Craft Beer Party

A couple weeks ago, our friends had a housewarming with an interesting theme. This wasn't the first time they'd hosted this type of party, but it was the first time N & I fully participated.The idea is that everyone brings a six pack (or however much they plan on drinking) of craft beer. All contributions are added to the cooler, with the hope that everyone brings different craft beers so you can try a variety.

I love this idea! It's not often that you get to sample such a variety of craft beers in a single evening. I mean, some of my favourite bars operate on this premise (National, Craft, & Beer Revolution, to name a few), but sometimes it's hard to justify dropping $6-$8 on an unknown beer. This way, you can try at least six different beers for under $20.

I took photos of all the different beers I tasted, but unfortunately I didn't take any tasting notes, so you'll have to take my word for it when I say they were all quite good.

My first beer was my own contribution to the party. Perhaps a little silly to go straight for the beer I had brought, but I love Anchor Brewing & was really excited to try this Liberty Ale. I really enjoyed it. It's definitely not a bargain at the liquor store, but it's also not unreasonably priced. I'll buy it again soon.

Our friends apartment has this great mirror wall. It's pretty distracting, but a fun addition to the space.

 N's contribution was Anchor Steam. This is one of my favourite beers. I order it almost every time I see it on a menu. It's got an interesting flavour, but is easy to drink - delicious & slightly dangerous.

I'm really never sure about IPAs. I find them really hit or miss. Sometimes, they're great & other times, they're just too bitter for me. I liked this one though & I think the label is pretty awesome.

I really like Village beers, so of course this had to end up in my hands at some point in the evening. If you're even remotely into darker beers, the Blacksmith is great. It's definitely a go-to beer for me & their growlers are fun to split with a friend.

My beer choices quickly turned pretty safe as the night continued & I moved to beers I was more familiar with. I think this is kind of inevitable, but it was fun to at least start the night out with some new finds.

All in all, it was a pretty successful evening. We started early in the evening so we all went through quite a lot of beer. Next time I'd probably try to keep it to a six pack per person, so things don't get too rowdy.

Not that there's anything wrong with rowdy - everyone needs a noisy party at least once in a while, right? & you have to break in a new condo at some point. Mission Accomplished.

I'm definitely looking forward to trying this idea again with another group of friends. It's been a hit both times we've done it. If you like craft beer, I highly recommend this idea for your next party.

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July In Instagram

Summer is by far my favourite season and it always seems to just fly by. It's already half over and it feel like it only just began. We've got lots planned for August and September, but not nearly as much as we did for July. I'm kind of excited to just slow down a bit and enjoy this season. I'm looking forward to sitting outside on patios, having barbeques with friends, and enjoying the long days before they're gone.

The end of this month has felt slightly out of control. Anyone who knows me know that I'm not a fan of feeling out of control. Work has been full of deadlines, I've been trying to cram long runs into already hectic weekends, and N has been away for work. I think the last one has been making life feel particularly hectic. N and I are a pretty good team and he's been in Northern Saskatchewan for work since July 25. He's there for at least another week. It reminds me of when we did long distance, except at the time I was used to doing everything on my own and now I've been spoiled by having the extra help. Anyway, it's only another week so we're almost back to everyday life.

Here's what I got up to this month:
1. Started off July with a long weekend at the lake. Nothing more relaxing.
2. Stampede Parade kicked off one of my favourite weeks in the city! Enjoying the parade with my lovely co-worker.
3. Camping in Drumheller. The sunsets on the hills are unreal.
4. Spaghetti Western 2012: L and I enjoying our company party and the awesome sillybooth.
5. Weekend at Columbia Lake with N and some great friends for my birthday. D and I look related and it's really weird.
6. Nothing beats a calm, hot day on the lake. Seriously.
7. Folk Festing. I finally attended a full day at CFMF. It was full of great music and shenanigans.
8. D and I in the beer gardens at Folk Fest.
9. I finally got my last wisdom tooth out. And I bit the bullet and did the ombre thing. Turns out I love it!

