So You Think You Know Beer?

...then I would highly recommend competing in a fermentation identification contest. Our dear friends Lauren and Chris held a Fermentation Identification Competition last night which Gabe and I both took part in. It was a painful, wonderful experience. There is a list of rules, but mainly you are blindfolded while you taste 18 beers. The object of the game is to identify the most beers correctly. Sounds not so bad, right? Wrong - it was SO hard. The best is when there are people in your group that only drink _____ beer. During the competition, your true feelings of how beers taste come out. There was grimacing at "favorite" loyal _____ beer drinkers and incorrect identification of those "favorite" beers. All in all at the end I heard: "Please stand for the National Anthem of... Minnesota." Yes, I correctly identified 8 beers (15 points) out of 18 and took the gold. Gabe came home with the silver at 5 beers correctly identified (13 points) but only after TWO "lightning rounds" with Lauren, whom identified 7 beers correctly (but had 13 points too) after the first round. If you look at the chart you can see how our points worked out.

The competition in progress

Lauren and Gabe in their First Lightning Round

Gabe performing his high-tech id methods
Official FIC rules
The results are in...
I had never had Coors original and got it right...luck or skill? :)
Our medalist winners

Northern AZ Treats

We were able to go camping this weekend with some friends from work. We went North to Flagstaff's San Francisco Peaks. There were beautiful wildflowers blooming and we camped in a mixed conifer forest. Treats for the mind, soul, and eyes.

Aspen Grove

The fairies live under this mushroom

Gabe's great photography
Silas (our friend's cute little boy) and myself having fun.

On Sunday we went to the lava tubes near where we were camping. I had NO idea AZ had anything like this! It was incredible. The lava tubes was basically where a river of magma flowed about 700.000 years ago. The tunnel is 0.7 miles to the end and the temperature drops to about 40 degrees as soon as you walk into the cave. We turned out our head lamps for about five minutes deep into the lava tubes and it was intense. I couldn't see my white shoes or my hand cm away from my face and there was absolute silence. It is definitely on the top list of favorite experiences! Gabe at the entrance of the cave

Water dripping down from the ceiling of the cave

I was playing with the shadow the camera was casting of me onto the cave wall - good fun!

The tranquil and serene meadows we saw all along the roads

New Favorite Tool

Gabe and I like to cook meals - new and old. We get the food and family magazine from kraft foods four times a year and all the meals are really easy to make and usually pretty healthy. You can go online and search all of their old magazines, choose your recipes for your "recipe box", add the items to your shopping list and viola - you've got dinner planned, your shopping list made and the recipes there for you. Its the best time saving thing ever! Check it out at kraftfoods.com