set up on wooden slats, and other portions being traditional dirt trails. The park is pretty big and has campsites, but I don’t remember ever camping there. My experience is mostly just the hiking around the park, but even with that, I never really went all that far.

The aforementioned Devil’s Icebox cave is somewhat popular among amateur spelunkers. Honestly, I’m not sure I’d even gone down as far as these pictures here indicate. The kids found it pretty awesome to be down in a cave by the rushing water. We didn’t get all that wet, but they did go out in the middle of the water out on some slippery rocks.

We may end up camping there at some point, but for the time being, we’ll probably just visit when we get some time in Columbia. It’s a fun and easy park to walk around in so we’ll definitely head back…but we have quite a few other parks to hit, too!

December 14, 2018December 28, 2018

Treats!

This is the second year I’ve tried my hand at making some Christmas “cookies.” I always call them “cookies,” but there’s really no baking involved. Still, these are treats that my Mom used to make when we were growing up, but when we were gone for college, she slowed down on her cookie making, largely because we weren’t around to help eat them.

Regardless, I missed them and I wanted my kids to get the same treatment, so I started to make them last year when I had off for Christmas break. Thus, here we go again.

The ones pictured up top are almond bark-covered Oreos. I also put some peanut butter between Ritz crackers and dipped those, as well. The fun part about making both of them is that it can be challenging to figure out which is which, as they’re about the same size and shape.

I actually dipped Oreos and pretzels a few years ago back in St. Louis, but ended up burning the almond bark by trying to microwave it. I just couldn’t figure out the right settings to melt the chocolate without having to stir it every 30 seconds. Then last year, I tried it using a double boiler method and believe you me, it works wonders. I suppose it takes a little longer than it does in the microwave, but I have yet to burn anything, so I figure it’s worth it. I used the double boiler for just about everything I made this year.

The holly candy (above) is corn flakes, marshmallow, corn syrup and green food coloring. It isn’t too terribly hard to make, though getting the shape right can be a little tough. I think I did a better job this year of mixing everything, so the candy held together a bit better rather than falling apart a flake at a time.

The chocolate-covered rice krispie treats are also a favorite of mine, though I always forget that they aren’t technically rice krispie treats, in the traditional sense. Sure, they’ve got most of the hallmark ingredients (like, you know, rice krispies…), but they lack marshmallows, which ends up leaving them a bit drier. The topping, though, mixes chocolate and butterscotch chips together (also in the double boiler).

This was my first year trying to make chow mein noodle candy. These are similar to what Brooke’s family has (haystacks), but my family always put marshmallows in there. I ended up adding a few extra noodles to the mix, as I thought they looked a bit over-marshmallow-y (sure, that’s a word…), so we’ll see in the finished product whether I got the mix right. I haven’t tried them yet. Brooke had me make some her way, but we’ll save those for next weekend when we head to Hannibal.

Anyway, it doesn’t take all that much time to make them and I certainly like eating them. If anything, the cleanup takes longer than the “making” part takes.

Meg’s been eyeing these treats for a few days now and I haven’t let her have any. I’m terrible. 🙂

December 4, 2018January 6, 2019

Christmastime is Here!

So, it’s Finals Week at school and I’m procrastinating in my grading by posting pictures of this past weekend. Just sayin’.

I put up the Christmas lights the Sunday after Thanksgiving (in the rain, I might add…), but we didn’t turn them on until late last week when it was closer to actually being December. This weekend after we got the tree, I put the LED “flicker” candles in the windows. Every year, I love seeing them up in the attic windows…

We got our tree this past weekend, again under threat of bad weather. Calvin was actually feeling a bit sick, so we made him go with us, but he stayed in the car. Brooke thought we should try and get a straighter tree this year rather than buy a new tree stand (last year’s tree had some “issues” staying upright…), and the tree lot we tend to go to keeps their best ones pre-cut and covered for easy browsing. Meg and Brooke picked the one they liked the best (a Fraser Fir this year) and we hauled it off on the Forester.

