May 19th was Abby’s 13th Birthday and we celebrated the event by going out to dinner.
Abby got to choose the venue and she went with Max & Erma’s. It’s a bit of a let down after doing Fogo de Chao for Jake’s birthday in the beginning of the month, but Abby had a different agenda. She wanted a meal that consisted of corn dogs and mozzarella sticks.
We had Meghan and Liam Haffey join us for dinner, along with Grandmom Phil, Pop, and Gram.
We set up a family excursion down to Center City Philadelphia on May 1st to celebrate Jake and Mike’s 15th birthday. It’s hard to believe how big those two are getting.
Our dinner was a field trip to Fogo de Chao for a meat eating extravaganza. We ended up with a nice size party; I think we had dinner for 14 (Grandmom Phil, Aunt Kate, Pop Mike, Grandmom Barbara, Mike, Dot, Erin, Mikey, and the five of us). Emily was the only one missing because she had practice for her confirmation the following weekend.
For those that haven’t had a chance to visit, Fogo de Chao is a Brazilian steakhouse. It has a neat concept with waiters dressed as Gauchos (cowboys) walking around with a varied assortment of meat on a spear. I think they offer 15 different cuts of meat, including pork, lamb, and chicken. Each cut of meat is perfectly done.
When you are seated you are given a coaster, one side red, one side green. When the waiters see your coaster set to green they offer you more food. When it’s set to red, they stay clear. I’ve now been there four different times and I still struggle to keep from stuffing myself.
I think it’s safe to say that everyone thoroughly enjoyed themselves.
Sunday 12/19 we got together to celebrate Pop’s 68th birthday. All of Jean’s siblings was able to make it except for her sister Kate and her husband Aaron. It’s obviously a lot easier to make the trip across town than … Continue reading
We had Jean’s family over to celebrate Abby’s birthday on Sunday May 23rd. We had a crazy week and it was the first chance we had to get the Wynne’s over to celebrate her big day.
We had Mike and Dot’s family along with Carole and Natalie. Dinner was fantastic once again, although this time I’ll take the credit since I ended up grilling the burgers and dogs. 
We also had a little striped bass that Gram and Pop brought back from Kate and Aaron’s house.
For whipping something together very last minute, it ended up being a nice way to wrap up our weekend.
Happy Birthday to my favorite daughter! (You can get away with those type of statements when you only have one.)
Abby had soccer tryouts the same night, so we weren’t able to have cake and ice cream that night. The best we could manage was a trip to Wendy’s (per Abby’s request) before practice and then Jean took her out for ice cream after tryouts.
The picture above is from breakfast, when Jean and I lit a candle and sang to her over a doughnut.
Jake asked if he could have a sleepover as part of his birthday present, and in a moment of weakness, Jean and I agreed. Jake turned 14, so we left him in charge of setting things up for Friday night May 14th, which was a bit of a mistake. By the time all was said and done, we had ten 8th grade boys at our house (Nick, Connor, Anthony, Noah, Eric, Seb, Patrick, Tim, Matt Varani, and Jake).
The group started showing up around 6 pm, so Jean and I grilled a bunch of burgers, dogs and wings. We wolfed the food down because the Flyers dropped the puck in Game 7 against the Bruins just after 7. The crowd quickly dissipated as the Flyboys fell behind 3-0 midway through the 1st period, which saw the boys head outside to play hockey for a couple of hours.
By the time the Flyers completed their historic comeback from 3 games to zero in the series and 3-0 in the deciding 7th game, all the boys were back in the house. It was a fun way to catch the biggest comeback in Flyers history.
Jean and I went up to bed following the game, in hopes that the boys would start to settle down. So much for wishful thinking. After a night of very little sleep, Jean finally went downstairs around 4:30 am to tell the crew that it was lights out because the sun was due out shortly. 
