Nothing ventured, nothing gained

Yesterday started out on multiple down notes. First, I tried to get up early and not wake up Andrea so she could sleep in, only to leave my alarm clock on snooze. Opps... Then I got an early morning bike ride in, which by itself was a good thing. But I set my bike down in the drive way and proceeded to get ready to go somewhere, and then forgot I put it there... So I ended up backing up over my bike with my car. Awesome. It wasn't totally ruined, but it looks like the frame was bent enough to get the back wheel out of alignment. I might see if it is fixable, but as far as I'm concerned, that was my last bike ride of the season.

This morning I decided to go on my last long run of the season as well. The weather outside was perfect for a long run, and so I figured what the hell. I ran 13.1 miles at a 9mile / minute pace. Who needs organized events! It was a good way to cap off my out door running for this year. Odds are I will be getting a YMCA membership soon.



Today we are having a small birthday party for Megan. Just Megan's grandparents and my brother and his wife. Maybe next year we will go bigger, but for now we just wanted to have something small. I'll get lots of pictures and post them up tomorrow, but I just figured after the long day I wasn't going to want to blog tonight.

In the meantime, here are some pictures of my attempts at "baby proofing" my basement. For the most part, I think it works well. She can't access any of the wires, various components, or most importantly, my DVD racks. I've had to alphabetize my movies twice lately... Very annoying.

Megan Picture Day

On the drive home from work tonight, I saw something kind of interesting. It was a Corvette convertible, with the license plate "EMBALMR". My first thought was of course, is the guy driving that thing an actual Embalmer by trade? My immediate next thought was, do Embalmers make such good money they can afford expensive sports cars?

A quick google revealed that the average Embalmer makes somewhere between $40-$60k per year. Not exactly big money... I can only assume that perhaps the guy was going through his mid-life crisis after years of dealing with dead people and decided a sports car exclaiming to the world what he did for a living was the best way to deal with it.

Anyway, on to the photos!


Megan doing her normal grin.


She's attacking me AHHHHH!!


Just a cute sleeping picture.


Megan's new prison! It might also double as a method of protecting my DVD's / Components / TV... check back for updates on that.

Emotional Race

Shawn Anderson

bib number:	12168
age:	30
gender:	M
location:	Apple Valley, MN
overall place:	1287 out of 4608
division place:	116 out of 268
gender place:	780 out of 1725
time:	1:28:15
pace:	8:50
chip time:	1:25:49

Now that we got the numbers out of the way, on to the actual post. I was really hesitant to write about something specific that happened during my run today. For starters, it's intensely personal and also because, well I'd hate to ever profess doubts to my atheistic beliefs. But I'm getting ahead of myself... on to the story!

It begins with an item that was in my race packet. There was paper bracelet with 26 lines on it. The idea was to put the name of someone in your life for each mile of the marathon, and dedicate that mile to them. When I started running, for some reason that bracelet came into my thoughts. I thought to myself, who would I dedicate these 10 miles too?

As I went through the list of important people in my life, I tried to think of someone for each mile. It was hard enough trying to think of 10 people, good thing I didn't have to come up with 26! Although it was somewhat difficult coming up with 10 people, there were 2 miles that came to me first and almost instantly: the first, and last.

The first mile, I would've dedicated to myself. This might seem kind of selfish, but I've come to realize how important it is to take care of yourself. No matter how much love you might have for someone else and how much you want to take care of them, you can't do anything for anyone if you aren't taking care of yourself first.

The last mile, I would've dedicated to my Father, Michael Anderson. I can't say why I had the idea that I would want to dedicate the last mile to him, other then the fact that it just felt right. I think he would have been very proud of me and the man I've become, and I know for sure he would have loved being a grandpa. I think about him often when I'm pushing myself hard, and it helps motivate me.

I had these odd dedication thoughts somewhere around mile 2 or 3. I was pushing myself pretty hard the whole run, so by the end I had completely forgot about anything I might have been thinking about an hour ago. I saw the hour-30 finishing time within reach, and I didn't want to lose it, so I kept pushing myself harder then I expected I would. I knew the last 2 miles were going to be tough, but I didn't care.

