Pumpkin Carving!

Saturday night Kelsey and I had a pumpkin carving party at our place! Autumnal beers were served, as well as hot cider with an excellent recipe from the Joy of Cooking. That comes later. But on to the goods.

Here are the first few. In all, 13 pumpkins were carved, with some people less artistic than others. Fortunately, the carving kits came with a bunch of templates, making hacks like me into artists.Here is Christina's and Kristen's art pumpkin. It was made to look like a porcupine or hedgehog. I was only a little scared when Christina showed up with a drill...

Oh, and for the cider recipe:

• 6 liters apple cider
• 3 cups of dark rum
• 20-25 cinnamon sticks
• 3 very thinly sliced oranges
• 7 tablespoons sugar

Mix all items in large pot. Heat to simmer, then reduce.

Festing Recap

Last weekend brought the annual rite that is Oktoberfest. As is typically the case, hijinks ensued.

The first to have wool pulled over his eyes was Mr Derek Kruse. You see, Derek and his girlfriend Nicole have recently become enganged! Although Derek had not informed me of this, word travels fast in the small hamlet of O-Town, and I had indeed heard. Anyways, congratulations to them both!

Here's the happy couple at the first stop on Friday night, the Recovery Room.One cool feature of the Recovery Room is the "sit down keg stand." They had an old style hospital chair sitting underneath a tap in the wall, so Justin was persuaded to give it a try. The tap won.
Next we headed to the festgrounds. Wilkommen, indeed. This part of the night would have made a lot more sense, had we stayed away from those shots at the previous bar.
Mitch's friends, I presume.Friday night was a good time. I was planning to stay downtown, but my mom was afraid I'd fall in the river, and made my dad come pick me up. Maybe a good idea given what happened the following night.

Saturday brought the highlight of most years, the Maple Leaf Parade. We've been luck the past few years, in that the weather was perfect. So we were due for a crappy day. A light drizzle turned progressively worse, until we were forced from the parade.

Here's Steve, Cindi and Derek, before the rain.
A parade isn't a parade if we don't jump in and steal some drums. We're NOT good anymore.
After the parade we headed to Jake's parent's house for some more food and fun. And luckily we were able to get this group pic.
Even Jessica and her baby boy Marek were able to make it out for some fun.
Soon it was time to head to the Northside Festgrounds. Where the second to fall victim to tomfoolery would be... Mr Derek Kruse. It turns out, Kruse family friend Sal Sorentino has a band in which Derek negotiated to drum for a few songs. Sal kindly agreed, bringing Derek to the stage whilst announcing his recent engagement to the crowd. At which time Sal breaks into a song. Which song? The Greg Kihn Band's The Breakup Song. Oh, poor Derek, Nicole was not amused.
After a rousing performance, it Southside grounds redux. One of the first people we run into is our friend Jackie, whose boyfriend Matt played on our flag football team in the past.
Justin obviously wants the beer, "His Way."
Not exactly sure what's up with Jake here, but something in the roof got his attention. Sara and Michael are yet to notice.
Here's my former boss Jen, who I worked for at Orange Julius.
We ended the evening at Bennett O'Reilly's downtown. Here are Chris, Joanna, and Molly. I remember trying to play the Roxanne drinking game, although Jake had bought a singular dark beer, so we had to pass it back and forth quickly. Which doesn't work well with dark, heavy beer.
Like most Oktoberfests, a great time was had by all, and it's a mere 360 days to the next 'fest. Mark your calenders for September 26, 2008!

Vacation?

No home renovations or football talk this time, it's a guest blog entry by Kelsey! This post is about my vacation on the north rim of the Grand Canyon in Sept 2007. Instead of a relaxing getaway, I hiked through the desert carrying a 60 lb backpack and slept on a bed of rocks. Doesn't that sound fun? I spent half the trip wondering why I wanted to to do this. I went with Kristen, Christina and Cameron again, we hiked a different trail on the south rim of the Grand Canyon 2 years ago. You can see more pictures and read about our misadventures from this trip on Steve's blog where Christina is a frequent guest blogger.

After changing a flat tire and retrieving the wallet I left at the hotel (a 1.5 hour drive from the trailhead) this was the first scenic vista we came across. Kristen and I were behind the others because of the return trip for the wallet. There are no more photos from the first day because it was a trail of tears. Kristen was a slave driver and would not stop until we caught up with Cameron and Christina. I really did cry a little bit.
Here we are on the second day of hiking. My nickname from our first trip to the canyon was caboose because I was always the last in line. In this photo you can kind of see everyone far ahead of me. This is the closest I ever got to catching up with the rest of the group. I mean, they all run marathons, what chance did I have?

After a very strenuous hike on the second day, we reached the Throne Room. Hikers from the days of yore fashioned these crude seats out of fallen rock near a small spring. It was the most comfortable thing we sat on during the entire trip.
This is where Deer Creek meets the Colorado River. We had a day of rest on the third day so we only hiked a short distance (1-2 miles instead of 5 or 6 miles) from the campsite down to the Colorado River. This waterfall made the whole trip worthwhile because we were able to frolick in the cool water. And we could bathe.
This is the fourth day when we began the hike back out. There were several very narrow sections of trail with the sheer cliff face only inches away. I am really afraid of heights and got a little weak in the knees here. But I still managed to snap a photo.
Most of the "trail" looked similar to this, a narrow path of rocks without cacti on it. The cacti did grow near the trail though and I had to pull some spines out of my leg.
Here's the gang cooking breakfast on the last morning. And by cooking I mean boiling water for instant oatmeal. You can hardly tell we haven't showered in days!
A trail shot on the last day of the trip. This was one of the few nice sections of trail that was relatively flat but still rocky. Sweet relief from the steep ascent of the previous day.
This picture was taken about halfway up to the rim on the last day. It's about a 6000 ft elevation difference from the rim to river.
Near the end of the trail was a very steep ascent with some scrambling over rocks. The scrambling was intense, our guidebook suggested hikers take off their packs, hand them up and then rock climb.
Here's Christina near the end of the trail. The last half mile was downhill and it was fantastic!
Once I knew I was going to make it out of the canyon and that I wasn't going to die there, the trip was great. It's an incredible natural wonder and it really is awesome. However, for our next hiking trip I'm going to suggest somewhere flat, like Nebraska.