By the time we got home, Calvin was feeling a little better. He and Meg hung out for a bit while we waited for the tree to dry off from the rain (again…it’s Precipitation City here in Missouri this year…). After a bit of unloading, I carried the tree in and put the new Christmas lights on it that Brooke picked up on sale at the end of last season. These are bigger “bulb”-style lights, but they’re really just a plastic cover around a small LED. Still, they look nice! The kids helped out with hanging the ornaments…and then we had to rearrange the ornaments after they only hung them in the very front and below the 4′ line of the tree…

In the end, it turned out pretty good! The tree’s about 8′ tall, so the star doesn’t quite fit in the bay window perfectly. We pulled it out a little bit, but it still looks great from the street outside.

This year also saw the addition of a new tree upstairs, also a pick-up from a sale at the end of last Christmas. It’s a 4′ fake tree the kids can keep upstairs to put some of their ornaments on. We actually put it up Thanksgiving weekend to tide Brooke over until it was time to put up the real thing.

We’ve got most of our presents purchased this year already and Brooke’s been busy with the wrapping. She took care of Christmas cards before Thanksgiving for the first time ever, but as I’m in the throes of Finals, I won’t be addressing them until this weekend at the earliest. Still, I think we’re ahead of most folks this season! Since we’ve had at least 5 snowfalls this year (including a small one this morning…), it’s felt like Christmas for weeks now, even though it’s only December 4th.

The house at least looks more like Christmas now, too!

October 24, 2018December 30, 2018

Review: Halloween

I don’t think I actually saw the original Halloween (1978) until after college. Perhaps I saw it earlier and just didn’t remember it, but I don’t think I actually saw it until relatively late in life. Growing up, I wasn’t really into “slasher movies,” though the Friday the 13th franchise was frequently on TV, so I caught a few of those here and there. I’ve seen parts of A Nightmare on Elm Street, but never the whole thing. The 1980s were the heyday of slasher franchises, so I remember going to the Gerbes in Columbia to check out movies available for rental and seeing all of the covers for lots of movies I’d only later be old enough to actually watch.

The thing I really appreciate about the first Halloween movie is that it a). kicked off the “slasher” genre, and b). contains no blood. Not a drop. There’s tension, there’s violence. But there’s no gore to it. Not that I’m against such things, but I think it sets itself apart from other movies that came out in that era and later that leaned so hard into gross-out territory that it wasn’t really scary so much as it was shocking. Later movies in the Halloween franchise definitely kicked things up a few notches, but they weren’t better for it. In fact, the movies were barely comprehensible, aside from a few examples that weren’t utter train wrecks.

This brings us to Halloween (2018), technically the third movie to bear that name (there was another reboot in 2007 that wasn’t all that bad). This film has a few things going for it that piqued my interest. Firstly, it ignores all of the other movies except the original, which is a crazy thing for a franchise to do. Secondly, it takes place, in real time, 40 years later, so the passage of time is integral to the story being told. Lastly, they got Jamie Lee Curtis back to portray Laurie Strode, but with 40 years of trauma built in that turned her into a secluded “prepper,” who is ready for the return of Michael Meyers.

As the original is probably my favorite horror movie of all time, it isn’t surprising that I liked this one, too. I like the direction it took, the story it told, and the characters involved in telling it. This new iteration was, in some ways a “remake” of the original, which has been the trend in Hollywood to “tell a new story” by “retelling the old one” (Star Wars: The Force Awakens comes to mind). However, I think this one leaned more toward “callback” than “retelling.” Some similar story beats were totally there, like the psychiatrist and sheriff pairing up to find Michael, or the babysitter connected to the main characters being a target on Halloween night, and so on. But I think the writers did a good job of acknowledging the original movie while putting enough twists in the plot to make it a new thing. The fact that I knew certain main characters wouldn’t die (because they’re main characters…), but I still felt tense at the edge of my seat, is a testament to what they were able to craft here.

So yeah, it was good. Was it as good as the original? Probably not. But this movie still didn’t have all that much gore to it. There’s totally violence and, this time, there’s blood in there…but it wasn’t over-done like some horror films will do. It wasn’t as much “shocking” as it was “tense,” and I think that’s about as true to the original as you can get.