As I entered the last mile, I was really spent, but still running well. I was tired and knew some final hills were coming up, and I wasn't sure I could keep up the pace I had maintained. As I rounded a corner, I heard some music playing that I instantly recognized: Bob Seger's Old Time Rock & Roll.

For those that don't know, Bob Seger was one of my Dad's favorite bands, and consequently, one of mine as well. I can't really hear any Bob Seger song and not think of him. So of course all my thoughts about dedicating the last mile to him immediately came flooding in... To have those thoughts, and now on the last mile, to hear this song playing, what were the odds?

I came really close to completely losing it at that point. If there was any time in my life I could recall feeling the presence of my Father, it was that moment. Hearing that song when I did was almost like a message from him saying "Great job, you can do it!". My breathing tightened up, and I tried to steady myself and stay focused on the task at hand. When I had regained my composer, I pushed myself as hard as I could. I was going to finish strong one way or another!

My last mile clocked in at 7:30 minutes. The last downhill to the finish line, my watch said I was running around a 6 minute mile. Once the big finishing clock was in sight, I saw the 1:27:00 on it, and knew I was about blow through the hour-30 goal. I had done it!

Thank you to everyone that has congratulated me, helped motivate me, or one way or another told me "Good job" over the last year of my life. And thank you Dad, I love you and I miss you.

- Shawn

End of Summer

The leaves are changing and the cold weather is coming in. Think it will be interesting how every year, Megan's birthday will mark the end of summer. All I know, is I'm super excited about this:



I really hope that forecast is correct for my run on Sunday, that would be just great.

I can't believe Megan is going to be one year old in just a short while. Yesterday morning, Andrea took Megan to Gerten's. They got to do all sorts of fun stuff for free: painting pumpkins, a hay ride, and they even provided free snacks of cookies and apple juice.



Then they headed down to New Ulm to stay the night with Grandma & Grandpa Bieraugel. I took the opportunity to enjoy a night of gaming. Yes, my life is just that exciting, I know.

Tomorrow night Andrea is heading up to St. Cloud for a church leadership conference. Megan and I will be rocking out at home - I'm unsure at this point if we are going to go pick up my race packet Friday night or Saturday afternoon.

Now that Megan is getting older, Andrea and I are not 100% sure on how to handle her eating. What to feed her, how much to feed her, etc. We are trying to expand what she eats, but we really want to stop relying so much on things like crackers and pudding.



I think it's just a matter of trying lots of different things, and keeping lots of healthy options available. The hard part will be not going the easy route and only giving Megan the sweet and sugary things she is already craving. We are planning on trying to get as much advice as we can at her 1-year check up coming next month. In the meantime, she'll enjoy her yogurt, puddings, and honey graham crackers.

Now, back to watching Scary Movie 4!

Megan Dance vol 2

The good news is, I've survived yet another Monday. The bad news is, Megan had what seemed like a minor cold earlier this week. Now I have something too... Megan doesn't seem much the worse for wear, so maybe it won't be anything big. But I've woke up with a really sore throat the last two days. Hopefully whatever it is will be gone by this weekend, but I'm a tad worried...

Anyway, as I promised, please enjoy vol 2 of Megans rock'n dancing skillz.

Hard Lessons

There are some things in life you just have to learn the hard way - by experiencing it yourself. This weekend, I was fortunate enough to have one of those situations. On Saturday morning, I did a 10 mile practice run over the course of the actual 10-mile course. We started around 8am, so the weather was great (no rain!). However, it was a little more humid then the last run I did, so the end result was this:



OUCH! Thankfully, the buddy I was running with said the same thing happened to him the first time he started running long distances. I guess it's like a rite of passage or something. Needless to say, my shower hurt like a S.O.B. I will definitely be bandaging my poor nipples for next weeks race.

After the run, Andrea and I headed to the Edina Grill. Due to a technical error by my henchman Mustafa, I miscalculated the time the run would take, so I caused us to be about 45 minutes late. Tensions were running high as we arrived, but thankfully they still let us in.

