Baby BBQ vs. Hurricane Hannah!

So after a month or two of my parents planning this party with the goal of having a big outside BBQ with lots of games.. we get these reports of Hurricane Hannah arriving at the same exact time as the party..

However, after many discussions with my parents about changing the date we determined we had to go ahead with the original plan.. Of course the morning of the party the news is reporting people should not venture outside unless necessary and there will be lots of rain and huge wind gusts up to 50 MPH.. so the option was give it a go or cancel..

I am so happy to say we gave it a go.. and what a party it was. At times, I am almost overwhelmed at the good friends Danny and I have. We had over 50 people show up including Katie flying in from Chicago, Jen coming down from the Big Apple and both Kirsty and Melissa making the drive in from Jersey... And as a bonus the weather cleared up enough to allow us to go outside and even get a competitive game of Cornhole or "Bags" going.. Some of the highlights were definitely the six pack of Miller lite with bottle nipples, a "cake" made of diapers and an embroidered outfit for Junior with Dan's nickname "D-Unit" on the hat and sweatshirt. Some of the more practical were a bag full of J&J products plus all the fun Pooh stuff for the nursery - hope "Junior" likes Pooh :)

Thanks again to all of you for a day we won't forget! love you all! I will try and get a few more pics from my parents.. as I realize we just did not take very many!

Seattle and Portland Adventure

Click on the photo for the full album

Another 2 states down, 20 more to go! Steph and I just arrived back from a great trip to the Northwest. We were led out to the furthest corner of the continental US for a wedding in Portland for Stephanie Trautman, a good friend and roomate of Steph's from Notre Dame. Since we had to go out for the wedding on Saturday we said, hey, why not just take 3 more days and head to Seattle as well? Sounded good to me so off to Seattle we went. We arrive Wednesday at around 11:00am just in time to catch the mighty Seattle Mariners (that's a joke for anyone who doesn't know baseball) battle the Twins. We got to see a great game and another cool stadium.

We spent the next 2 days touring the city. We visited the famous Pike Place Fish Market, the original Starbucks, checked out the Seattle Music Experience, and took a boat tour around the bay which offered awesome views of the city. Of course we hit a few local Brew Pubs (Steph is a trooper) and sampled the local cuisine. (Click on the photo above for all the pics!)

From there we headed to Portland where we found one of the coolest resorts on the planet! McMenamins Edgefield had a beer garden, brewery, winery, concert pavilion, and 20 hole golf course all within walking distance of each other. Talk about all of life's basic necessities!!! If you are ever in Portland, this is one place you gotta check out. (we found out later that this was one of 60 bars, resorts, breweries that 2 brothers own throughout Oregon and Washington - probably not stuggling to get by).

The wedding ceremony was beautiful (held at an outside Grotto - check out the pics) and the reception was a blast. Free drinks, lots of food, and lots of woman... what more could you want, life is good! :)

-Danny