Good Afternoon Ladies & Gentlemen,
This year’s annual pilgrimage back to Utah for the Christmas Holidays was similar to past visits… but there were some great adventures along the way… so yeah, similar. Here are some of the highlights… mostly with pictures…
December 17th - Spent the evening with Izzy... and she took me to see some Christmas awesomeness in Richmond... and got me a nice present...
December 18th – I flew out of Oakland early… but apparently not early enough, as here was the line to the TSA grope at 5:05 AM…
Eventually I made my flight though, landed in Salt Lake City… and my mom, Aunt Pat & I went to an old breakfast hangout Bruges where we got Belgian Waffles& Frits… and then hung out at the Fortress of Solitude for a few hours…
…and then my mom’s family Christmas party. I’m sure that I’ve mentioned it before but… my mom is one of 17 children… who are grandparent age now… so there are always WELL over a hundred people at each of these family get togethers. Here are some pics including my grandma in a badass Christmas outfit…
December 19th – After my niece made me breakfast, I went to my Aunt Pat’s house to make Kiefels a.k.a. Baby Jesus Cookies…
…and then I met up with my brother & friends to see the long awaited “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” but… I may just have to save that for another post… or maybe my podcast if that ever gets off the ground. Long story short, pretty damn good… but probably different reasons for me than for most. I’ll elaborate more at another time. Go see it though!
…and then because my family can’t plan things out, we had to immediately run over to see the Washington Heights’ Playhouse presentation of “A Christmas Carol” which has become an annual tradition… but no pictures… because that distracts the actors. I’d highly recommend checking it out though. The guy who plays Ebenezer Scrooge is pretty f**king amazing.
December 20th – The next day… I pretty much just played video games with my brother… or rather he played & I kind of watched. As mentioned in the $tevie Awards, “Mad Max” was pretty cool… and that was probably most of it… along with “Fallout 4” but I preferred Mad Max.
December 21st – The next day… we played more video games… then my mom & I went to Salt Lake City for the night as I had some research to do the next day…
December 22nd – The next morning, I ventured to a new brewery & taproom that opened up in my old stomping grounds… and that is Shades of Pale Brewing in South SLC, just off the Trax line. This new nanobrewery has been in business for about year… but their taproom just opened up a few weeks ago& they’ve just been slowly yet surely working out the kinks. I got there just as they opened around noon… and it was me, the owner, the CEO & the sales guy, just the four of us shootin’ the sh*t for an hour or so while they were of course moving things around and getting ready for the lunch rush (which I assume happened after I left?) and I tried each of their selections.
One thing that I particularly liked was that most of their furniture (and even their coasters) were made from wood pallets… check it out!
A few hours later, I met up with my cousins at the largest craft brewery in Utah, Uinta Brewing which boasts over 100,000 barrels of beers made annually & you can probably find a few of their selections at your local BevMo. This stop included an hour-long tour of their fairly massive & impressive facilities out in West Valley… and also included some swag (pint glass, stickers, etc) and we had a few drinks and a meal there catching up. Here are some pictures…
After dinner, the snow started picking up so my other cousin was caught in Rock Springs, Wyoming… and they had an extra ticket… so I got to see “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” again… for FREE!!! May have even been better the second time… but mostly because it was free.
December 23rd – The next day, my mom & I dropped my niece & nephew back off with my brother so they could go watch Star Wars… and then we wandered over to another new establishment in the area, the Ogden City Brew Supply which is a small homebrew shop in my old neighborhood (was a Weight Watchers in a strip mall back in the day) but they had a pretty good selection of homebrewing supplies and have been open less than a month. Here are some pictures…
That night… I made a Pumpkin Pie…
December 24th – Christmas Eve started off with me finding a 12 pack of Bohemian Brewing at the local grocery store… so I tried out some of their lagers (Czech Pilsner, Schwarzbier & an Amber Lager in this pack). As you may know, I enjoy a good lager… and this brewery came highly recommended from friends in the state… but I believe this 12-pack may have been past its expiration as it had some mild skunk going on (later confirmed by Izzy when I got back) but alas there was some good point about it… and I’m sure that I’ll be checking some fresh beer at their brewery in Midvale upon my return to the state. They even have one of my favorite kinds of beer… a Doppelbock limited release that they made called “Czechulator” which I am just a huge fan of the concept… and can’t wait to try.
