st. patty's day party 2012

Once again Dad and Pete turned the Burch carport into a pub for St. Patty's Day.  

This year it was named after a certain someone.

The Real Gus O'Connor's Pub in Doolin, Ireland and Our Version in Phoenix, AZ

The Namesake

The Taber-Burch-Weisse Clan

Some Irish lasses enjoying some green beer

In the Pub

Our faithful Bartender Baabee with some under age men at the bar.

Gus with his favorite Uncle... no offense to the others, it is just true.

 Gus got a turn in the photo wall next to his ancestors.

I couldn't keep Gus out from behind the bar.  He really loved the Keg ice.

And Finn really loved this party mix I made.
It was more complicated then I thought, but really tasty, so if you are interested you can find the recipe here.

I made the discovery that you cannot put green liquid food coloring into white chocolate or it hardens. I used what I "ruined" to make the green shamrocks below and I also made Shamrock Pretzels Cookies with Green sprinkles. Thanks Pinterest for the inspiration.  This was literally my only creative effort into this party so don't give me much credit on that front.

We were very happy to see our good friends the Neffs at the party and to hear they are moving back to the Calle Redonda neighborhood. These girls were my flower girls almost 6 years ago and, oh my, have they gotten bigger.  They are going to have to be my babysitters now.  They took turns chasing Gus around at the party for me, and as you can see he was a fan of both Ellie and Lily.

I didn't get to see that much of the cousins at the party because they were always running somewhere, but Jack took a break to pose with Gus because he is my favorite 9 year old in the world!

Zach and I took turns chasing Gus around because he was a mad man of happy energy.

We frequently had to keep him from walking right in the middle of the cornhole games and trying to steal the bags.

Jimmy was usually just running by me in a blur on his way from one bouncy house to the next.

This dinosaur themed one was a big hit, and Jimmy is still talking about it and asking if they will get the same one next year.

He also was sporting his Irish Viking/Dragon/Dinosaur hat that he is very fond of.

I was happy we got some time in there with Gus before it got really crazy and kids started getting split lips and worse.

Gus loves dogs a lot right now ("oof, oof" as he says) so he was very excited to meet this guy, who was at least five times his size.

There was good music all day, but when the sun started going down the real band came out.

Matt Thornton and company kept people dancing for quite awhile.

Zach moved from Cornhole to Darts.

Gus got snuggly in the "Snug"

We finally got my family rounded up to get in the photo wall.

(note to self: next year do this when the lighting is better, and do something at least a little bit clever or funny.)

Towards the end of the night my dad got "warmed-up enough" to start singing himself.  I missed his rendition of "Courtin' in the Kitchen" (Booooo! to everyone in my family for not getting me), but I did catch a couple other ones he did with Alex Burch.  He was fantastic, in my humble opinion.

There may or may not have been some more craziness past this point in the evening, but I feel it is my familial duty to not eleborate.  I will say that I got my foot landed on by the entire weight of Luke Speier.  I am not limping anymore, but was for a few days after.  It was a great time once again, and I am so happy that I have such a wonderful family who can put this all together.  I feel like I do so little and just get to enjoy it.  Erin, you were greatly missed this year, and of course my Mom is greatly missed every year.  She threw some great parties in her time, and I'm sure she was looking down on this one fondly.