October 20, 2018December 30, 2018

Challenge Completed

As I’ve written before, I’ve been working on running a half marathon for most of this year. Back in May, I registered for the Kansas City Half Marathon and have been putting in quite a few miles since, especially recently. I did 45 miles 3 weeks ago; 37.7 miles 2 weeks ago; 47.4 miles last week; and then scaled down for this week, “only” running 19 miles in the days leading up to today’s race (and I took off yesterday).

Brooke and the kids stayed home this time, mostly because there isn’t a whole lot for kids to do for two hours between 7:00 and 9:00 am in downtown Kansas City. It also afforded me the flexibility to get down there, use public transportation to get around, and go to bed when I needed to. To that end, I left home yesterday around 2:30 and headed to Union Station where the race packets were being held. I picked up my shirt (which is really nice, btw…) and race bib, checked out a few of the “wares” from various sponsor companies, and then headed to my hotel. We had originally scheduled an Airbnb for the night, but the owner cancelled about a week ago (hmmm…wonder why…), so I ended up staying at the Marriott Downtown, closer to the convention center. In the end, this was probably best because I was a). close to the Power and Light District (for dinner options) and b). the hotel was a block away from the KC Streetcar stop I needed the next morning.

After I checked into the hotel, I went around to the corner to a sports bar called Yard House, which was packed (because Friday, ya’ll). I ate my turkey club and fries at the bar, along with a few beers from Torn Label, which were quite good.

I was done with dinner by 7:00, so I went back to the hotel and watched Netflix for a few hours before trying to fall asleep, which thankfully happened around 9:45 pm.

It was a brisk 46 F when I walked to the trolley around 5:45 am Saturday morning. Honestly, it was supposed to be worse earlier in the week, when the temperature forecast was closer to 36 F, so I was fine with this. The worst part about this aspect of the experience was that, because of the number of people running and parking being at a premium, using public transportation requires getting down there early, and when you are by yourself, there’s no one to hold a coat for you, so I just had my running gear to keep me warm (read: not really warm). Thankfully, Union Station was open, so I could hang out in there until the race was to start.

I should also note that, before leaving the hotel, I had 40 oz of water and a Cliff Bar. I took along some Scratch Labs energy chews (effectively fruit snacks with more salt than usual) to have closer to start time, and I washed it down with a 20 oz water from a vending machine in Union Station. I did not carry water with me for the race.

Note: You can “check” gear at one of the tents at the end of the race, so I could have taken a coat along with me, but having not run this race before, I wasn’t sure what that process would look like with a few thousand people being down there. If I run this again sometime, I think I can get away with doing it this way again. If it’s any colder, though…who knows…

There were a lot of people racing. Official tallies indicate 3,987 finishers for the Half Marathon; 1,263 finishers for the Full Marathon; and 1,363 finishers for the 10K. All of them started at 7:05 am, so it took a bit to get off the starting line. The 5K runners (1,272 finishers) started at 7:30 am.

My goal for this race was to do it in under 2 hrs. My understanding from perusing the internet is that 13 miles in 2 hrs is a perfectly “respectable” time (indeed, the average was 2:19:16 from those that ran it). The two times I’ve run 13 miles before, at least around Marshall, I’d done it in 1:56 (back in May), and then again at 1:51 a few weeks ago. Granted, I didn’t know the Kansas City landscape, so it was still a bit of an unknown how this route would go, but I hoped I could at least do it in close to 1:50.

Relatively early on, I noticed the pace runner in front of me maintaining an 8:00 min/mi pace, which would put runners nearby on track for a 1:45 half marathon. After I spotted him, I thought I’d try to keep up for as long as I could, thinking that would push me beyond 1:50. And for most of the run, I kept up or was in front! I didn’t stop for water (which was provided every 2 miles) or restrooms (which were also provided about as often), so that helped me keep moving. My legs didn’t really hurt all that much until I got closer to the 8 mile mark, but more on that shortly…

The organizers made a big deal of the fact that the race course was “reversed” from usual, and this is the second year they’ve done this. I guess it used to start with a giant hill to go up at the beginning, and then slower declines for much of the rest of the race. However, by virtue of reversing things, that meant there were more slow inclines for much of the race and a mile long decline at the end. Around mile 9, I definitely started feeling those slow hills…and wasn’t a fan… Still, knowing the end of the race would be on a downhill kept me going.