As we sat down, we still weren't quite sure how this "free lunch" was supposed to work. What could we order? Where there any limits? Turns out, there weren't any! We could order anything off the menu, and it was all free. And if that wasn't enough, we could also order TWO free alcoholic drinks, EACH!

Well, even though it was still before noon, I'm not one to turn down free drinks. I ordered a "Moscow Mule" and an "Evil Cow". The first drink was a mix of ginger beer, vodka and lime. It was... not so good. The Evil Cow however, was a very yummy chocolate martini type thing. MMMmmmm good. Andrea had a Margarita and Heineken. Nothing like free booze to ease over any left over tensions from the morning.

We started out with some Perogies, little dumplings stuffed with potato and cheddar cheese. They were very good. For lunch, Andrea first eyed the Salmon Mac & Cheese. Apparently, so had a lot of other people because they were out! So she went with a Smoked Salmon Scramble breakfast thing. 20 minutes later, they came out to tell us they were out of that also. Why didn't they just say they were out of Salmon? Anyway, at that point she switched over to the Chicken Enchiladas.

Someone had told me that the Turkey Burger was really good, so I took a chance and just ordered it. The menu described peanuts, jalapeno, onion and garlic all mixed together in the meat... so I was a tad worried. But someone earlier that morning said I should try new things, so I didn't even try to "plain" it up. I just ordered it as is and gave it a try.

Turns out, EVERYTHING was just awesome. The burger was really yummy & spicy all at the same time. I gave Andrea a bite, and she quick had to take another one! The fries were huge thick cut jo-jo fries. The chicken enchiladas Andrea got had to be good, cause she finished it all!

If we lived closer, I think we'd definitely go back if for no other reason to try a few of the menu items. As it is, being that it's 20 minutes away, I'm not sure. Perhaps as a special occasion dinner, as a larger group sometime in the future. I feel like I owe them for all the great free food.

Coming tomorrow... Megan Dance, vol 2!

Megan Dance & my Poor TV

Much better then the hamster dance... Although not very safe for my TV.



Hopefully she will learn "No" soon, so I can get her to stop banging the hell out of my TV screen. For now it's harmless enough, but once she starts slamming toys into it... that would not be good.

How fast is Fast?

I didn't have much time to exercise tonight, but I really wanted to get something in. I took my bike out, only to see that one of the pedals was basically broke. Steve had told me as much, but I hadn't inspected it closely until tonight. In frustration, I put on my running shoes and headed out.

Since I didn't have much time, I ran a quick loop I've run many times, only I tried to run it as fast as I possibly could. What was the result?



Note - I also figured out how to zoom in on my run data, so it's somewhat more interesting to look at.

Mile 1 - 8:14
Mile 2 - 8:00
Mile 3 - 8:01
Mile 4 - 7:47

4 miles in 32 minutes. Yikes... so 2 new accomplishments this week. First I ran the farthest I've ever run, and now I've run the fastest I've ever run. I can't say for sure how much farther I could have gone at that pace. I felt like I was pushing my limits, and that's all that mattered.

This weekend I'm going to be running part of the 10 mile course in prep for the final run. I did that earlier this year with my first 10k and it worked out really well. I just hope the weather isn't TOO bad over the next 2 weeks. I don't really have any cold running gear, so I might have to do some shopping this weekend.

Oh, another side note - I just hit 3 months at my new job yesterday. Go me!

Good with the Bad

There is a cost for everything in life. And as much fun as this past weekend was, it came with it's own cost. For me, it was a huge set back on my health goals despite the fact that I ran 10 miles on Saturday. At the same time, I didn't really stop myself from enjoying the rest of the weekend. This meant lots of food and lots of drinking. By Sunday afternoon I wasn't feeling well at all, and the scale was telling me I gained 5 pounds over the weekend. Ugggh.

It was a good lesson though... I let the pendulum swing too far in one direction. Now I have to readjust and let it swing back too far in the other direction. These next two weeks leading up to October 1st will be tough but good for me. Because I already know that come October 2nd, I'll be wondering what next?

