June, July and August were busy around the Hartman house, but you'd never know it due to my lack of posts. So here's my sad and sorry attempt at playing catch up.
At the end of June we headed north and visited the 'rents for a combination Father's Day/Mum's birthday which involved a short drive over to Ashland for dinner at the new Caldera Brewing restaurant.
Fast forward a month to July where we had two more fun events - another food and beer pairing at Sierra Nevada and a John Mellencamp concert in Sacramento.
I thought this was the best food and beer pairing yet. It was "summer" themed and there were five courses - estate greens (with local cheese), ahi poke with mango pineapple salsa, pork belly in miso broth, lamb pops with estate carrots and potatoes, and dessert trio of beer donuts, cinnamon bread pudding, chocolate pots de creme (ahhhh-mazing!!!). Also, much to my surprise, they served a beer I actually like. Really liked. Barrel-aged lime ale - ale aged in tequila barrels. It really did taste like tequila!
The hostesses sat us at tables so we couldn't control who our table companions were, but we ended up being seated with the most lovely couple, the husband of which was retired from environmental health and knew all about septic systems so he and Chris had all kinds of things to talk about!
The very next day we had an evening concert at the Sacramento community theater to see John Mellencamp. I grew up listening to him so I love his music and immediately bought tickets when the notice popped up in my email. We were literally 4 rows from the back, but thankfully the venue had great stadium seating so we still had a great view. Our favorite part was when we were singing along with Jack & Diane. He made us stop singing because we were doing it wrong. "No, no, it's TWO verses and then the chorus!". Comedy!
Also in July I hosted a purse party at my house and we had a root beer taste testing.
My high school friend, Yvette, works on the side for a company out of Nevada that hand makes purses. There's a dozen or so designs and you pick all the materials out of hundreds of swatches. With all my hostess perks, I ended up with four custom purses for about $100. And yes, that's mine with the skulls....
The last weekend of July, while Wilson was home, we had a root beer taste testing with her and my co-worker, Josh.
It was a blind taste test of 13 different root beers. There was some good ones and then there were some truly terrible ones (I'm looking at you Bundaberg root beer). 1st place went to IBC, followed by A&W, Dang!, and then Sunny Select. Since Josh's wife was out of town and therefore missed it, we have a second round scheduled at their house soon to pit the top 5 against some others that we didn't taste the first time around.
That same weekend Chris and I went to a Indian casino in Lincoln and saw Huey Lewis & the News. Probably one of the best concerts I've ever been to.
Eddie Money opened for Huey Lewis who was, as I suspected, pretty terrible. Though all the drunks around us seemed to like him. While Huey did have a few new songs (boo), most of the show was all the hits we know and love so there was lots of singing and dancing. And it was the harvest moon night so there was this big yellow moon over the stage and it was nice and breezy. Perfect for an outdoor concert.
Moving on to August....the first weekend of August was my 20 yr high school reunion (gasp!).
The top photo is of my friends Maggie (L) and Susan (R) at our 11 yr reunion and then again at the 20 yr family bbq. Some cuties never change! So, Saturday afternoon was the family bbq at the Elk's Lodge followed by the reunion dinner at a local event room.
While I'm glad I went, it wasn't as much fun as our 11 yr. The music was sooo loud we were yelling at each other to be heard. And because we were sitting a dinner tables with seating for 6, you were really only talking to those at your table which for me, were those that I came with. I went to the class of 94's reunion last year with a friend and they did these fun little contests like, 'who traveled the furthest', 'who has the most kids', and 'whose been married the longest' and then there were prizes (I think it was bottles of wine). We didn't do anything. There was an on-going slide show in the corner of the room, but that was about it. Finally, after about two hours, 3 of us decided to bomb out and go to a downtown restaurant for dessert and hard booze. The two things missing from our reunion. Oh well, lessons learned for our 30th, right?!
Finally, just today, I went to a baby shower for my cousin Jayne who's expecting twin boys in 10 weeks.
Back in the day, when I worked weekends for Jayne's parents who owned a catering business, her dad (Boss Bob) would do all the fruit carvings for the buffet displays. Though it's been about 10 years since they've been out of the catering business, Boss Bob was able to dust off his carving utensils to create the cutest little watermelon baby buggies. And since it's for twins, he made two! I love visiting with family and what better occasion?!
Next up in the Hartman adventures, I'm house-sitting next weekend for a co-worker and attending a 2 year old's birthday party. I know, the fun never stops!