That last hill, though. Whoa. For comparison, I was going uphill at 8:24 min/mi for mile 11, then 8:03 min/mile for mile 12…then 7:34 min/mile for 13…

…and 6:36 min/mile for the last 0.2 miles of the race…

In the end, my official time was 1:44:06 to run the 13.1 miles, which I was very happy with. I not only beat my goal, I killed it. I placed 49 out of 286 people in my age group (35-39) and 276 out of 1773 males who ran the race. 336th place overall (out of 3,987). For my very first official Half Marathon, I thought that was pretty good!

At the very end of the race, at the “Finishers Festival,” you are given a beer and some BBQ, which I wouldn’t normally be all about, but after burning 1,600 calories before 9:00 am, I can’t say I was eager to refuse…

People have asked if I’m going to push on for a Full Marathon next and, at this time, I’m thinking “no.” After I finished the race, took the trolley back to my hotel, and took a shower, it was around 10:00 am…and I just thought about all the Full Marathon runners still going. I’m not sure I’ll say that I’ll never do it, but it’ll be awhile. With that finishing time, I’m not really eager to do another Half for awhile, either – I’ll probably stick with 10Ks for awhile. But when I’m ready, perhaps I’ll hit up the Half Marathon in Columbia or St. Louis where I know more people and don’t have to deal with public transportation quite as much.

For now, though, I’m going to take a few days off!

October 10, 2018December 30, 2018

Garden Update: Late-September

So, being honest for a moment: I put these pictures in here earlier in October and forgot about it. I’m a little late, but the garden hasn’t changed all that much in the last week, so oh well: it is what it is.

Aaaaannnyway, we’ve mostly shut down the garden for the year. At this point, I’m still going out a few times a week to grab cherry tomatoes for Meg’s and my lunches during the week. There are some full-size tomatoes still coming on, and we’ve still got peppers out there, but we’re only going out there when we feel like it, or when we need something for some reason.

Brooke picked the popcorn. We got some this year, but nowhere near what we got two years ago. She noticed a squirrel attempting to carry an ear up one of our maple trees a few weeks ago, so we know various pests also went after them. Still, we got something, so it could have been worse. The bean plot has some of last year’s straw bales on it to try and limit the growth of weeds, but other than that, we’re leaving that entire plot alone now.

The tomato and pepper plots are still moving, to a limited degree. Somehow, earlier last week, we ended up with 80+ F temperatures before it started getting cooler. The low tonight is supposed to be 38 F, so we’ve had a big swing in the last week! We’ve also had some rain, so I should probably mow…er…sometime…

Earlier in October, Brooke picked as much as she could handle and ended up with quite a few tomatoes. She’s pretty sure she’s canned over 20 pints thus far, though she put these tomatoes pictured here in the freezer until she’s ready to process them. She expects that she can hit 30 pints by the time it’s all said and done, but the “official” count remains to be seen.

Our pepper crop ended up being pretty solid this year! We didn’t get many traditional bell peppers, but the peppers we ended up with were still relatively mild and tasty.

She ended up canning them after roasting them outside on the grill. The roasting process was straightforward outside and provided the “real estate” to do all of them at one time. Brooke brought them in and cut them all up and put them in small jars in the fridge. I’m not entirely sure what she’s going to do with them, but I suspect they’d be good in a chili or on a pizza. We’ll see!

Lastly, aside from the popcorn in the middle, here’s the soup bean and “pole bean” haul from this year. Not a ton on any of their counts, but still: more than we had before. We will definitely go with pole beans next year, but we haven’t decided whether to go with a more “prolific” variety, or whether we need to just add more arms to the teepee and get more plants going. With regards to the soup beans, we knew going in that we weren’t planting as many as last year (we’ve still got some), but it just feels wrong to not plant them, so here we are. We got something. That’s what matters.

This post probably closes out this year’s garden posts for awhile! I may do another wrap-up later after the sweet potatoes come up, but that doesn’t usually happen until we get closer to the freezing point (which is tonight…incidentally…who knows…silly Missouri weather…). We had a good run in 2018!