I've written in the past about Andreas ability to get free things. This week is yet another prime example. On Friday, she will be going to lunch as a "mystery shopper" at The Capital Grill. Neither of us have been there before, but she gets to go with a $60 budget and enjoy whatever she wants! Then she just has to fill out a survey of her experience.

Then on Saturday, she got us a free lunch at The Edina Grill. This one might not be "whatever we want", because the point of this one is testing out the new menu. So there might be some specific dishes they want people to try and provide input on. But again, the lunch is going to be free for the both of us. Damn!

Weekend Report One

Before we headed up, Andrea asked me what I was looking forward to most this weekend. On the way home today, she asked me what I enjoyed most about the weekend. My answer to both questions was the same: my run. Too bad I've been posting about running too much, so I won't waste more precious blog space on that.

We got to St. Cloud to drop Megan off with my Aunt for the weekend. Aside from a few initial loud dog barks that scared her, Megan was happy as a clam. As we left, my Aunt was taking Megan in her stroller down the road to get a high chair from a neighbor. As we drove by, I'll never forget what happened. She actually looked at us in the car and waved goodbye. It almost made me stop right there and snatch her back up!

But alas, we had a mission and we had to accomplish it. To Brainerd or bust! When we arrived, we were presented with the best room in the house!



Two feet from the front door AND bathroom. Great for if say, the cabin starts on fire or someone where to drink too much the night before... Luckily neither of those happened, despite my best efforts. (to drink, not start the cabin on fire) After getting settled in, we headed down the highway for some Pirate entertainment.



The classic Mini-Golf & Go-Cart combo! It was a lot of fun, despite the fact that I was the only person in my group to NOT get a hole-in-one. At least I never had my ball get in a position like this:



After a round of mini golf, we headed to the go-carts. I started at the back of the pack, but I wasn't worried!



I worked my way up past a few people without causing any accidents, so that was a good thing.



We headed back to the cabin for an awesome dinner on the grill and some good clean drinking. Little did I know that the Pirate mini golf was just a part of the whole "pirate" theme weekend. Arrrrrgh, rum anyone?



There were many drinking games to be played, the new one I learned this weekend was called "Moose". It was a basic Quarters drinking game (which, oddly enough, I've never actually done).



As crazy as the night got, I don't think there were any major injuries except for maybe a few hang overs in the morning. I didn't do much drinking Friday night because I had my run on Saturday morning. Don't worry - I got my fair share of drinking in the next night. From night-dodging sprinkler systems to hopping in a freezing lake. I'm sure someone got a few incriminating photos. Hopefully Steve won't post anything too bad...

More tomorrow if time permits!

Up North

I had really wanted to get another post up before we headed into our little weekend get away, but it doesn't look like that is going to happen. Forgot how much work is required to get ready for a weekend like this, not to mention packing for Megan to stay with someone else for 3 days!

I brought Andrea's car into the shop last night because it looked like it was leaking anti-freeze in the garage. They called us this morning and told us it was fine, so I guess we have nothing to worry about. I'm going to lay down some cardboard and make sure no new leaks occur. On the plus side, we will be taking her car to the resort this weekend. Should get slightly better gas mileage. Anyway, it's 9am and we still haven't packed 100%, and we have to go pick up Andrea's car now so - have a great weekend, more posts on Sunday!

Perfect Run

What an awesome day out today. I forgot how much I love fall. If only this type of weather lasted longer then a few weeks every year. Maybe with a little luck it will last until October 1st.

I ran 7.13 miles tonight, in 1:05:03. The run was damn near perfect, and I think a big part of it was a new perspective I took.


(ignore the 200+ heart rate at the beginning, the monitor wasn't on right and I had to adjust it)

The first time I posted the graph, it was pace and heart rate over time. This time, I changed it around so it is pace and heart rate over distance. So you can see what my pace and heart rate were at each mile. I like this view better... The first thing that hopefully stands out if you look at this graph is the steady heart rate.

