BBQ Celebration

K8 and I got engaged over the winter holiday. However, we never formally celebrated it and even worse didn’t do a great job of telling folks. I mean, we told family, close friends, and a few co-workers, but badly assumed everyone else would find out by osmosis. Gosh, were we wrong… not sure what we were thinking.

We decided to throw a big BBQ on us and invite everyone we could. It was to be a celebration for our engagement and to throw our friends a party. Sean hooked us up with a discount on a keg of Odell’s 5 barrel, Jolea let us use her Sam’s Club card to get bulk food, and we also borrowed Polea’s croquet set and an extra grill. Several others chimed in offering to bring side dishes so we were all set.

The BBQ was from 5pm till whenever… By 6pm only a handful of folks had showed up. We had plenty of snacks out and the keg was tapped so we held off on getting the grills going. I think around 6:47pm, just a guess… everyone else showed up ALL AT THE SAME TIME. We had the Rio cycling team, Polea, Emily, Michelle who happened to be visiting, the Russians, Miles, Owen, JJ & pregnant Katy, Sean Scott & Kelly, Dan the Man, Mikey, Dean & Bridget with Izzy, the new neighbors, even the quiet neighbors, Kelly and Dr. Bob… hopefully I’m not forgetting anyone.

Action! K8 had margs going left and right (killed a handle in 2 hours), Ryan and I got the grills fired up. I had one grill completely full of marinated chicken and brats while Ryan worked on Peter’s grill cooking portabellas, fake brats, asparagus, onion etc. All the food turned out fantastic, and surprisingly most of it got eaten. Croquet, music, good times….

  

Jolea had baked us a cake! In the picture you can also see a framed photo that JJ and Kt brought us 🙂 So nice.. Around 9:30pm or so… everyone piled into the kitchen for dessert. We had a some cheers then starting dishing out the cake… check out Ryan’s face in the picture!! Hilarious!

Folks started trickling out, but a handful stayed late. Izzy was entertaining us all by playing with and tackling our dog Georgia. The Russians presented us with a piece of artwork that is absolutely beautiful (gotta get a picture of it). Polea also gave us a couple old school books from the fifties that covered life basics 🙂 Oh, and a “kokigami” book (no explanation here LOL).

Its amazing how when you are hosting a party you don’t get to “hang” as much because you’re too busy doing things. In fact it wasn’t until most had left that K8 and I started boozing some ourselves. In the end we tied one on out back nursing the keg with Polea and our new neighbor Ian who had just moved in. Finally we cleaned up, got to bed maybe around 3am or so. What a great time!