Scattered Thoughts . . .

We've skipped a few years of celebrations due to the pandemic.   Although, I have to be honest, we did recently discuss the wisdom of celebrating this year considering how many people are now sick with the virus, the flu and other viruses.  We took a chance and headed to Stowe for our annual Christmas celebration anyway.   We started the afternoon at Idletyme Brewing.  Frank and Christine met us there.  We had some wings, a big pretzel, and a few delicious beers.   I started with Zog's Pale Ale.  Sheila started with a Stowespresso which is made with Green Mountain Vanilla Vodka, Kahlua, Baileys and cold brew espresso.  We both tasted a unique Stout sporting notes of chocolate and coffee as well as a unique Vanilla Porter.  Personally, I preferred the Zog's Pale Ale and stuck with that.   Here is a photo of Sheila's Stowespresso... Here is a photo of the big pretzel with beer cheese dipping sauce as well as a spicy mustard dipping sauce.  This was "okay".  We&#

This Thanksgiving, as with most every Thanksgiving in my adult life, we are hosting a Thanksgiving Dinner with close friends.  We have done very little socializing in the past year due to a few different health issues starting with Sheila second bout of breast cancer and ending (hopefully) with my two and a half months of significantly poor health due to some poor decisions by a couple of so-called specialists. Needless to say, we're both looking forward to socializing with some close friends today! As most of my friends know, this is perhaps my least favorite holiday on the calendar for far too numerous reasons to mention here.  That being said, decades ago, I found that I do enjoy the day whenever I host a small gathering of friends for the day.  Better yet, I always enjoyed being on-duty in the Air Force and putting together a celebration for all those working with me. The same holds true for Christmas... which happens to be my favorite holiday on the calendar! So, in keep

After we went to a Christmas Tree farm to cut Christmas trees this past weekend, we headed to a restaurant for a nice Christmas lunch. We've been doing this family Christmas lunch thing since the grandchildren were born four years ago. I don't think our intentions were to make this a tradition... I think we were just hungry that first year after cutting Christmas trees and lunch sounded like a good idea... after the second year of doing the same, we started thinking of it as a tradition. By now, it is definitely a nice tradition and something we look forward to each Christmas season.  Our lunch was delicious... the drinks were delicious... the desserts were delicious... the service was outstanding... and the atmosphere was warm, cozy and Christmassy... Arriving at the restaurant... Happy to see Gee again... I had to shoot a photo of this... I even advised Lukey to never attempt this in a real NY pizzeria... he was dipping his pizza in ranch dressing...