Update (10/16/18): Rather than starting a whole new post about this, I figured I’d add a few pictures from yesterday. Our first frost hit last night (a low of 29 F), so we picked the rest of the tomatoes and peppers that were out.

The tomatoes weren’t in the best of shape, but I got almost a “car wash bucket” out of them. I’ll be sad to see the cherry tomatoes go this season, as I’ve been eating them in my lunch twice a week, but I suppose all good things must come to an end…

The peppers were in better shape, overall. Lots of big ones and little ones out there. Brooke’s going to freeze these after she slices and dices them and we’ll use them in chili, on pizzas, etc. I think our pepper haul was shockingly good this year, though I guess I can’t say for certain whether we got more than last year or not (I suspect so…).

Sometime in the next few days, Brooke will dig up the sweet potatoes. That’ll close out the garden for 2018 for good!

October 2, 2018October 2, 2018

Oktoberfest 2018

Last year’s Oktoberfest went well, but attendance was down slightly from the previous year due to putting it the same weekend as Fall Break. We also consistently hear from some of the usual folks we invite that October is pretty busy because of other school-related activities. Therefore, for this year’s Oktoberfest, we pushed into September.

Of course, once you start looking at the calendar, there aren’t all that many options for later in the month because a certain someone has a birthday on September 23rd (incidentally, Calvin’s grandmother has a birthday on September 22nd, so he isn’t the only one with a birthday around then!). Soooooo, the decision was made to try and combine the two: he was turning five and had more friends to invite this year, so we could just invite everyone and try and satisfy both needs.

We spent the usual amount of time preparing for the even the week before. Thankfully, the weather was solid enough that we could get mowing done and pick up some straw bales for seating. There was a threat of rain later in the week, but a front came through on September 21st, cooling off the temperatures into the low- to mid-70s for September 22nd. Near perfect weather, really!

Mimi and Poppy, and Nana and Papa, all came in early to help with some set-up, though Brooke and I had most of it done already. Still, it was good to visit a bit during “the calm before the storm.” Calvin and I even went to the MVC Rodeo the night before, so we weren’t so behind with set-up that it was necessary for me to work through Friday night getting ready (the rodeo was fun, by the way). Before everyone arrived, Calvin opened some presents from his grandparents – we saved the rest of them for the next day.

As part of Oktoberfest, knowing that we’d have more kids than usual present, Brooke looked into getting special activities to entertain them. We tried finding mini pumpkins, but it was just a bit too early for them to be available at our local stores, so Brooke found some plastic ones to be painted at Dollar Tree.

We also set up some yard games, including a “throw the ring around the beer bottles” game and horseshoes. Honestly, I was down with the grill the whole time, so I didn’t see how the “kid games” went over, but it seemed like they were relatively entertained! Some kids got out chalk for the driveway, others used the swings, and others played cornhole. No one felt the need to go inside and turn on the TV, so I suppose this was a “win!”

The rest of the party went off without a hitch. We set up the screen-in tent down where the yucca plants used to be and put some straw underneath (it fit the theme of the party while also covering up the distinct lack of grass from that particular spot). We ran an extension cord out there for the Crock Pots and turned on our blue Christmas lights for later. We ended up with plenty of seating for the 38 visitors we had (about 10 more than last year!) and moved chairs around when necessary. It was warm enough that I didn’t light up the fire until early-evening, but once it was going, it was a welcome addition.

A brief side-note: the Nuremberg sausages we like to get from Aldi didn’t come in until that very week here in Marshall. I ended up grabbing 15 packs of them from the Aldi in Columbia when I made my run for Oktoberfest beers, just in case, but the Marshall store got theirs in just in time. Still, if we do it around the same time next year, we may have to drive a bit to stock up!

As usual, most people were leaving by 7:00, which was when the rodeo started that night. A few couples stayed later than that, one of which hung out until around 9:00. Calvin sat inside in front of the TV; the adults chatted by the fire; and Meg laid down in the straw under the blue lights.

It was a great day! Let’s hope the weather is similar next year!