Par-tay! Darden Style

The Darden Holiday Party was a lot of fun! It was catered by Olive Garden, and had lots of outside activities. We got some photos with the Coca-Cola bear (blue sweatshirt, Hawaii shirt is from last year) along with some cute souvenirs and pictures by the gigantic Christmas tree!

Baby Shower - Part 2

More baby shower pictures! Did I mention it was a surprise? Everyone had so much fun!

Baby Shower - Part 1

We had a surprise mini baby shower for Anton and Mariah! Kellie did the most amazing job pulling it all together, it was so much fun! The baby's name is Carter James Novaes Steinmetz. My heart! 💞

Par-tay!

Chris and Ashlee dressed to par-tay!

Wine Tasting

Enjoyed wine tasting at Alfredo's annual Wine Tasting event.

Swanky Party

Kathy and I went to a very swanky party at the oldest New York City club, the Union Club. It was a 40th birthday party. Her son Devin's roommate in college, Leesha, was married to the birthday boy. She found out Kathy was in town and invited her and me to the party! Of course, we had no clothing that was appropriate, so we went shopping in the afternoon. The party was fabulous! There was an ice sculpture that the bartender poured Chambord on and into a glass of champagne for the official birthday drink. There was a lady in pink playing a violin during the pre-party time. There was a fabulous dinner buffet, and they even had cigar rollers! Leesha was a very gracious hostess and made us feel very welcome. We had a great time.

  

  

Darden Christmas Party

Went to Bill's company Christmas Party.  It was nice, and we had fun.  Got to see Jean-Luc at work. :)
  

New Year's Party

Went to the Parson's New Year's Party. This was the family of Sarah Parsons, Jean-Luc's girlfriend. Had a great time! Amy (Sarah's mom) had made gumbo and plenty of other yummy stuff. Only got a few shots of the kids in the pool. Even though the temperature was in the mid-70's today, I can imagine that the water is quite cold! Sadly, we did not stay until midnight...

Christmas Party

Went to the Lankes' Christmas Party after Universal Studios.  Tired, but had a great time.  The "band" was playing, Cole's and Carter's Planning the Past.  Of course, the neighbor called the cops.  But, the Lankes' were ready with a permit!

Dirty Santa Gift Exchange

Had some fun on Saturday with the Dirty Santa Gift Exchange.  Everyone brought 2 'gifts'.  It had to be under 5 dollars, preferrably something used and not so nice.  There was gift swapping, people stealing gifts, etc.  I ended up with 2 picture frames, one of which I gave back to Maura.  Bill got an extending back scratcher and a used golf ball/tee.  Jean-Luc got a head lamp and something else.  Anton - not sure.  And Chris got a sock puppet and a small golf bag.

Then came the long, long drive home on Sunday!

Roberta turns 70

Joan and Karen threw a party for their mom, Roberta, who was turning 70 in a few days.  We had a great time!  Lots of her friends came to the party, and everyone was so nice and chatty.  And we had a chance to get a family portrait.

Top Row: Carla, Ed, Al, Anton, Isabel, Karen
Bottom Row: Jean-Luc, Maura, Joan, Roberta, Chris, Bill, Aunt Rose

Chris Goes to the Dance

Chris went to the Edgewood Middle School Dance on Friday night. I chaperoned. He said he had fun, but he didn't know how to dance. But he did have fun hanging with his friends.

Homecoming

Anton and Tesla and her friend Sam went to the Homecoming Dance on Saturday evening.  I was a chaperone.  They looked divine!!  And they had so much fun!

Jean-Luc also went with his friends: Cole, Peyton, Carter, Joey, Richie, and Jake.  He had a less than stellar evening.  First off, he wouldn't let me buy anything nice for him to wear.  Second, his friend Jake got kicked out for wearing jeans.  Third, most of them left with Jake and went to Cole's house (and his parents weren't home).  Finally, after talking with the assistant principal, Jean-Luc was allowed to come back to the party.  There's so much more to this story, but I'm gonna leave it at that.

Dinner with some old Woomera friends

Had dinner with some old friends from Woomera last night. Tammy and her husband were in town staying with the Voglers (Bob and Laura). Also, Brian (the chaplain) and Lynn Hunter were there. Rembert was going to come, but ended up not because his brother was driving down.

Bob was barbequeing some delicious kabobs.  It started POURING down RAIN!!  I checked the radar, and the only storm on the entire page was in this neighborhood...  Anyways, the food was delicious and the company was great!

Par-tays!

Wow! We had a party day today! First was Anton's baseball party at KARS park. We had to pick up the chicken and pizza and also bring a dessert. It was a lot of fun! I made photos for all the kids and a collage for the coaches.

I'm going to include Chris' Mustangs team photo here because I've not yet posted it anywhere else.

After the party, we went over to the Johnson's house for a short bit because to drive home and then back to the next party would be a haul. The next party was for Mike Matthias' DROP (some kind of retirement announcement) at the King Duck's Inn. This was quite nice, but we only knew a handful of people. We had to leave early because we had to drop Jean-Luc off at Carter's because he was going to a concert (Mat and Kim) in Orlando.

Finally, we're off to Nick Kindred's Fiftieth Birthday party tonight. Hopefully we'll have a nice time!

New Year's Eve Party

We went to the Lemire's New Year's Eve party. It had a '60s theme and some really cool decorations. They always have fun games and guests. There were also lots of young college and middle school aged kids that were having fun dancing and singing with music that came out way before their time. We played some Singing Bee challenges with the folk outside. It seems like my side of the table got all the songs that no one ever heard of, while the other side of the table had all the old classics like Freebird and American Pie.

Have a Happy and Prosperous New Year!

Click the post title to see all the photos.