For this run, instead of constantly checking my distance or my pace on my watch, I left it showing my heart rate. I really focused on my heart rate, and keeping it steady. I think this did wonders for my run. Any time my heart rate would start to rise above 165, I would focus on my breathing and keeping a steady running rhythm. I found that I could widen my stride and lower my heart rate, even though I was going at a decent pace. It was all a matter of really paying attention to all the aspects, my breathing, my stride, everything.

The way I was able to keep my heart rate so steady said a lot of things to me. One, it tells me that I am training at the right levels. Secondly, my heart is really healthy right now to be able to sustain such an even pace over a long run. (ignore the last mile - it's all uphill) Last, I think I learned a totally new aspect of running tonight. That paying attention to your body and really focusing can make a huge difference between a crappy run and an excellent run.

I'm excited to run the 10-mile race. This weekend I ran into an old coworker who is an avid runner. I mentioned to her that I was doing the Twin Cities 10-miler, and she was really jealous. She signed up but did not get in this year. She said, out of 5 years trying to get in, she has only got in twice. That made me feel really lucky that I got in this year.

Fantasy Football, week 1

Originally I was going to post about Fantasy Football today, but the performance of my team has prompted me to not even bother. Let's just say, my number one pick got a whopping 3 points. I'll post my team next week and maybe only every other week after that.

Yesterday was the 30 mile St. Paul Bike Classic. The weather left something to be desired. It was cold and misting rain all morning. We tried to make the best of it, and enjoyed free cookies at every rest stop. There were 4 of us biking together this year! Not quite sure we will be able to top that next year, but who knows! One of my friends just recently bought a new GPS distance tracker thingy, that comes with an online service where you can upload your trips. So you can see an exact map of our bike ride here.

This week should hopefully go by fast, as I will be taking my first day off of work this Friday and heading up to a cabin up north in Brainerd. We will be staying at Gull Four Seasons Resort with a large group of people from Friday to Sunday. We are going to drop Megan off at my Aunt & Uncle's in St. Cloud. I'm really looking forward to the trip. The relaxing time will also be filled with some serious exercise, pending weather conditions. Hopefully I will be doing a really nice run and maybe a bike ride on Paul Bunyan trail, which I did last year at the end of August.

Back to watching the Vikings game... They have a challenging season ahead of them, I will be interesting to see how it all plays out. Hopefully they will do better then my fantasy football team.

My daughter the boozer

One more picture today... Megan hitting the bottle.

Megan Update

I went out for a quick early morning run this morning, BRRRR! I think fall has officially started, although hopefully we have a few more weeks of decent temperatures. You know what I've found? Early morning runners are some of the nicest people. Every time I go out before 8:30am, the runners I see always wave and say "Good Morning!". I'm returning the favor and hopefully continuing the trend of early morning runner good cheer.

Megan is 11 months old today. 11 months!! She still isn't walking, but is SOOO close. She can stand on her own for a very long time, as much as 30 seconds or more. She has one new syllable, the "Ba" sound. Every now and then she will throw in some new ones here and there, which is so super cool. She is getting taller by the minute, I swear. Here is a good picture that shows how high she can reach.



Another thing she just started doing in the last few days, is anytime we talk on the phone she will hold up whatever she has to her ears. It's so cute! Hello? Hello Megan?



Today we will probably just relax at home. And then tomorrow morning, bright and early (or perhaps just cloudy and early?) I will be doing the St. Paul Bike Classic with Steve again this year. We each have one other person joining us this year, should be a very good time.

Tech Toys vol 2

Long time ago, when I first started riding my bike I bought a tech gadget to help motivate and push myself. Well, now I'm trying the same thing with my running. Behold, the wonders of technology!



This first use of a heart rate / running monitor was pretty successful. The graph is a bit "perfect" because of the fact that for my first use, I ran on a treadmill. I first had to calibrate the monitor to my "average stride". I choose a 6 min mile pace to calibrate, then ran at that same pace for another 20 minutes. My pace is the lower line. The upper line is my heart rate, which started around 130 bpm going up to 160 and then bouncing between 150-160. At the 20 min mark, I increased my speed to 7 mph, and as you can see my pace went down and my heart rate went up, peaking around 180 until I finished with a little cool down.

