I just got back from taking a lunch trip downtown to watch the National Western Stock Show Parade. I’m assuming that the series of events are similar to the American Royal in Kansas City, which I’ve experienced different parts of in the past. However, I have never seen a parade quite like this. It actually starts with a big group of cowboys driving somewhere between fifty and one hundred (by my estimation) longhorn cattle down 17th Street. Then they have a band or two, lots of horses, and some other standard parade fare. It isn’t very long, but was worth it alone to see the cattle up-close.

As I mentioned last week, we headed to the Finger Lakes region of New York for my buddy Jay’s wedding. This region is the second largest producer of wine in the US, next to Napa Valley. We stayed in Geneva, on Seneca Lake, and explored the wineries around this lake. The wedding itself took place at the Belhurst Castle, and was a wonderful ceremony and an excellent reception. We all had such a great time and wish the newlyweds the best!

Before heading back to Denver, Kim and I made a quick detour to Niagara Falls. It was just over an hour from Rochester, where we were flying out, and Kim doesn’t think she had ever been there before. It was pretty cold for our visit, so we only stayed for a half hour, but we were able to see quite a bit of the area.

Tonight Kim and I are heading to the holy land, also known as the Great American Beer Festival. We attended this party, I mean event, a couple of years ago, and I must say that it is a must see. There will be 408 breweries on the tasting floor with 1884 different beers available. I have done my research and have put together a plan to hit 43 of these breweries. I figure somewhere around 50 will be the magic number, so I still have some room for suggestions. Here’s the list of participating breweries. Cheers!

On Saturday evening we participated in a flip cup tournament with around 24 other teams. Each team consisted of five players and were required to have a theme and costumes. Since we joined just a few days prior, and weren’t feeling too creative, we just threw on some Hawaiian shirts, some leis, etc. and became Team Hawaii or Team Buffet, as we used both names interchangeably. Other teams were a lot more creative and came complete with elaborate costumes, just check out Blades of Glory or Double Dare.

We played against the hosts of the party in a practice round and got beat badly. So we re-arranged our lineup and had a little more success. In our first round match we still lost, but it wasn’t as much of a blowout as before. Not to worry though, there was a losers bracket. In our first match of the losers bracket, we lost the first game, but each match was a best of three competition. We went on to win the next two games and took the match. Unfortunately that was our last game, as the tournament ran out of time and the losers bracket was canceled. I’m not sure who won the tournament, but it was a great time regardless.

Well if you weren’t there let me tell you that you missed yet another awesome Pig-Fest! Fortunately I think a large number of my visitors were there. We had some of the best weather ever, with a high right around 80 degrees and the low temperature somewhere in the 50s. You know the weather was good because of the record number of tents around the yard. Typically people cram inside the house for the night to escape the heat, but this year the majority of folks who stayed over camped out back. It even got too cold for some who ended up moving inside to escape the cold.

My buddy MER came back again this year for some night entertainment and definitely rocked the party! Hopefully he will come back for years to come. I recorded his performance and will work on getting it online today. We should definitely be able to relive the party by tomorrow.

Pictures are starting to appear online. My mom has posted her’s on her flickr page. We’ll also get some pictures up on the official Pig-Fest website. For now links to everyone’s pictures can be found on the front page. Thanks to everyone who made the trip in for the party. I hope that everyone had a great time and hopefully we’ll see you next year.

As I mentioned earlier Kim and I headed to North Carolina last Thursday to attend the wedding of our friends Amanda and Joel. These two were some of the first friends we made in Kansas City, and it was nice to be a part and help them celebrate their wedding. Kim was a bridesmaid in the wedding along with our other friend Maria. So it was nice to see all of these friends of ours again. Despite a couple of canceled flights, and some lost luggage, we eventually made it to Wilmington, NC after nearly 18 hours of travel time. We met up with our friends Mike and Christie and Mike’s parents’ condo, which was conveniently located about ten minutes from the site of the wedding.

The rest of the long weekend was spent golfing, sitting around pools, checking out the beach, and other wedding related activities. Mike and I, along with two of Joel’s friends, won the golf outing that they had. I contributed a few shots in the scramble despite playing with a set of rental clubs since my clubs didn’t show up until late Friday night. Needless to say, I will never fly US Airways again, at least not by choice. The wedding activities I attended were all very nice and mostly outdoors. We had great weather for the most part, even though it was quite humid. The ceremony was held outside and was very picturesque, although most of my pictures didn’t turn out too well because it a little too overcast, but the good ones that I do have can be found here. Congratulations Joel and Amanda!

I’ve been meaning to write about our weekend but the events of the past couple of days have kept me a little preoccupied. So, this past weekend we headed to Ann Arbor, Michigan to attend the wedding of our friends Gabe and Brad. I think the last time I wrote about these two, was way back in the days of Hurricane Katrina and their experiences living down in New Orleans (links to these entires:1|2|3|4). Well they are now living in Michigan and decided to have their wedding ceremony at Wellerss Carriage House in Ann Arbor.

The actual ceremony was fairly quick and simple and took place outside in a beautiful garden. This was a nice change when most of the weddings I go to are inside a large Catholic church. After the ceremony we had cocktails in the garden for a little while, and then were seated inside the carriage house for dinner, which was excellent! After eating our meals and having a couple of toasts some of the tables were cleared out while the band setup on the stage. It’s always great when there is a live band at the wedding, at least in my opinion. The rest of the night was filled with dancing, conversation, and many vodka tonics. It was a very nice wedding and reception, one of the tops in my book. Congrats Gabe and Brad!

PS I would post pictures but we only took a couple. Besides, I’m waiting for Amy to put together a slide show.

Kim and I spent Saturday in Boulder, mostly at the Boulder Reservoir for the Kinetics competition. Kinetics is an annual competition that involves teams who have built their own craft to traverse both a water and land obstacle course. In addition to the race, it is also a huge party and concert. The concert is what caused me to buy tickets at first as Robert Randolph and the Family Band were playing this year, along with Los Lonely Boys.

However, the concert took a backseat, at least for me, as the race was unlike anything I had ever seen. It was very entertaining to watch these teams struggle through the course, and it appeared to be much harder than I was initially expecting. And to make it even better, beer and food could be purchased for enjoyment along the course. I took lots of pictures from various points on the course, and put many of them online in this album, although I’m not sure the photos will do the competition justice.

The time has finally arrived; Pig-Fest invitations have gone out! It was hard to pick a date for the fourteenth annual Pig-Fest with so much going on this summer. Hopefully this date will work okay for you to take a trip to Loveland, Ohio. The theme for this year revolves around this year, 2007, being the Chinese year of the Pig. The future of Pig-Fest was a little uncertain after the events of last year, but there was no way we could let this tradition end. I have not finalized musical entertainment for this year, but I am working on it as I write this. Regardless, be sure to add this date to your calendar as this continues to be one party that you don’t want to miss. If you didn’t get an invitation, and would like one, just let me know.

There’s lots going on in Kansas City this weekend. At the top of my list is the American Royal BBQ, which is where I will be for most of tonight. Once again, Phil and many other friends of ours are in the competition and are having a big party tonight. If you’ve never been to the Royal before I highly recommend checking it out, especially tonight. Many of the teams in the competition cook up lots of food for visitors to eat and many of the teams also have a bunch of tasty beverages as well. See you there!