Summer at the Top of the World

We've been blessed with a much warmer, sunnier summer this year than the soggy, sorry excuse of a season we endured last year, and it shows in how we've spent our spare time. In the weeks since our return from Disneyworld, we've gone camping, fishing, hiking and on numerous bike rides. We've also spent countless hours just playing out in the yard, especially now that the new playset is up.

Unfortunately, our camera battery literally came apart after we got back to Alaska, so many photo opportunities, like Calvin's first birthday, and the camping and fishing trips, have gone undocumented. We're back in business now though, so here are a few shots to last until our next adventure. :)

♥

Disney World!

It took about two years to plan and save for our first family vacation, and it was entirely worth it. At four o'clock this morning we arrived back home from our week-long trip to Walt Disney World. Not to be outdone by Brandon's recent surgery and recovery, Mother Nature tried to scuttle our plans with off-season thunderstorms the first two days of our arrival. Nothing says excitement like a sudden torrential downpour while on an electrically powered ride. To make matters worse, Stephanie spent nearly her entire birthday at a local hospital due to stomach problems (though she's much better now). Still, we were determined to enjoy ourselves. We managed to visit the Magic Kingdom twice, plus Typhoon Lagoon, the Animal Kingdom and Downtown Disney, along with just having fun around our room at Disney's Caribbean Beach Resort. It's good to be home, but we're sorry we had to leave. We'll let some of the many photos we took hint at all the fun we had. :)

♥, The Tuckers

Heat Wave!

All things are relative. And when lingering winter temperatures suddenly rocket to 60 and 70 degrees, Alaskans call it a heat wave. April and May have been so warm this year, it triggered a massive melting of glaciers feeding the Yukon river. At an average flow of 227,000 cubic feet per second, the new meltwater was too much for the still frozen ice dams farther downriver, causing the worst flooding on the Yukon in memory. Some villages were wiped out completely, and the destruction continued as the giant river pushed miles of ice past bridges, villages and camps toward the Bering Sea.

In our neck of the woods, Mother Nature has been much more forgiving. These past several weeks have been simply beautiful, and we've soaked up every opportunity to get out and enjoy the sunny weather. Calvin is a crawling champ now, and loves to hold hands with someone and walk aimlessly, practicing for the real thing. Chloe recently danced in her second big stage show, this time in Anchorage, and just celebrated her "graduation" from preschool; in August she'll be a proud kindergartner. Malcolm's little league season has begun, and he played his first game a couple days ago. He even scored a run! He continues to excel in school, constantly earning special awards and praise for academic achievement.

The main source of excitement these days is our upcoming trip to Disneyworld. It's been about two years in the making, and as our first real vacation, we're all thrilled. We leave in about a week and a half, and we're getting busy preparing everything before we go. Brandon underwent hernia repair surgery a few weeks ago, and spent nearly two weeks in bed healing. The hope was that the painful recovery process wouldn't hamper our shenanigans at Disneyworld, but fortunately the timing was such that he'll be running and swimming to the kids' delight. Otherwise, Stephanie and Brandon are great, working and losing sleep and chasing after kids and finding nuggets of time to be alone and laugh. Two jobs and three kids does not a boring family make, but it keeps us sharp and is worth every ounce of effort.

Finally, we're thinking about Stephanie's dad Joe lately. His health has had ups and downs over recent years, and at 84 years of age, complications seem to follow on the heels of each other. Joe has always been a true patriarch, a figure endearing warmth and respect and unconditional love, not only for his own family, but for all those who have been welcomed into the Thibodeau home. Thanks largely to the tireless dedication of Stephanie's mom Barbara, Joe's struggles haven't slowed down his spirit, or the love and humor which he still radiates. We miss them both.

It's been too long since our last entry, hence all the photos. The sun is out and the warmth is infectious, so we're going back outside. Talk to you all later!

♥, C, C, M, S & B :)

Invincible.

This is a project I've been wanting to work on for a long time. The song is "Invincible" by Muse. I hope you enjoy it.

-Brandon

The Brew Guild Remembered

From 1999 to 2004, a harebrained idea to expose the masses to the true craft, heritage and pleasure of beer hovered over everything I thought, felt and did. I knew there was so much more to beer than the lifeless, yellow lagers most Americans drink. Yet finding good beers (much less retailers who actually understood what they were selling) was a massive scavenger hunt. Beer lovers would follow up on rumors that a certain liquor store had a nice selection, and would in turn pass on their own mysteriously cultivated suggestions. It was fun at times, uncovering that rare gem amidst an otherwise nondescript array, but more often than not, one was simply faced with settling for the same old thing. And that's just the beer - even more difficult to track down were the must-have glasses, books, shirts and other paraphernalia that our spoiled European counterparts take for granted.

I spent the better part of a year putting together my business plan, though up to that point (and largely still to this day), I didn't even really know what a business plan was. I received help from my family, from friends, from their friends and from generous folks all along the way. Brewguild.com was finally debuted in 2000, offering an assortment of beer-related merchandise unavailable anywhere else (in the U.S., that is). The "business" was run from a room in a house Stephanie and I were renting in Chico. The "warehouse" of inventory was the garage. Slowly but surely, things began shifting. The Brew Guild was working, albeit on a very, very small scale. Word got around that some crazy kid was trying to sell the stuff that beer lovers everywhere were always searching for. Of course, there was one glaring exception - actual beer. And so in 2002, a physical storefront was opened.

The location was lousy. The rent was too high, and the surrounding businesses catered more to soccer moms than beer fanatics. Chico is, after all, a college town (and a serious craft beer town, thanks to Sierra Nevada). The college conveniently sits adjacent to the historical downtown - a perfect location for The Brew Guild. But I was told that the city was not allowing more liquor licenses downtown, and being young and naive, I let myself be turned away without a fight. There were numerous other mistakes I made; it took months for me to finally secure a liquor license, and for that time an awkward, semi-empty shop selling beer stuff, but not beer, sat, lending the wrong impression; I had little money for advertising, and on the last day the store was open, I still had customers walk in and say, "I had no idea this place existed!"; I focused too much on the related merchandise, and not enough on the beer itself, so that my beer budget was never what it should have been; I refused to offer unrefrigerated beer (a snobbish move on my part - "live" or unpasteurized beer should be kept cool), yet commercial coolers are expensive, and so again money that could have gone into beer inventory went instead to costly refrigerators... Needless to say, bad choices and inexperience were too much in the face of an otherwise eager and supportive, if small, customer base. I closed the shop at the end of 2004 and sold everything I could to whomever I could (including the website, which now belongs to these guys).

Still, it was a great experience. As far as I or anyone else knew, it was the first and only fine beer shop in California - not a small feat. My customers were genuinely encouraging and loyal, and more than a few became good friends. Local and even national media eventually took notice. Throughout, Stephanie and I, along with countless devoted beer lovers, had an awful lot of fun. I'm disappointed in the mistakes I made, but not that I took the chance in the first place. It was an incredible experience.

-Brandon

Articles and Links:

The Orion

Beer Advocate

Chico News & Review (1)

Chico News & Review (2)

Modern Brewery Age

All About Beer

RateBeer

A look at Brewguild.com courtesy of the Wayback Machine