2016 Christmas Letter

 2016

Dear Friends and Relatives,

Tim had to go work in Japan for a couple of months, so William and I flew over on a 787 to see him.  Okay, so we waited until the only mileage awards flights available were in first class.  I want you to know, if I won the lottery, I would surely want to fly first class all the time.  But, I’d feel guilty about spending that much money on comfort versus giving some village in Africa a clean water system for the same price.

William and I were able to get from Kyushu (the southern island) to Sapporo (the northern island) then back to Tim’s apartment in 24 hours.  The bullet trains were amazing, but the slow overnight train’s floor-style sleeping (there are no seats) was ‘hard’ on me.  William LOVED being able to buy his shower token out of a vending machine, then take it on the train.

William still loves math.  Last year he went to the middle school to take Algebra.  He loved his teacher and was #1 in his class.  My best friend said, “Caroline, his competition was 8^th graders who didn’t want to be there.  It’s nothing to brag about!”  But he did get top score for all 6^th graders in Washington State on the Smarter Balanced math test.  He got a small trophy for that accomplishment.

In summer, we went to France, Luxembourg, Germany, Netherlands, and Belgium.  We stayed with friends in Brugge, Belgium and Nantes, France.  The experience of staying with locals was so rewarding and unique!  Tim loved driving on the autobahn in our BMW touring car.  Getting a parking ticket in Luxembourg was our most expensive ‘souvenir.’

I got something off my bucket list.  I got to experience 3 days of the Tour de France!  We saw the departure from Mont St. Michel, one day at the finish line of a sprint finish (Cavanaugh won by millimeters!), and a mountain climb.  That’s where they are actually going slow enough so you can see them.  Can you find Rowdy in the picture?  I put him in.

We had to stay overnight in our car, hike up a couple miles and wait all day for the late afternoon ride-by.  We took the selfie in the morning, and the guys riding by in the afternoon.  Rowdy's pic was done in December...  But you'll see Peter Sagan still in yellow in this pic!

Tim is always busy in his garage (does that say something about me?).  He not only brews specialty beer, but also builds the equipment to do so.  He worked on an animatronic spider for a Halloween spooky garage, a ‘Vegas-style’ tree topper, and taught William how to tune his own skis.  William has grown tall enough to use those long skis since he’s taller than I am now!

Are you looking for the PERFECT gift for a home brewer?

This calendar was made by my husband, printed in the USA.  He is an avid home brewer that wanted a calendar that was different than the pretty beer calendars!  One that would be artistic with items a home brewer would appreciate.

Only $15 on Amazon (we resisted the $14.99 lure).

It would be on my best cheap gifts for guys list.

Brewing

Best gifts for home brewers.

Home brew calendar.

Omaha Beach

The northern part of France can be a long drive.  We left Belgium and had to make it to Mont. St. Michelle by 4:30 pm.  So, we had to choose wisely.  We chose to visit one of the American landings, Omaha Beach.

You can hike down from the cemetery or drive.  We chose to drive.

The sand is a lovely yellow-tan.  I imagine it looked much worse when they landed.  The tide was out, but I'm sure on that day, the strip of sand must have looked this far.  All while under fire.

William and Tim hiked out further than I did.

Some 70 years later, there is still some debris.

You can see a portion of something built into the sand here. 

This is just a very small bunker, and not up on the high hill, but still would have been hard to capture.

The side towards the ocean is reinforced, probably from ship-launched missiles.

Here's to the brave, the tried, the true.  RIP.

Love where they put the plaque.

You can see this one is away from the beach.  

Getting in you see the width of the walls.

The gun that could have shot through and mowed down the soldiers advancing.

Their view.  They could strafe from the side as the soldiers tried to climb the hill to the higher, bigger bunkers.

Bikers who rode here to the American Cemetery. 

I wanted William to know how many died that day.

These gave all.

A small museum up the hill had a few tanks.

They also had some of the spikes to stop ships from coming in.

 

And they set up a road through here from Omaha beach.

LOVE this French style house!

A sobering day, but I felt worth taking the time for.  Let us not have war like this again.

Bruge Bier and the Henri Maes Brewery

We went to the beer wall.  This is just a tiny part of it.  All styles of beers, glasses, etc.

Since it was early morning, we didn't start tasting at the bar there, because we would never have left!

I thought this was funny.... 'seeing Pink Elephants!'

Same brewery, what they had on the beer wall.

This is the entrance into the brewery.

Henri Maes has been around for awhile.

Through that doorway, there is a courtyard.  To the right is the gift shop where you can sign up for tours in English (as well as other languages).

Since they have more need (thirsty Belgians and tourists) than space, and they can't remodel because they are in a historic part of town, they have installed a pipeline to a place about a kilometer away.  Of course, Tim had read this fact in a beer magazine.  Our tour guide was from Alaska.

 Tim could tell you what is going on in here.  

Right next to the wort and yeast areas was this laboratory.

I tried to see their secrets, but no.  Probably just testing to keep everything perfect.

Then, they took us through different parts to the building.

Filtering?

The new was inter-built with the old equipment left for viewing.  They have it set up so the beer process is automated.

Barley and wheat in hoppers, ready to dump it into the pots.

They kept taking us up, up, up.  It was neat to see the old with the new alongside. 

Old kettle and beside it...

It looks like a milk can, but they used to put beer in these!

Historic bottles.

Looked so cool.

Barrels, and how to move them...

Old bottling?

They kept taking us up, up, up!

So to cool it, they USED to pump it up to the top.  This is no longer the case.

 Just imagine how much 'natural taste' would come in through those windows!

We ended up on the roof.  You can now look down on the courtyard, and those tanks we saw coming in.  Then, we started back down using a different route.

The old-style cooling tubes.

The old fermentation tanks.  They were open.  Again, natural yeast would make this go crazy!

The old air conditioning, trying to cool it all down.

Old testing equipment.

The newer way to hold the beer.

All around old equipment to look at.

Now we're waiting for the finish.

Of course, the end is in the bar, where we got a beer.  Fun old automated bottling machine.

Tim enjoyed his beer.

William got a soda.  Yes, that is a wood wall behind them! 

This was Tim's view.

This was my view out the window.

And when we took the canal tour, this is the view of the back of the brewery!

Here we are leaving the brewery square.

Then, we took the canal tour.  No matter where you get on one of the tours, you do the whole (same) route, and come back to where you started.

More old wood houses.  Look at the arches they were built on.

Our guide was from England and was hilarious.  Of course, not everyone got his jokes.  William got a few I didn't (a Tin Tin reference), but it was amusing.

This 'house' is actually a dam.

Some of the arches were SO LOW!  We really had to duck!

People knew how to make the plain beautiful!

Seriously.  This is a reading window?  How cool would it be to enjoy the day here!

The diversity of houses here was interesting.

And yet, here they look the same, except for the new on the right.

This is a pretty wide canal.  Later, William got to go biking with Tristen on the park that surrounds the historic part, which is within the canal system.

The boat captain said he'd live here.  :)

BREAST FEEDING!!!  Is this the sign for 'la leche league?'

Bruge was a trading port, until tides and political tides shifted.  But, the canals continue on.  

Belgium was doing well in soccer, and we saw flags all over!

Our hostess took me to her favorite chocolate shop.  

 She had requested chocolate chips for cookies from America... what? the best chocolate in the world, and you need crappy chips?  Yep!  Only kind that won't melt when making cookies!

And then the sun came out after the dim day.

And then our host, Dirk, who knew Tim loves beer, got a few beers and had a tasting rubric to fill out.    What an amazing time they showed us!  THANK YOU!!!