If you called....

and you got the voice mail, this is why...

Symptoms:
- mosquito bites
- sand in shoes
- warm beer
- berries
- itchy kitties
- dinner outside
- farmers market
- sandals
- sunscreen
- water...lots of water

...it's properly Summer.
Spring made no appearance, but summer is definitely here. And where there is summer, there is busy.

We spent last weekend at the beach for the Brewers Games and a small charity beer festival put on by Pelican Brewery in Pacific City.


Joe participated with a hodgepodge of other Portland Brewers- competing against 12 other breweries/distributors in some whacked out beer olympics.
















I watched from the sidelines as this motley crew tossed, dragged and ran with kegs through obstacle courses and around the beach, threw active yeast in balloons to each other, moved mashed grain from barrel to barrel, and drank and obliterated macro-brews on a homemade iron-maiden.

It was quite a show and lasted pretty much all day. We retired to a small cabin across the way from the brewery and sat around the fire rehashing the best and worst moments of the games and planning for 364 days later when they could compete again.

It was a pleasant and pretty drive to Pacific City; we returned home and promptly recreated a beach environment by introducing half the beach onto the living room carpet.

This past weekend we took in the Organic Brewer's Festival which had many contrasts from our attendance the previous year. It was beautiful, sunny and packed with people. My only complaint is that I went in thinking I'd save my favorite brew of last year, Alameda's IPA, for last and as I approached the tent with my last ticket a pathway cleared in front of me showing the way...literally...people had gotten out of line because the keg was tapped. Lame.

Otherwise it was a pretty low-key weekend. Hung out at the Saturday farmers market at PSU. We stood-in for a friend, volunteering at a bike event doing helmet fitting-which I am very bad at and Joe is not. Biked to and from the bike event (seems only fitting eh?) in the 100 degree weather and spent the later evening walking around the garden and enjoying a beer. Sunday was a relaxing day, spent out at Sauvie Island picnicking and having a little bit of frisbee.

ah....summer.