Here's to a wonderful, hot, sunny, dry rest of the summer! Happy Long Weekend, everyone!

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Hell or High Water

That crazy non-stop week of partying has come and come. This year wasn't actually that crazy non-stop for me, but I did get my fair share of partying in. I skipped the first weekend of Stampede and went camping with friends, but I got right into things with our Spaghetti Western Stampede Party at work. 

We usually host is on Princes' Island, but due to the flooding it had to be relocated to Shaw Millenium Park at the last minute (well a week before). Everyone pulled together though and it turned out great. Our marketing team had pretty much everyone helping out in some way. It was a gorgeous, hot day and I think everyone had a pretty great time. 

K & I ready for Spaghetti

Twins!

Busy Spaghetti Tent

We had this great Silly Booth Photo Booth and I just love the photos from it. They're so high quality. I think geoLOGIC staff had the most fun out of everyone. There were a lot of red shirted photos. 

Spaghetti Western is primarily a client lunch event, so we headed to a pub afterwards for some drinks. Later, a few of us decided it was patio weather and we headed to a new bar on Stephen Avenue. I love this time of year, not only for the Stampede fun, but also for the incredibly long days. We sat on the patio until close and I think it only got dark around 10:30 pm. 

I took a little break from the party scene until Friday night, when we met up with a friend of mine who was down from Jasper. The night was really random. We went from a pub in Eau Claire to the Fairmont Palliser bar to a hotel room there, and finally met up with a few friend's at Hudson's. We packed it in pretty early though. We had big Stampede plans for the next day. 

reunited and looking fine. 

Fancy

Can't leave without a Shotski

We managed to get a good start on the day Saturday and headed down for a pancake breakfast before hitting the grounds. We did all the usual things: pet the horses, ate artery clogging food, watching cool shows, and hit the beer gardens. 

We hit the line for Nashville North around 5 pm and it was insane. It's always crazy and we had come prepared, but I've never seen it as busy as it was. We waited and waited, but people kept budging so the line just wasn't moving. Finally, we gave up, grabbed some mini donuts for the road and headed to Vagabond Brewery near the grounds. We made a plan to line back up at 11 pm. We'd give it one hour and if we still didn't get in that would be it. 

Vagabond turned out to be a pretty good place to hang out. The beers were pretty good and not ridiculously priced given their craft label and proximity to the grounds and the food was awesome! We had a great time there. When 11 pm hit, D, N, and I headed back to Nashville. There was still a bit of a line, but we managed to get through in under 40 minutes and headed straight for the dancefloor. 

That's a lie...we meant to head straight for the dancefloor, but we actually got beers (equally important?). 

My favourite thing about Nashville North is dancing with N and we did a ton of it. Danel got a few cute shots of us, but for the most part, the three of us hung out on the dancefloor. 

The next day, N and I slept in a bit and then headed back down to the grounds. We had passes for the day we didn't want to waste, so even though we felt like having a lazy day, we decided to go. We ate a lot of food truck food, wandered to pretty much every corner of the grounds, and then finally went to the Chuckwagon Races. The final evening is pretty exciting since the last heat is racing for all the money. It's a pretty close race. Those horses are incredible, as are the riders and chuckwagon drivers. 

Beer gardens waiting on the race

Chucks

All in all, it was a really fun Stampede. And of course, we grabbed some mini donuts on our way out. Until next year, Stampede! Thanks for another great year!

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Summer To-Do List

Columbia Lake

Considering yesterday Calgary and its surrounding communities and cities declared a state of emergency due to flooding from heavy rainfall, it's hard to believe summer has arrived today. Inspired by a couple other bloggers and the first day of one of my favourite seasons (who am I kidding, I love them all!), I put together a little summer to-do list of some of the things I'd like to do. 

1. Enjoy cocktails with friends. I want to host a cocktail party but I envision this being outside and that's not an option for us due to our lack of outdoor space. Elsie of A Beautiful Mess has been posting a ton of amazing sounding cocktail recipes that I am dying to try! 

