New Year’s Eve Pics

Here are some pictures from New Year’s Eve compliments of Peg Varani.  What a fun time and a big thanks to everyone for celebrating my birthday.

My New Year’s Eve Surprise

New Year’s Eve was hectic around here and I have to admit that I thought my bride was out of her mind.  We had a full agenda on our plate and I in my feeble little mind felt Jean had … Continue reading →

Party at the Hellberg’s

We were invited back to the old hood for a Christmas party on 12/18 at the Hellberg’s. It was fun to get back together with the old crew and spend some time with old friends.  I don’t mean our friends … Continue reading →

Union Tickets

We had a fun time on Saturday night getting together over at the Nykanen’s. Terry Nykanen has been instrumental in piecing together season tickets for us at the Philadelphia Union. We went in our tickets with three other families (Nykanen, Hellberg, and Hernan’s), and Saturday night was the night we divvied up the tickets.

Terry ordered pizzas and had a full spread of wings, shrimp, and other finger foods out for us to enjoy, along with plenty of adult beverages. As the night progressed, our resident barkeep (Dave Hellberg) started to produce Chocolatini’s for the ladies at a surprisingly quick rate.

We ended up grabbing a slug of games for later in the summer, which appears to fit our schedule the best. We also are going to catch the US Men’s National Team against Turkey over Memorial Day weekend with the Nukes, so the kids will get a nice dose of professional soccer over the next few months.

It’s always a blast to get together at the Nuke’s, and I wanted to thank Terry for pulling it all together. She always does a great job of making things happen and we really are lucky to have her as a friend.

New Year's Eve 2009

Story best viewed on The Mac Shack

As always, we managed to over commit ourselves on New Year’s Eve.

I ended up having to work, and the ride into work was a bit crappy.  We got about 2-3 inches of snow early in the morning, which was just enough to make my commute miserable.  I was in the office until we closed down at three, and I can’t recall a day that was much slower.  The highlight of the work day was writing my year end review blog post.

Jean had breakfast for a few of the Sacred Heart mom’s early in the morning, so as I was leaving for work Jean was just starting to get slightly neurotic trying to whip the house together and get her food prepared to go into the oven.  When all was said and done, she said it ended up being a nice relaxing event.

We started our evening off with our camping buddies.  We all met at Tom and Terry Nykanen’s house for cocktails before we headed over to Vikoo for dinner.  The normal camping crew was there; Tom & Terry Nuke, Vaughn & Maria Landes, Brian Schmidt,  and Lauran and Mike Maloney.  In addition, we were glad to have Maureen & Dave Hellberg, as well as the Landes neighbors (whose name escapes me?).  We left the kids at the Nukes house and had a fantastic meal over at Vikoo.  The only negative was waiting almost 50 minutes to get seated, which is a bummer when you already have an invitation.  It reminds of the Seinfeld episode, it’s easy to take the reservation, but you also need to HOLD the reservation…

After dinner, we were a little crazy running around.  We dropped Brett off at Jean’s parents for the rest of the night around 11:30 before heading over to a Sacred Heart party at Lori & Rich Howarth’s.  We ended up getting there around 11:40, so at least we weren’t in the car when the ball dropped.

Once the ball dropped, it was into the kitchen for our reoccurring game of Kadoo, with the girls taking on the guys.  The table was packed, with couples including Rich & Lori Howarth, Marybeth & Bob Kuklentz, Nancy & Tom Hewitt, Bridget & Mike McGuigan, Kelly & Don Feliz, Charlotte & Paul Colletta, Shelia & Bob Mauger, Chris & Tom Tivanen, Pat & Ben Guarino, and of course the ring leaders, Jen & Juan Portela.

Before we knew it, it was 2:30 in the morning and the girls had managed to beat us 2 games to 0.  I’m thinking they probably cheated, but then again, I’m a terrible loser.  We’ll just have to up our game to take them down the next time we get together.