While sipping, I made some Christmas treats… and then my mom gave my stepdad his first present of the holiday season… a dog named Abigail. See, my stepdad has been getting less & less mobile the past few years… so of course he needs a dog, right? Of course. Here are some pictures… and yes, he’s still seated in most of the photos…
That night was also my Stepdad’s family party featuring the amazing matriarch of the family, the great 98-years young Doctor Al who will probably be a guest on the podcast when/if that comes to fruition… just such an interesting life that he’s led… and last we really chatted he was still pretty coherent. Hopefully I haven’t missed my window to access that wealth of knowledge by moving out to California… such a great guy! Also, there was a super sweet man cave with a full bar, pool table & adjacent movie theatre downstairs at my stepuncle’s house… and he was glad to show it off…
December 25th – Christmas morning was spent down at my brother’s house so that my niece & nephew could open their first load of presents… and frankly I’m a little peeved that my brother pulled some BS with my mom about “you know, since their grandpa isn’t here this year, we should probably give them twice as many presents as we usually would so they don’t miss him” or something sh*t like that… but whatever, some sucker fell for it… here are pictures of the first load of presents…
… and then 2nd Christmas in the afternoon was up at the Fortress of Solitude… and of course Christmas merriment was had by all… with minimal snappy b**chy remarks by loved ones… ah, the holdiays!
December 26th – The next day, mom, nephew & I ran some errands… and it was a little chilly… but beautiful and sunny… so then we decided to check out the Eccles Dinosaur Park… and it was awesome! Here are some pictures from our quick 15 minute run-through… again, chilly…
That evening, I met up with my Aunt Pat & cousin Alicia for dinner at Pig in a Jelly Jar…
…and then I spent the night at their house, where Alicia basically slept for 18 hours straight… but Aunt Pat & I watched “Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace”. You know what was fun about that? Spending a good hour or so trying to explain to my Aunt Pat that Episode I was NOT the movie that she watched in theatres in the 70’s… and that the sequence of the original trilogy was episodes 4, 5 & 6… and then the horrible prequels (that she really didn’t need to see before Episode 7) were made about 10-15 years ago when Alicia was still a kid… but yeah, it just didn’t click with her… so that’s why we watched Episode I… and yeah, it’s pretty much as bad as I remember. Now, I’m not one of those purest who think that the prequels are absolutely deplorable… heck, with a few adjustments they could actually be pretty good. It’s really just relying too heavily on special effects and… there’s no need for medichlorians or whatever to enter the scene… and I am TOTALLY a fan of the conspiracy about Jar Jar Binks being the REAL Phantom Menace that’s working his way up to power to run the eventual Empire, but yeah… just a few touches here & there, the prequels can be decent. Oh… and some of the acting is just f**king horrible. Like… telenovela horrible. Anyway, that was done…
December 27th – The main part of this day was going to my dad’s grave site for the first time… and yeah, it was cold… and it was somber… but yeah, it had to be done. Miss you dad.
December 28th – This last day in town was spent hanging with my brother Kiel & my buddy Isaiah… again, mostly playing video games… but eventually we went up to my mom’s house & finished what I started earlier in the week, and cleared a spot for my dad’s truck which had been sitting outside for the past six months (because I didn’t physically clear out the garage & move it myself). Anyway, it’s done now.
I spent the night at the SpringHill Suites SLC Airport since I had a really early flight out… and it was snowing a bit all night. I had trouble sleeping, mostly because I took a power nap while watching Monday Night Football right after I got there… but overall, not a bad trip sleep wise. Only a few odd nights & I got plenty of 10 hour days during that time. That’s one benefit of hanging with people north of 50 years of age.
December 29th – I awoke at 4 AM… waited 45 minutes for the shuttle due to ice on the road… and the result at 5 AM in SLC Airport was similar to trip there from Oakland… long line through TSA leading to just barely catching the flight… but I made it… and met up with Izzy for a day of R&R before going back to work (I had caught a cold as usual on the last bit of the trip). Anyway, great trip… can’t wait to do it again. Hopefully you feel all caught up now. Have a great day everybody & Happy New Year!!!
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