The Nut Warming

On Saturday, Ryan and welcomed our respective families to the Nut for our belated house warming party. Everyone got along, mingled and generally made merry, drinking sangria and feasting on Waldo Pizza.

Inside the house, people congregated around the food (devouring my black bean brownies and pumpkin muffins without knowing they were low-fat, mwahahaha!), and Ryan and I gave everyone a tour of house, noting what we had changed/renovated. I even created a nifty slide show that we displayed on the TV screen so that people could see before-and-after shots of the Nut and photos of us working on the house.

Here's everyone in the dining room:



Here's Nana and Pa outside. They were both in a jolly mood:


Here's Siena* with my grandma and my future cousin-in-law Brandi. Siena is shaking for pizza. I'm telling you, the dog has delusions of grandeur.


Here Siena realizes that she's not getting a bite of pizza. Sad.


But, don't feel too sorry for her. She got plenty of food from people dropping crumbs and received a ridiculous amount of attention, including endless rounds of fetch that left her tongue hanging out of the side of her mouth. Here's one of those rounds:


The weather was beautiful Saturday, and I took a couple of minutes away from the party to take some pictures of the neighbor's lilac tree (without their permission of course). Our neighbor's yard is seriously a page out of Better Homes and Gardens. It's awesome, but, at times, makes me feel entirely inadequate. On a side note, Ryan* is getting sick of my flower pictures. With this spring being so bloom-alicious, I admit that I've gone a bit overboard. (I've taken like 40 shots of our potted plants in a week.) Despite my apparent obsession, I'm sharing this one. Sorry, babe:




And it just isn't spring without a toes in flip flops in the grass pic. (Plus, I'd just painted my toenails.)

Later in the day, the fam headed out, Ryan and I cleaned like Tasmanian devils, and the friends started arriving for the second round of the house warming. Here is Adam enjoying Ryan's home brew, aptly (and somewhat grossly) titled Ryan's Red Nut. I like to think that Jen's reaction below is in disgust of the beer's name.

Here, Siena participates in/disrupts another rousing game of backyard croquet.

That evening, Ryan and I both went to bed pretty late. I crashed at 12:30 am, and he called it a night at 2 am. After enjoying four glasses of sangria and little sleep, I awoke Sunday morning with a decent headache, but Ryan and I stayed true to our word and walked over to 75th and Wornall for the 7:45 am start of the Trolley Run. Heh. More on that later.

*On the day of the housewarming, two other events were being celebrated: Siena's six-month birthday and Ryan and I's six-month wedding anniversary. Woohoo!