Two words: TOO COOL!

Now I'm just a tad worried I'm going to get addicted to it. I'm really excited to use it on my runs around work, and find out how far I'm going and at what pace. I just have to watch myself and make sure I don't try to push too hard. Last week, my training schedule called for 4m, 3m, and 6m. I ran 6m three times instead. This week is my "fall back" week and I'm supposed to be taking it easy. I've already done 2 days in a row of 3 miles, and I'm running again tomorrow night!

I guess if my body is okay and not in any pain, it must be alright with what I am doing. But after this week I'll be starting some of the longest runs I've done. So I don't want to do anything that might cause injury or problems this close to the 10-miler.

Oh ya, speaking of races... In addition to my running this week, I also have the 30-mile St. Paul Bike Classic this Sunday. Pretty sure by Monday next week I'm gonna be friggen beat. Nice.

Poker Night

I guess technically, I could call this my "2nd Annual Poker Night". Not quite sure I could handle more then that every year, mainly because I know I will never win. The tournament tonight went MUCH faster then last year, I'm not quite sure why. I guess part of it was that we increased the minimum bids at a much faster pace. What is really funny to me, is that just like last year, I made it to the final 3 and then went out right away.

The thing I felt really bad about this year, was I went all-in against my brother, and won. (essentially knocking him out of the game) I really didn't want to do it, because it was my brother, and so I said, "I don't want to go all in." and Scott took that to mean I didn't have a good hand (which I did), and so he called me, when he might not have. Ohhh the crazy psychology that goes on in Poker!

As I mentioned, we finished much quicker then last year. We were done by 9pm! That's pretty fast considering last year we were pushing midnight. The other thing we did differently this year was "Winner takes all". No 2nd or 3rd place prizes. The winner went home with $140 bucks, so not a huge amount of money. I heard one of the guys tonight recently played in a game where the winner went home with over $1000 bucks. Little too rich for my blood!

I think everyone had a good time, I just wish Poker didn't have to have so many losers. I actually feel guilty for organizing an event that causes people to lose money... but then I remind myself, that's the whole damn point! Ahhh the burden of a guilty conscious.

Check please

Nothing too interesting happened this week, thus the lack of posts. Last night I tried to do my normal run around the lake near my work, only to find the entire 2.3 mile paved path had been completely ripped up. At first I started running on this soft dirt path thinking "Well, they must be working on this part..." and that I'd be off it shortly. That never happened, and instead I ran the entire thing on this crappy dirt path.

I shifted to a north trail after that into uncharted territory and ran around a different lake that I had never done before. If anything, it only added a short distance to what I normally wanted to do, but it was really nice to get something new in the routine. I'll probably start doing that northern trail more often.

Not much planned this weekend... just a relaxing 3-day. Only exciting thing is Sunday I will be having a Texas No Limit Hold'em night at my place. Looks to be 7 guys this time, should be a pretty fun time. I'll report more on Monday.

Can't believe its Sept already, and this month is just going to fly by. I have things going on pretty much every weekend. Thankfully, the next two weeks of work are 4-day weeks, so that will be pretty sweet. In mid-Sept we are taking a weekend to go up to a cabin on Gull Lake, near Brainerd with some friends. (12 people total?). We are going to drop Megan off at my Aunt and Uncle's house in St. Cloud, and be Megan free for the whole weekend! Should be a very nice little weekend get-a-way for us.

Not much new to report on Megan, she isn't walking yet and hasn't taken any first steps or anything. (trust me, we try!) She has finally got over her fear of the ball-popper game, and enjoys it much more now. She cruises along furniture and is starting to point at things she wants, and moaning. Not really forming words yet, but definitely trying harder to communicate. She is also very demanding of our attention lately, more so then ever before. Often times we could set her down with some toys and she would be fine for a significant amount of time. Not anymore, she wants us to be near her or playing with her almost all the time.

Tomorrow is another long run, and the weather is saying rain. Should be interesting... since I can no longer run at a gym, I might be stuck with a wet run!

