Beer Scramble 2008

Yes, it was the weekend for Beer Scramble 2008! Some of you may remember Beer Scramble 2007. If you don't, you're probably wondering what in the world a beer scramble is. I know I was.

Every year, my friends Tom and Melissa have people over one Sunday in April for brunch and then a beer scramble. Essentially what happens is that Tom hides beers in their yard, someone yells go, and then we all scramble to find the beer. This year they were buried in the snow, so there were a lot of boots kicking through the powder.


Until someone would yell, "Found one!", at which point we would all stop looking and stare at that person for a few seconds before continuing the search.


I didn't find any, but since Carrie is pregnant, she was nice enough to share hers with me. :)

Baby Shower For Carrie

Yes, another baby shower, but I think it will be the last one for a while. (Although, you never know. It seems there's something in the water up here.) It was great fun yet again, as we all fawned over the cute, adorable, tiny gifts.


In addition to presents, games were on the docket. We all brought baby pictures of ourselves, hung them on the fridge, and then we had to guess who was who. Some people's pictures were pretty easy to figure out, and others were nearly impossible!


Also going on was the baby food game, where you try different jars and guess which flavors they are. A mom usually ends up winning this one every time.


The big gift of the day was a Kinder Shuttle so that the new baby will be able to be pulled behind a skiier in the winter. This model is the Cadillac of baby sleds.


Not only was it a baby shower for Carrie, it was also her birthday, so there were multiple reasons to celebrate!

Basketball, Of Course

We had an office basketball pool. It's kind of like pulling teeth to get people to enter around here because Fairbanks isn't really into the some of the more common sports that I've experienced in the Lower 48. People here appear to be extremely knowledgeable about skiing and hockey, but put a test in front of them on basketball or football, and I'm afraid that many would fail. It's rather shocking to me, but many people would pick a bracket up off of the table at work and say, "What's this?" After you would tell them, they would inquire, "How do you fill it out?" Who knew these people would need a lesson in how to fill out NCAA basketball brackets!!

It was for this reason that I thought that maybe for the first time in my life, I would have a good chance at winning the old office basketball pool. In former offices, I was one of many, but here at UAF I was one of four last year and one of nine this year. (Mind you there are many more than nine people in the office.) These are much higher chances of winning than I've ever experienced.

As part of the fun, I invited everyone over to my place for the championship game because we had a pretty tight race going. The game started at 5:00pm our time, so we all had to leave work a little early to try and catch the tip off. Nobody complained about leaving work early, but Lola definitely had something to say about basketball brackets after the game ended.


Maybe she was extra mad/jealous because her dad received a giant check for winning.


Yes, Andy may have won, crushing my dreams in the process, but I did manage to get second place. There's always next year, right?