Oh my goodness. Now that was a heck of a holiday weekend!

Following a week of cleaning to get the place looking presentable, takaza and I relaxed a bit on Friday. We ran out to get dinner at Jimmy John’s and stopped by Wine Knows to pick up some good beer and a couple of tasty wines. fordshepherd, kai_darkwolf, and kwikdog rolled in at about 9 PM, having fought bravely through rainstorms and holiday traffic. We chatted for a bit before I stumbled off to bed.

On Saturday morning, I woke up just a bit after 6 AM with a ton of stuff to do. After moving the cars out of the garage, set up the grill and started the fire in the smoke box. While that caught and got nice and hot I swept the garage clean and set up my work table and our folding chairs. We had a lovely outdoor lounge! Once the grill was up to temperature I put the two pork butts (9 lbs. each) to which I had applied a very tasty rub on and we were off!

Once everyone was up and about, Dan headed up a foray to Lovin’ Oven Cakery for doughnuts and other goodies, as well as to Garden Fresh for cold cuts for lunch. Over the course of the afternoon, we were joined by roho, Genet, daveqat, jimcyl, linnaeus, rustitobuck, woodychitwn, bullethc, jet_der_hund, tozier_wah, little_wolf, midwestcougar, steviemaxwell, and magicpaw (if I forgot anyone, I’m sorry! I was a little frazzled 🙂 We had a fantastic dinner of smoked pulled pork with spicy mustard BBQ sauce, hamburgers, brats, wieners (which were fantastic), grilled veggies, plus a slew of other side dishes provided by our wonderful friends. The evening was a blur of good food, great company, and some very tasty alcoholic beverages. Paul brought Boom Blox, and that was the hit of the evening. We’ll be picking up this game for sure soon.

As the evening progressed Ford, Kwik, and Dan brought out their fursuits and visited our neighbor’s raucous party. The kids were scared away, but the very drunk women found them extremely entertaining. What is it about fursuits that make drunk people want to touch you inappropriately? How weird is that? Anyway, I admit that I had reservations, but everyone enjoyed it (especially the extremely drunk woman who came over to join our party when she found their party “too boring” 🙂

Sunday morning folks were surprisingly quick to wake up; by 9 AM everyone who had spent the night except for Dan was awake and chatting in the living room. After playing some Boom Blox, we got everyone showered and out the door to brunch. Following an attempt to try Scott Dogs for breakfast (only to find them closed for the holiday weekend), we wound up at Las Vegas and had a very tasty brunch there. Afterwards, we had a pleasant walk around downtown Antioch, then it was back to our place.

Sunday afternoon was very pleasant – we played some games on the Wii, and some folks napped. The best part of the day (for me, anyway) was when we played a game of Malarky, team style. This was more like Bluff the Listener from a certain NPR show, and the game was flat-out hilarious. High marks go to Paul for coming up with some of the funniest bluffs delivered with a perfectly straight face. We were in stitches.

Later in the evening, we were joined by Woody, perro and darkwolph (and Chaos!) for an outing that Dan had suggested: We went to see the new Indiana Jones movie at the McHenry Outdoor! We wound up in four cars, all parked in a row, with blankets and folding chairs for everyone. The weather was warm, but a stiff breeze promising rain soon. The movie was punctuated by a dazzling light show in the distance behind the screen as lightning played across the clouds. I thought the movie itself was a suckfest, a tired retread with all of the terrible dialogue and illogic I’ve come to expect from George Lucas, but it was redeemed by seeing it in such an awesome setting. We had toyed with the idea of sticking around for the late show, Iron Man, but opted to head home. It was a good thing we did, because minutes after leaving the theater parking lot the heaven opened as the severe thunderstorms rolled over the area. Talk about timing! We will definitely be going back to the Outdoor this season, though next time we will be armed with appropriate beverages and perhaps a suitably tasty picnic to go with it.

After the movie, a couple of the carloads of folks took wrong turns and were late getting back. We were able to gather everyone together again at our place, though, and spent the next few hours chatting and playing some games. I hit the hay at 2 AM, though I know most of the others stayed up until 3.

Another somewhat late morning, as folks were slow to get started. Dan made a yummy breakfast of pancakes, scrambled eggs, and bacon, and a few more games of Boom Blox were played. I was delighted when Neowolf2 stopped by, the first time we’ve seen him since January, and we were able to catch up on what’s been going on with him and his family. One by one folks headed out the door, until by 4 PM, it was only Dan and I alone again, tired but happy.

What an amazing weekend. Thanks so much to Ford, Jack, and Kwik for coming up from Columbus, and thanks to all of our great friends for making this such an enjoyable weekend for us. I hope you all had as good a time as we did, and I look forward to our next party…just as soon as we’ve fully recovered from this one 🙂