May and June in pictures

Bonjour, blog!

It's been a super amazing summer so far. Hubs and I trekked to Europe in search of cheese and beer, I ran my second distance race (Dam to Dam!), and we've been busy biking and ingesting as much rum and coconut water as possible.

Lemme catch you up:

A sunny ride down to Cumming Tap!

Our second annual trip to Swine Fest in Ankeny:

Kicking ass at Dam to Dam (12.4 miles!), thanks to Emily:

Miracle of miracles, Scott has returned to our yard!

Wedding in Chicago! (Did you notice that I've shrunk since last we met? Homeslice done lost 30 pounds, yo!)

!

Hubs, in our Parisian flat:

Belgian flowers! Cobalt walls! Love!

Hubs biking to West Vleteren, home of Saint Sixtus Abbey, and the best beer in the world. Like, literally.

Enjoying some West-Vleteren 12!

Me, biking through the Belgian countryside.

I'm standing with a giant brussel sprout. Guess where I am.

Mort Subite, a wonderful little 1920s bar in Brussels.

Hi! We are tourists!

FYI, the Louvre is closed on Tuesdays and if it looks like this, RUN to the nearest cafe, especially if you are wearing white pants.

Cats at Versailles.

FYI: Versailles closes at 6pm and there are two trains that head in that direction. Getting on the wrong train at 4:30 p.m. will lead to this being the extent of your Versailles experience:

Our favorite stop: Brugges!

We seriously love beer.

Instructions on how to pour this beer. Belgians have mad respect for the beverage.

Brugges from above! It's a fairy tale city.

Aaaand that about sums it up! Up next: Art Festival, friends' wedding, biking the High Trestle Trail, beirgarten fun, probable sunburns.

And that's just this weekend! This is the summer Bigger, Better, Best does what they want, when they want. That means we've scaled way back on DIY plans. Fun stuff only until cooler weather hits.

What's your mantra this summer?

In the weeds

This weekend, we're re-tackling the .75 acre that is our little urban jungle. Remember our patio garden? And the grand ole Pit?

Well, with warm breezes and leaves on trees (girly squealllllll! I love leaves on trees!), it's time to whip those spaces into shape. The plants are all way ahead of us, as we never even bothered to rake leaves back there last fall and here come the hops and hostas and peonies popping through the mess!

Also on the agenda for my last weekend as a 28 year old lass? Making a dent in the Yuengling stash my parents loaded me up with in STL last weekend (seriously - the entirety of my fridge's bottom shelf is solid beer right now. Add to that Hubs' two kegs of homebrew and the 30 bottles of homemade wine that are officially ready for consumption and well, let's just say the Bigger, Better, Best clan's eyes are most definitely larger than their aging livers), bike riding and zipping around on two legs, because - did you hear? Homeslice named me just ran a 5 mile race (on St. Pat's no less, when she could have been celebrating early), regularly runs at least 15 miles a week and is training for Dam to Dam (a 20-flippin-k!) in June.

Related agenda item: Buying up all the skinny lady clothes I can find because somebody dropped 20 pounds and has legit arm muscles.

Anyway, I'm hoping we can at least get the gardens cleaned up, pruned back and trellised this weekend. I've also got to shift some hostas around quick like a ninja before the rhizomes get too thick for me to dig through.

What are you up to this weekend? Would you be willing to rake leaves and weed for beer?

One vine day

A few weeks ago, we got some rhizomes in the mail. Hubs, my personal homebrew concierge, decided to grow his own hops. Hops are what give beer aroma and that nice little kick of bitter flavor. And we're about to have a ton.

Right now, we just have two rhizomes sprouting up - one at the back of our garage and one at the foot of the deck. We chose these spots for their nearly full-sun exposure and because I want nothing more than to not have to paint the back of that garage.

Hops get super huge and love to climb, so soon we'll have to string up some trellises for them. Shouldn't be long before we have cascading hops (beer joke, ba dum ching?) floating over our our heads!

Source

Source

Think of it as wisteria for beer snobs. 

Iowa's not ideal for hops, but if we have enough Hubs might make an experimental brew. A local brewery makes an all-Iowa IPA, so it can be done!