Success and Normalcy

Oktoberfest 2010 comes to a close and it was a big success. We had so many wonderful people in our home on Saturday night and the bar was a hit! I couldn't have picked better weather - in fact it was almost a little too warm, got a bit stuffy inside the house, but outside it was a fantastic evening. We had more food than we knew what to do with but everything was super yummy. I hope everyone who made it out had a good time - I know we certainly did and feel so blessed and happy to have so many great friends!

Finished bar!

So proud of him - love this addition to our basement!

And now we go back to "Normal" whatever that is. There is one more piece to the bar that my dad has mostly been working on and helping with - he's building a base to go around the freezer at the bottom, but that will be done very soon from what I hear. After that though our projects are pretty much done for now. We'll take the winter off!

We have things going on, Nate's got an art class going right now, we have some birthdays in the family coming up, Halloween is drawing near already and really, our own birthdays and (gasp) the holidays are just around the corner, so there's plenty to keep us busy coming up - but it will be nice to not have our schedule dictated by where we're at with the projects we were working on. We can just go back to living our crazy, busy lives as we usually do. And that feels pretty good right about now!

We are sooo going to party

From Friends - Chandler (to Ross): Are you ready to party?

Ross: I don't know I could go for a couple of beers,

but there's this thing on the Discovery Channel I was going to watch

Chandler: I don't think you heard me, I said are you ready, to party??

Ross: Gandolf is coming to town? Dude we are sooo going to party.

Well we're almost there. We've been working hard and gearing up for this for weeks now and I think it's safe to say we are ready. The weather is looking better now for tomorrow. I'm getting really pumped and excited. And the above dialogue from Friends has been playing in my head all day so far! After all the work we've put in to painting this summer, redecorating and rearranging things and of course, building Nate's bar, I'm ready to sit back and enjoy the fruits of our labor with close friends and family. It's going to be a rocking good time at our house tomorrow and I am so excited I could just burst.

I have to publically thank in a huge way Jes and John, Gina, my "brother" Dave and last but certainly not least and probably in the biggest way, my Dad - for helping us with these projects this summer and early fall - there is no way in H-E-Double hockey sticks that we would be ready tomorrow without all the work you guys put in with us, seriously, words cannot express our gratitude.

The best part of all of this is we will be enjoying the fruits of our labor beyond this weekend. The bar is a lovely addition to our home and will really help Nate's homebrewing hobby. The living room is finally reflective of my style after four years of living in our house. And we hope to have many more reasons to open our home to others now that all of this is done as well.

I'm smiling. I'm happy. And I am soooo ready to party!

Anti-Rain dance

Yes as I look out my window right now it's sunny and gorgeous and is going to be for the next couple of days. So why an anti-rain dance?

They are threatening rain for Saturday evening. When I may have close to 30 some people in my house. And I promised these 30 some people a bonfire, weather permittting.

Well weather, you'd better permit yourself!!!

No matter what the Oktoberfest event will still happen. I guess it could be worse - last year we had snow. At least there's no chance of that happening!

Paid for by the Committee to Stop Weather from Ruining Important Events. To support our cause, simply think sunny, happy thoughts.

The countdown begins

We're getting there.

Five, almost six, beers ready to be sampled.

Pieces of the bar coming together and final bits being attached and touched up on.

Yardwork accomplished and making things clean and neat.

House slowly getting cleaned up.

We have some shopping to do yet and a few other small things. But it's coming together.

Oktoberfest 2010 here we come, six days and counting....

Gorgeous

The fall color so far has just blown me away. After last year's pathetic showing of color - this year has been simply amazing. And we're not even at peak yet.

There are several trees I pass on my way home that are so vibrant against the sky - magnificent reds, oranges and golds. Gorgeous. Beautiful. Lovely.

Guess our wet, humid summer was good for something.

This is why I LOVE fall.

High and low

Well stick a fork in me I am done.

The living room is finished. There might be some touch up work at a later point - but for all intense and purposes it is DONE. And I am SO happy with how it turned out! We have artwork back up on the walls and everything and it looks like a home again instead of a work in progress. Pictures will be coming soon.

In other news, our neighbor's dogs kept us awake far too long last night. I don't know what is going on at this house - the owners appear to not be around lately, we think at least the guy is possibly sick or something and now the woman hasn't been around either and some other woman is staying there and she is horrible with these dogs. She lets them out and lets them bark after 10:00 at night. Normally it only happens once in the night but last night, she had them out five times between 9:30 and 12:30 am. Nate finally called the police at 12:30 but I don't know if anything happened and we finally gave up and shut the windows and actually turned on our air. How sad is that? Did I also mention this woman was on her phone half the time as well? We have a right to sleep with windows open when it's nice out and this is just ridiculous. I hope it improves soon.

So a high and a low for Tuesday I guess!

Going off the rails on a Crazy Train

"Crazy, but that's how it goes" - Crazy Train, Black Sabbath

No I'm not a heavy metal fan - but this song kind of describes my life at the moment! We're at just under two weeks now to our Oktoberfest celebration and I'm nervous about things getting done. The bar is nearly ready - but listening to my dad and Nate talk I'm not 100% certain it will all be finished, but I'm hopeful. I know they are working hard on it. It's looking good though, as evidenced by this picture:





We had a busy weekend with our family golf tournament - I did not take last place again and neither did Nate! Hurray! It rained on us a bit in the beginning of the day, but it improved a bit as we kept going. We made jokes that it was all of our family members up in heaven playing a joke on us - which would be just like some of them. Ha ha.

Mom and I braving the rain

Nate spent all of Sunday brewing another batch of beer to hopefully have ready for the party and he also cleaned some kegs to put this beer and one other batch that's ready into.

This week Nate starts a drawing class on Wednesday evenings. I'm glad he is doing something like this for himself. I plan to finish our living room painting project tonight. I have two doorways to paint and that is it. It will be DONE.

My head is a bit swimmy at the moment just because of all the things I have to do and as Ozzy sings "I'm going off the rails on a crazy train" a bit right now. But I know it's all going to be worth it in the end!