Saturday night was Andrea’s bachelorette party. I was invited for the dinner and personal shower, then excused myself when the serious partying began! Andrea’s in blue in the center of the first picture. Her sister, Heather, is the blonde in black in the second picture. You’ll never guess what we were watching (and I’ll never tell…family blog!)
Brian and Andrea’s new condo
Brian and Andrea just closed on their new condo in Wrigleyville…it is really sharp!
One of my favorites
Shannon’s 21st birthday. Gary and I flew in and teamed up with Ron and Steve to surprise her. We just walked into the bar where she was celebrating the birthday with her girlfriends. When she saw us, she did this double take that was almost as amazing as the look we got from Kenny when we surprised him for his birthday (or the look I got from Marilyn, Mary, and Mary Ann the time I surprised them at a Chippendales show). She then let out a scream and ran over to hug us. I’m sure her girlfriends didn’t have a clue what was going on.
Even more Halloween
This from 2002. It takes a lot of self confidence to carry this off. Needless to say I enjoy Halloween.
More Halloween Moments
Natalie was exactly four and a half that Halloween. As cool as trick or treating was growing up in Chalfont, the block we lived on in SLC was a kid’s dream come true.
60 houses in a 2 block area…all lit up and well stocked with goodies. The kids made a huge haul in under an hour. But Larry ate most of it.
Another niece (real type) photo
Kenny’s right, I have been neglecting the real nieces, so I’ve been scrounging around trying to find photos. I’ve found a couple of interesting ones which I’ll post over the next few days starting with this one of Charlotte and I. I think Charlotte is just a little over two months old at the time. I was living in CT then so I just buzzed down one day to visit. Charlotte and I are obviously quite comfortable in each other’s company. 🙂
Did I ever tell you about Halloween 1992?
I haven’t just recently started dressing up for Halloween – I’ve been doing it for years. One of my favorites was a road trip to Utah in 1992 (Penn State/Utah football game). Niece Natalie (the real one) and I got to go trick or treating. I think we made quite the pair – Little Orphan Annie and Daddy Warbucks.
The trick or treating was easily my fondest memories of that weekend. Since then I’ve tried to block out any memories of the pasting the Utah handed the PSU football team. And I’ve also tried to block out memories of my feeble attempts to make a move on the newscaster at Ken’s station – she was a former Utah homecoming queen if I remember right. I tried to get her to make a bet on the game with me – when she blew me off I suggested a simple bet, maybe a coke or something – she declined that. Of course, I felt like a total idiot when Ken pulled me aside and said “Mormons don’t bet and Mormons don’t drink caffeine”. How was I to know?
However, Natalie saved the weekend. We had a blast going around the neighborhood. Who do you think is the cutest?
Brian and Andrea’s Wedding Shower
Merry Christmas To All!
And to all…. I’m going to bed…. after I wrap 2 more gifts.
End of year Penn State sports wrap-up
Just for sake of completeness, I thought I’d give everyone a final wrap-up (OK asemi-final wrap-up – we still have a bowl game left but that’s next year 🙂 ) of the PSU Fall sports scene. My hospitalization three weeks ago got in the way of my weekend posts and it turns out my superstitious fears were justified.
In case you don’t remember, Penn State’s five fall sports programs (football, women’s volleyball, field hockey, and men’s and women’s soccer) had gone through an unprecedented Big Ten season. The teams each won a Big Ten championship going a combined 49-1 with the sole loss being the football teams last second loss at Michigan. Each of the teams advanced to post season play (the football team is headed to the Orange Bowl while the other four squads all competed in NCAA tournaments.
As I reported earlier, the #8 ranked Field Hockey team was the first to taste defeat when they lost to #6 ranked American University. As I’ve also previously mentioned, UncleLar niece Natalie Berrena (shown here with me during our Santa Crawl) was named first team All-American.
The next team to fall by the wayside was the men’s soccer team. The guys won their first two NCAA matches to make it to the Sweet Sixteen but fell to Creighton in a 3-1 loss at home. That loss happened while I was in the hospital.
The women’s soccer team had more success. The made it to the College Cup, soccer’s equivalent of the Final Four, the weekend after I was hospitalized. Unfortunately, the way that the College Cup draw worked, #2 ranked Penn State had to meet #1 ranked Portland in the semifinals. Both Penn State and Portland were undefeated going into their semifinal match and the consensus opinion was that the victor of this game would probably take home the national championship. The two teams battled to a 0-0 first half tie. This was the first time all year that Portland had been held scoreless in the first half of their game. That defensive battle continued as both teams failed to score in the second half also. They continued play through two 10 minute sudden death overtimes, so after 110 minutes of soccer play neither team was able to eke out a goal. They meant that the winner would be determined by a shoot-out. Portland’s two time Hermann Trophy winner (soccer’s equivalent to the Heisman trophy) nailed the final kick of the shootout to give Portland the 4-3 shootout win. Because the game ended in a shootout, it will go into the record book as a tie. That means that Penn State becomes the first undefeated team in NCAA soccer history to not win the title. As expected Portland went on to claim the crown with a 4-0 victory over UCLA two days later.
Two weekends after my operation, the women’s volleyball team took on Tennessee in the NCAA Regional Semifinal. The regionals were being held on Penn State’s home court and the #2 ranked Nittany Lions were huge favorites to win at home and advanced to the Final Four. Unfortunately, one of Penn State’s star players, Christa Harmotta, had gone down with a season ending injury in Penn State’s last home regular season match and the loss showed. Tennessee pulled off a huge upset knocking off Penn State in four games (that made three staight weekends where one of our teams lost – all no doubt due to my failure to make my regular weekend blog post). The Lady Vols then went on to beat Missouri the next day and advanced to the Final Four.
Two of UncleLar’s volleyball buddies did receive post season honors however. Senior libero Kaleena Walters (also shown here in a Santa Crawl photo) was named B10 Ten Defensive Player of the Year and third team All-American.
Senior setter Sam Tortorello (of course in a Santa Crawl photo) was a unanimous pick as B10 Player of the Year and was also named a first team All-American.
Since the bowl game is scheduled for next year, i.e. January 3rd, I thought this would a good time to make a year end wrap up. As promissed, you won’t have to put up with all these sports reports in the future (of course, that’s partially because our basketball team sucks so much – we did beat New Hampshire (sorry Shannon) this week though).