The Welcome Cookout

You'll remember that the Welcome Cookout was the first event that all our guests were invited to on the Weekend Activity Card.


Here's where we invited them to - the back view of the "Hanger House" that also served as our Honeymoon House after the wedding. This lawn was perfect for our needs - and a true rarity among beachfront vacation homes in that area.


The menu was down-home comfort: barbecue, shrimp, clams, crabs, sausage, veggie burgers, coleslaw, green beans, and cornbread. The decor was down-home comfort too: red and white gingham tablecloths, lanterns, and lots of lawn games. Now we just needed people... Come on down!

Playing Horse Balls... or its more sanitized name, Ladderball.

Retrieving lost footballs

My aunt made us the coolest beach quilt as a wedding gift - our names are embroidered on the sailboats! (Trevor's sailboat is plaid, of course.) Does anyone else have super-talented aunts who make them feel lacking of any useful skill whatsoever by comparison? Hmmmm....

The quilt hanging in all its glory

My brother cooking up some yumminess...

...and spreading it out so folks could dig in

My sister-in-law Avery is marrying a college teammate of Trevor's (got that?) and he is known for his famous cakes and fondant skills. Do you know any other professional hockey players who are pastry chefs on the side? Yeah, I thought not. Alex proposed to Avery with a ring inside of a cake made to look like a Tiffany box. It opened as cleanly as a real box to present the ring. Alex has also made hamburger cakes, Guinness cakes, turkey cakes, pretty much anything that you think would be funny as a cake, he can make. Here are the cakes he made us for the Welcome Cookout, which look exactly like yummy summer pies. And sorry.... like Trevor, Alex is taken!

My brother kept chastising me that I was too busy meeting and greeting to eat (which was kind of true... while more people from my side attended the wedding, I had only met about half of Trevor's side before, so that night I had *lots* of folks to meet. I'm so glad I got to do that here and not at our wedding, by the way - weddings are crazy enough as it is without having to go through introductions in the middle of it!) Anyway, back to the cookout... Lane was right, so I finally put a plate together and dug in next to my pal Michael, who I always kind of thought of as my surrogate little brother when I lived in New Mexico. Those smart younger brothers!

Here's my dear friend Mikaela (who is a total Wonderwoman) with her husband Eric. See that little face peeking out from Eric's chest? That's Umea, our MVP Guest! She got a shout-out attendance award from me later in the evening...

Trevor's father and Best Man opened up the mike later in the evening. We had some really fantastic toasts - some touching, some hilarious, all right-on and so fitting for the occasion. Unfortunately I don't think I have photos of any of them - or of the two of us up there together. When it was our turn to speak, we thanked everyone who helped us put the weekend together and gave out some special gifts as a way to thank our parents and introduce our wedding party. More to come on those gifts.

Here we are with some of Trevor's college friends - they've been married for eight years already. We joked that at their wedding, digital cameras weren't even invented yet ;-). Mike most definitely received the "Town and Country" attire award for the weekend, by the way. I really wish I could do a photo spread simply of the male attire at Adams-Hanger '09. Outstanding.

A group shot of the high school gang. And hey, recognize the dress?!

Much later in the evening at one of the rental houses, there was a Texas v. Yale v. Maggie's Crew drinking game. Oh yes, it was that kind of weekend... You're looking at Team Texas right here, who I believe was the winner? Someone correct me if I'm wrong...

As you can see, SO MUCH FUN!