Why I love this product: Cold Smoke microbrew in a can

Why do I love this product?

Is it because it is called Cold Smoke (that is referring to suberb hyper-cold snow that is amazing to ski through)? No.

Is it because it has a skiier on it and I love to ski? Uh huh.

Is it becaue I like the taste of the beer? Not really.

I love this product becaue it is beer, WORTH DRINKING, that is in a CAN. I know, I know, Murphy's Stout is in a can. Guiness. It is in a can. But, for summer time imbibing, who wants those heavy dark beers? Not me.

Really the crux of it is that to help with the environment and to reduce our trips to our smelly, far away garbage totle. I want to drink my beer FROM A CAN. We have a small trash can. We have a small outside garbage tote. We like it that way. We want to produce less garbage. Bozeman is so small and far away from an urban center, it is not affordable for the city, or any recycling entity to take glass.

The consequences? It no longer works to choose glass if you want less garbage and to feel like you are part of the solution and not the problem. Plus I hate taking out the garbage. The less glass we buy, the more we use products we can recycle, the less garbage-taking-outing. Plus, curbside recycling is coming to Bozeman (finally) in October, which will mean walking the recycling right out our front door and not the long walk around through our back yard to the alleyway where the garbage tote is.

And just as I was asking my friends about my wish for more microbrews in a can? These guys: Kettle House Brewery in Missoula, Montana! They package their microbrews in cans! Why? Because they did their research and found out that aluminum is the best recycling product out there (they explain all of this on the can); it is cheap to recycle, lighter weight package that has one the best recycling bank for buck.

In short, I love these guys. Thank you!

p.s. Forgive me for being ridiculously ecstatic, but ask and you shall receive. Plus they are doing it for the *right* reasons. AND they are in Montana, and therefore local!!!!!

Okay, back to Emma....

Emma, plastic bottles, and one metal mixing bowl

Here it is. The constant reminder that kids love anything that is "interesting"... Well, they love anything that is interesting to them. And that does NOT necessarily mean that it need be bought at "Natural Baby Works" or "Babygenius.com".

What does Emma love today that isn't extensively researched for child stimulation and development? Three plastic water bottles (caps off and of different size and shape) and one large metal mixing bowl.

How much was she interested? See pictures below. For how long? I took probably 50 pictures of her playing with these things (ahhh the beauty of my D70 and the digital age). While I could rapid fire them off in about a minute, this went on for about 30.

Being a Daddy is hard work: evidence

Sorry this video is sideways. I don't have the technology or know how to fix this, at this time. But, it was too cute not to post.

Sid and Emma Reading

More Emma Action

Here are 2 seconds worth of happy Emma wiggle action...

Harper, Dylan and Baby Emma

We spent the fourth of July with Monte, Heidi, Harper and Dylan and the rest of their family. It was a fun filled day and evening. Including a fine game of 4-person Hearts. I love hearts. Mom and Dad, you'll be pleased to know you taught me well: I won. :-)

These pictures were taken this morning while we were all packing to go home. Somehow our camera never made it out until then. Emma was quite taken with Harper and her demonstrations of the tug boat workings. Dylan soon showed up to play along as well. The girls were both so lovely with Emma.










Thank you Burke Family for the wonderful visit. We love friends with kids; especially those who like to play games as well! :-)

True Dady Love: Live

Big Kid Emma with Daddy

Daddy is offering Emma a hair pulling session. One of her FAVORITE past-times these days. When she and Sid do it, she laughs and squeals with delight. I was a bit slow on the camera trigger, and she caught wind of my desires to catch her in the act.
Here Sid is doing his VERY best "crazy dad" impression to help out with the attempt. Again, she says, "Oh pleaaase. "

:-)

Big Kid Emma

It was another yard day. Sid was in charge of the Em-ster, and I slaved away at building a rock pathway. We are at ~90% complete on the walkway. We have also edged the south side of the front and side lawns and converted most of it into garden beds. Grass begone! The bed making included trench digging, then mixing the existing soil with the compost, evening, creating a weed-resistant slime layer with corn gluten (the non-roundup way to control weeds- the vote is still out), then mulching.

We used over 3 yards of mulch! Mulch moving was a big part of the project....What we crazy people do to make good ole kentucky blue go away. Sid did the majority of this two weeks ago, while I was in charge of Emma. He vows never to do this kind of "transformative" lawn work again....This word "transformative" is being marked by my spell check. It is lifted directly from the world of U.S. politics and NPR news coverage; where we have all heard it used just a little too much... So, I am trying out the word here.

Back to Sid: He is off big scale yard work at least until fall, when we tackle the other side of the front lawn (luckily it is much smaller) and the planting of the beds. Thus the reason I am currently in charge of the walkway.

Here are some pics Sid took on one of my breaks from laboring. Emma is getting so big. Sid says today she worked hard on the "self-pull to standing" skill set. Can you believe it? They "claim" she nearly accomplished it today, with only some minimal help from dad (and the Fisher Price Old MacDonald Barn as a lever).

Go Emma. Go xeriscaping. Go walkway!