2. Take advantage of the mountains. Go hiking and backpacking. The rockies are too close not to take advantage of!

3. Experience more Calgary events. Street Festivals, Food Truck Events, Fun Runs...Take advantage of some of the fun local things happening around Calgary. Play tourist at home a little bit. 

4. Take a road trip. I can't wait for our trip to Vancouver, Portland, Seattle, and Kelowna. I love a good road trip and I love visiting new cities. 

5. Attend an outdoor concert. I bought tickets for Folk Fest. I've heard great things about it so it's about time I did a full day at Prince's Island. 

6. Nail a handstand. I've been practicing and I'm determined to nail a decent handstand. The summer I was nine, I had a similar goal, but with cartwheels. What I'm saying is that I'm an nine-year-old at heart.

7. Get away with the girls. Boys will be boys, so let's leave them at home and have our own fun. I'm thinking some lake time is in order. Maybe we can kill two birds with one stone and make up some cocktails too!

8. Rock a flip flop tan and some freckles. Nothing says summer to me better than sunkissed skin and tan lines from my havaianas. Come on Calgary, bring on the sunshine!

9. Bike to work as much as possible! We live in the perfect neighbourhood to take advantage of biking to work. It's such a great way to start the day. 

10. Spend time outside daily. Summer always flies by. I'll save my hermitting for winter, when darkness sets in before I leave work and the ground is frozen for months. 

Enjoy the first day of summer! What do you plan to do this season? \

Nashville North

Wedding Shower

Wakeboarding

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Christmas Parties

I realize this post is long overdue, but Christmas this year was really lovely so I've decided to still talk about it. Until February that is. Once February hits, I will forget Christmas until at least next November. Promise.

Our holiday festivities started in November with N's work murder-mystery-casino-night themed party. His company is pretty small so it was just 30 people plus their spouses/dates, but it was really fun. I haven't done a Murder Mystery in years. I didn't really know what to expect, but they did a great job with it and it forced more interaction than normal. Once the murder was solved, they set up the tables for the casino and we gambled the rest of the night away!


N's Christmas Party

For my Christmas Party we decided to get a room at the hotel with H and Z. Last year, they'd had a really hard time finding a cab afterwards, so we decided it wasn't worth the hassle. The theme of our party was Hollywood Glam/the Oscars.

We started the night getting ready in the hotel room. One of my favourite things about going out was always getting ready together, listening to 80s music, and having drinks. It's still one of my favourite parts of the night, but now that we all live on our own, we tend to just meet up at the bar. It was fun to have do it again a little bit. I'm pretty sure N & Z thought it was totally awesome too.



I even busted out the fake eyelashes!

H & I having a few pre-party drinks



Love this sparkly dress!

 Another couple joined us for a drink before we all headed down to the party together and the shenanigans began. It was the most ridiculous Christmas Party I've ever been to (not that I've been to many), but also the most fun. N and Z ended the night on the dance floor, their ties on their heads. It was hilarious.

We had a professional photographer, so I didn't have to worry about taking pictures. (Although, I did capture a few ridiculous moments after the photographer had left. Precious.) We started off the night looking pretty classy. It's so fun to see everyone dressed up!


Work BFF

This lovely lady is pretty awesome too!

We'd decided on food stations so there was a nice assortment of things and a less formal dining time. A lot of people weren't sure about it, but I think it worked really well for mingling. We still had traditional tables for those who wanted them, but I was content to stand at a table and chat while I ate. I somehow managed to miss the mashed potato bar though and I'm still disappointed about that one! (Especially considering I never eat potatos anymore!)



Enjoying dinner and drinks

Gorgeous Ladies!



N & I trying to look classy

Since we had a photographer, there were lots of photos like the following. I actually kind of like it though since you can actually see my whole dress!

Chatting

Things got pretty ridiculous after dinner and there are some hilarious photos. These are just a couple of my favourites.


We're all having way too much fun!

I want to buy whatever Z is selling.



And these boys. Oh there are no words for these two...

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