Birthday Bourbon!

Happy Friday everyone!  Not only am I super happy that it's Friday, but I'm extra stoked because today is Edible Books!  If you don't know what Edible Book is, it's a international festival that usually happens in April each year where people (often libraries) hold an event where people either make book structures that are edible or, more often than not, take a book title or concept and represent it using food.  Our library participates every year and I've created something every year since 2008.  Here's a blog post from 2013 about my creation (and being awarded Best Overall for the first time!).  Anyway, I always get really into it and look forward to it every year.

Alright, so back to working through my backlog of photos.  These photos are particularly old, from my birthday...LAST YEAR!!  When I turned 30, Antoine and I decided to spend the weekend celebrating in Louisville, KY.  Since it's only about a two hour drive from Cincinnati, it's a good place to get away, but not have to travel too far or spend too much money.  Before we headed to the city of Louisville, we decided to make a stop at Maker's Mark along the way.  We've both been to Maker's before, but this time was special.  Antoine, who signed up to be an ambassador 7 years prior, finally got his golden ticket, which means the bottle of Maker's with his name on it was ready to be picked up.  So he scheduled his appointment and we made our way to Maker's...

The adorable cat who lives at Maker's and was sleeping in a basket in the lobby when we got there.

The good stuff in the works.

Time for the tasting!  They have updated the tasting format and the location.  I really don't remember much about the old format, but I like that they put out a little place-mat now that tells you what you're tasting.

Antoine with his special bottle of bourbon!

The bottle even gets a special stamp on the top.

The next day, on our way home from Louisville, we checked out the Four Roses distillery, which neither of us had ever been to before.  I gotta say, I like it and their bourbon (which again, I'd never had before) quite a bit and would highly recommend it to anyone.  Plus, we had a really great tour guide who was super engaging.

I have some more photos from Louisville to share next week!  Then I have more photos from last March and April.  It feels good to finally get through this backlog, especially since I haven't been taking many photos lately because I can't justify taking more when I have so many old ones I've neglected! Anyway, happy Friday and I hope everyone has a great weekend.

Anniversary Trip: Yoho National Park

Finally!  The last post from our trip to the Canadian Rockies for our first anniversary!!  Let's just forget the fact that in two months exactly we'll be celebrating our 2nd anniversary.  It'll be our secret that it took me 10 months to get these photos edited and organized, okay?

For this last post I'll share photos from Yoho National Park, which I think is the lesser known of the Candian Rocky Mountain parks surrounding Banff.  Banff and Jasper are definitely the big two.  Whereas Banff and Jasper National Parks are located in Alberta, CA, Yoho National Park is actually in British Columbia, CA.

One attraction in Yoho is the spiral train tunnels which loop, out and around the mountains.  We checked it out, though neither Antoine and myself are really into trains so we were a little underwhelmed. 

Right near the spiral tunnels and along the main highway that runs through Yoho are the Takakkaw Falls, so we decided to check them out.  Unfortunately the higher road that led to the falls was closed due to a rock slide, but we still enjoyed the drive halfway up, especially since the weather was so lovely.

The milky color of the river is caused by glacial silt from the Yoho River. 

Here's where I learned that little fun fact about the glacial silt...

Where Yoho River (on the left) and Kicking Horse River (right) meet.

Next we decided to head further south in Yoho and check out the Wapta Falls.  Unfortunately, this is pretty much the only time during our trip where the weather turned dreary.  But we armed ourselves with our raincoats and went off to explore the falls...

The hike to the falls was a little long and soggy, but it made for some really nice photos of the greenery and fungus along the trail.

By the time we made it to the falls it was pretty much full on gloomy, but waterfalls are still cool, even if the weather is lousy, right?!

Luckily by the time we made it back to Field, BC, which is right near Emerald Lake (where we were staying) the pretty weather had returned so we took advantage and checked out Natural Bridge.  Natural Bridge is located right next to Emerald Lake and is literally a bridge of rock that's been carved out by the river and falls.

You can kind of see where the bridge is in this photo (though I apologize that it's not the best angle).  The bridge kind of forms the shape of an N with the river flowing quite vigorously out from underneath it.

And that's pretty much the end of our first anniversary trip!  We spent our last full day in CA in Banff getting souvenirs and eating Beaver Tails, obviously.  It was an incredible trip and a perfect way for us to spend our first anniversary as two married folks! 

Sadly, this year we don't have a fabulous trip in the works for our anniversary, instead we're saving up money to remodel our bathroom!  That will be a very different but equally awesome anniversary present to ourselves.  But we've got something special in the works for our third anniversary that I'm super excited about....but more on that later!