Bed & Breakfast

Being that this was our first trip to a B&B, I honestly wasn't quite sure what to expect. I was trying to stay open minded. As we headed over to the house, the first thing I noticed was that all along the street were other B&B's. That just seemed odd.



We arrived and as you can see, it was a very impressive house. As we got inside, it really hits you, this is someone's home and they are inviting you in to stay with them. I can understand how that would appeal to some people, but I just don't think it was my "thing".



As we got the tour of all the rooms, I was really impressed. This house had to be pretty old, but the inside looked so nice. You could tell that a lot of work had been done to the rooms to make them as comfortable and modern as possible. As we looked through our room, I got a little worried - I didn't see any DVD player! I quickly remedied this by swiping one from another room no one was staying in.



We later learned that the player from our room just recently broke, and it was no big deal that we grabbed the other one. One of the more interesting things came as we entered one of the rooms that was described to us as the most "controversial" room. Why do you ask? Well, because there was a toilet directly in the room:



I guess due to the proximity of the room to the edge of the house, the pipes had to be in a certain place to prevent them from freezing in the winter. This meant the toilet had to be positioned where it was. Apparently when one newly wed couple stayed there, the wife had to leave the room and stand out in the hall while the husband was doing his "business" inside. Too funny!

The hot tub was awesome, and the robes in our room were just great. Andrea liked them so much, she had to write down the information from the tags. She is going to want them for a Christmas present. (Shannon, if you are reading this, email me info on how I can get my hands on one!) The only problem is that after an early day of beer drinking followed by a big dinner and a long hot jacuzzi, we were dead tired by 9pm! We popped in a movie and both were asleep before 10pm. I must be getting old...

In the morning we had a breakfast of fruit, some huge slabs of ham, and a french toast type sandwich. They were french toast with cream and jelly in the middle. I covered them in syrup and gobbled them up. I honestly wanted to ask for seconds, but I wasn't sure on etiquette in that situation.

Like I said, I can see how B&B's might appeal to some people. That being, social people, extroverted people. Take the two people we met at breakfast for example. Both writers for a newspaper, in town for a wedding. It's there JOB to meet people. I'm a little too private to really dig on the B&B vibe. But hey, if this is only time I ever goto a B&B, it was definitely a nice one.

7 years

Today Andrea and I celebrate our 7th year of marriage. It's hard to put 7 years into perspective. In some ways it feels like a long time and in other ways it feels like a blink of an eye. I do know that I am a very lucky guy to have found someone as special as Andrea. She does wonders to keep me sane, even though I know she often time feels helpless.

Our weekend started out awesome as we headed to the Brewery Tour. The tour itself was of the "old brew house" which stopped beer production in 1998. The highlight of this tour was of the original brew kettle.



It was fashioned prior to 1900 for a cost of $25,000 dollars. To put that amount in perspective, August Shell built his entire Mansion for $5,000 dollars at the time. It was a huge investment and to think it lasted for so long is a testament to the original hand craft work that created it.



In this close up, you can see the individual hammer marks on the elbow joint. It probably took a huge amount of time to finish just this one section.

After that it was straight on to the highlight of the tour, FREE SAMPLES!



Not only did we get 6 beers to share between our table of 4 people (one beer not pictured), but after that you could go up to the tap and get as many more beers as you wanted. Many people were walking out with 2 (or more!) beers in hand.



As Andrea and I headed outside to enjoy our beer, this woman walked up to us:

"Where do you get the beers at?"

She seemed a bit disappointed to find out you actually had to attend the hour long tour first before getting access to the free beer. You see, according to the law they cannot sell beer at the brewery, but they can give it away for free!

The last interesting fact that we learned on the tour was that 1919 Root Beer is named as such because that is the year prohibition started. In order to stay in business, the Shell's Brewery started making soda (root beer) and "near beers". This may seem obvious to some people, but this was an interesting tid bit for someone like me who knows absolutely no history. Leif Ericson? Isn't he a baseball player?

Anyway, after the Brewery tour, slightly buzzed we headed over to check-in at our Bed & Breakfast. I'm going to break my weekend report into two posts, so you'll have to check back tomorrow to read about our B&B adventures...