On Saturday afternoon, Jess and I met up with Jamie and Tammy Vacula to go to the Great European Beer Fest at the Sharp Edge in Friendship. I thought it was going to be fun. It turned out to be much more fun than I could have hoped for.

They had door prizes and Jess, Jamie, and Tammy’s dad all won ones. I took a bunch of pictures during the day to txt to Ryan who bailed on us, so here they are. (PS> Ryan had a valid excuse. Something about money and not living within 1000 miles or something.)

Waiting in line to get in:

After our first few samples:

Standing by the prize table, choosing:

On hour earlier, Jack: “I want that Boris bucket!”
Present time, Jess: “I got the Boris bucket!”

Picking the next beer to try, Boris bucket in hand, with time winding down:

The next day we went to the local mix & match to get some sixers. Simon took the boxes from us:

Finally, what better way to end vacation than with some homemade bbq, baked sweet potato fries, some beers, and a blueberry pie? Those are fresh blueberries floating in Jess’s blueberry ale:

Filed under:
Pictures by Jack

While on vacation last week, we camped for a few nights at Jess’s family’s property in the cabin we built last summer. Tom’s brother, Gene, came into town for the weekend and spent a couple days there with us. It was a good time.

Click here for a bunch of pictures.

Filed under:
Pictures by Jack

Last Wednesday Jess, Cindy, and I visited Phipps Conservatory. It was a beautiful, sunny day, great for taking photos.

Apart from that, there’s not much I can say, so click here for a ton of pictures.

Filed under:
Pictures by Jack

We’re on vacation this week. We camped at Jamestown Campground on Pymatuning Lake from Sunday through Saturday.

We had a good time. The dogs had a great time. They got to go swimming, eat ice cream twice, and go for a boat ride.

Now we’re packing up to go spend a night or two camping at Jess’s family’s property. The dogs are still tired from earlier in the week; this is going to poop them out for a week or two.

Click here for the rest of the pictures. They look nice because Cindy took most of them. All compliments should be directed her way.

Filed under:
Pictures by Jack

We took a trip over to Brady’s Run again yesterday for a little more mountain biking. That park is great. The trails are well-built and the topography makes sure that you get your lungs’ worth. Some of the climbs make your legs scream. Unfortunately, we discovered that riding at a place like that doesn’t quite work so well for us after having gone for a longer Saturday morning jog. Our ride was pretty short because we ran out of stamina quick. It was still lots of fun, though.

We discovered this “bridge”:

It’s a fallen tree with some planks nailed to it. The angle I photographed it from makes it hard to see the drop, but it’s about 10′ at its highest point. Neither of us rode across it.

I was somewhat less scared of this thing, though:

I even rode it. See:

We’re definitely going to spend more time at Brady’s Run to get to know the trail system there. It’s a great place to ride, and the hills really ensure you’re getting a workout, which is kind of important to us in our quest to be less porky. That’s all I got for now. Bye!

Filed under:
Cogitations, Pictures by Jack

Jess and I rode a new-to-us spot yesterday: Brady’s Run Park in Beaver, PA. It was… fantastic. Our ride started off pretty sucky. We had to ride on a park road, then climb up a paved access road, and onto some soupy, muddy double track. We were on that double track for over a mile and I was starting to get pretty annoyed. Eventually we found a single track trailhead. And it headed… straight up. We tried to climb it, but mostly had to hike-a-bike for a quarter mile, maybe half a mile. I even crashed once trying to climb it because I couldn’t get going.

Once we were on top, however, we were treated with an amazing system of trails. We can’t wait to get back, and will probably be going again this Saturday morning, weather permitting.

(more…)

Filed under:
Pictures by Jack

We’ve been busy tending to our gardens and planting some new trees this spring.

They’re sort of in between things right now, so there’s not much color besides the various shades of green. The spring flowers have mostly faded and the summer flowers haven’t really come out yet. But they still look pretty nice.

(more…)

Filed under:
Home Improvement, Pictures by Jack