What's happening in my world…
Karen is due any day now. The baby’s room is ready. Hospital bags are packed. Car seat is installed.
We will be providing updates from the hospital’s WiFi. So, you can get to live video of the baby from the recovery room.
Navigate over to our baby’s web page for the latest updates.
Baby’s Room
I suggest that you collect your friends and head to your favorite Irish Pub for Saint Patrick’s Day. Raise your glass of Guinness and make a toast your friends who couldn’t make to the pub.
Poor follows!
I got lucky and was in town for the 3rd Annual Firkin Rendezvous, which was held at Bristol Brewing Company in Colorado Springs, Colorado.
Firkin is a term that means 1/4 and is the name of the keg that is a 1/4 of barrel. This kind of keg is typically used for a Cask Ale, which is the feature of this great event.
I was introduced to Mike Bristol during the event. He has glad to see that people from Huntsville, Alabama were enjoying the benefit. I indicated that I try to visit for brewery any time I am in Colorado Springs.
We they had great selection of beer from all around Colorado including Hercules Double IPA from Great Divide Brewing, Double Diff Strong Belgian Wit from Ska Brewing, Churchyard Strong Scotch Ale from Wynkoop Brewing, Blueberry Wheat from Durango Brewing, and any others. I was glad to see Bristol even had their XXX Warlock Double Imperial Stout on hand.
Karen and I are going to have a baby girl come around June 22nd! Our families about freaked out over the news. They are all excited and providing advice on everything from names to what to expect.
You will be able to keep track of the progress on our baby web page, which you can find here: http://www.katiebeth.info/.
We have posted ultrasound movies and pictures.
We are still working on a name. (It is amazing how hard it is to pick a name!)
This year was been filled with lots of excitement and many changes. This coming year looks to be even more exciting on the home front.
Hopefully, this year will be the year of the new house! We have been busy getting the house ready with painting and patching. But, we have much more to do to get it ready.
Karen and I went to one of the Mickey’s Not-So-Scary Halloween nights as the King and Queen of Hearts. We had a blast interacting with the characters from Alice in Wonderland especially the Queen of Hearts.
We collected three bags of candy between us. As Karen said, “I’ll start dieting when I get home.”
You can see more photos here.
Karen and I had feared that the weather was going to be freezing, but it turned out great. We hadn’t been in the gate for minute before running into Kris Lutz of Community Shares, which puts on the festival. Community Shares is an outreach organization the east Tennessee area.
We talked to guys from Foothill Brewing of Winston-Salem to congratulate them on their Gold Medal at the recent Great American Beer Festival competition.
Community Shares had arranged for accommodations at the Knoxville Hilton, which were super. We had view of a Tennessee river, access to the concierge room, walking distance to Market Square, and walking distance to the festival.
The music was much better this year, but the band started later and later throughout the day. This caused the last band, “The Everybodyfields”, start around 7:30 PM when the beer tents where told to stop serving.
Speaking of beer tents, we like the new layout of the the food and beer tents. The beer ran out early at many tents just like last year.
Karen and I talked with Matthew Chiaro of the Knoxville News Sentinel. We ended up in his article about the beer festival. You read it here.
Karen and I headed to the Monte Sano Art Show in Huntsville, Alabama. We have been going to the show for a few years, but this year the show didn’t have the variety of artisans as past years have had. Karen enjoyed the art show, but she missed some of the pottery and other similar items. The show primary had paintings.
The setting is just wonderful in Monte Sano State Park for an art show. As you can see in the photo, Monte Sano State Park is a forest which covers Monte Sano Mountain in Huntsville, Alabama. The weather was great, too.
My sister has been in town for the first three weeks of August. And, we wanted to go out one time before she left Huntsville, Alabama. Karen and I knew our friend Larry Woellhart would be performing down at Kenny Mango’s Coffee Shop so we all went for a wonderful evening of folk rock. Larry was great as usual. Kenny’s drinks were great as well. You can check out Larry upcoming schedules here.
To see all of the photos click here.
Karen and I had a wonderful time on our anniversary trip. With it being our 10th anniversary, we considered many different trips. We decided to include train travel on the trip, because we travelled by train on our honeymoon.
We started out by flying to Seattle, Washington. After picking up our rental car, we checked-in to our hotel and headed to Pyramid Ale. We had fun finding their restaurant and brewery, because we thought it was located at 1201 North 1st Street, but it was actually at 1201 South 1st Street. The lady working at 1201 North 1st Street said she is asked about the brewery all the time. As for Pyramid Ale, we tried a number of their beers along with a great sausage dish featuring three types of sausage.
For our actual anniversary on August 3rd, we decided to travel to Vancouver, British Columbia in Canada. Our destination was Granville Island, which is a small area within Vancouver that has open markets, artisan shops, boutiques, and restaurants. The artisans make a wide variety of items including metal works, blown glass, fabrics, and clothing. Karen had a blast looking in all of the shops. You could watch many of the artisans work their craft. We had a great lunch outside at Dockside. We purchased some bread and sausage to have for dinner back in Seattle.
For our anniversary dinner, we headed back to the hotel and had our bread and sausage for dinner while watching “My Favorite Spy” starring Bob Hope.
The next morning, we went hiking on Mount Rainier near the Paradise lodge. The trails were surrounded by meadows filled with flowers, which were in full bloom. On the way to and from Mount Rainier, we stopped in Eatonville, Washington.
As we were driving by Eatonville, Karen spotted a sign for the Eatonville Lion’s Club Art Festival. Karen loves art festivals. We found an artisan that had made dishes shaped like fish. They are shaped such that chips can be place in the body and dip can be placed on the tail. On our return from hiking, we stopped again tried their famous roast beef sandwich, which was great.
On Saturday, August 5th, 2006, we headed south to Tacoma, Washington to see the Museum of Glass. Generally, we were not impressed with the museum. It was very small and this is especially true given the cost of $10 a person. I suggest that you find a coupon, which we did. A lot of the pieces are note even glass. On a positive note, the hands on area, the bridge of glass, and the Hot Shop Amphitheater were great. When we visited, the hands on area allow us to make something out of glass pieces and wire. 
Karen and I made bracelets. Mine was not as nice as Karen’s. The picture about is from bridge of glass, which was designed by Dale Chihuly. The Hot Shop Amphitheater is a place where visiting artisans can build their glass art while you watch.
We went to Point Defiance Park to see the beach and enjoyed the five mile loop around the park. On the drive, we take pictures of raccoons. We stopped by the Camp 6 Logging Museum.
On Sunday, we went to the Pike Place Market in Seattle to see the fish fly at Pike Place Fish. If you order a fish, I suggest that you stand back, because the fish will start to fly. We had a great lunch at the Athenian Inn.
On Monday, we started are train ride back to home, but I will post more about that later.