Party at the Piatt's

Shauna & Noah

Decks are all the rage this year. We happily completed (mostly) ours in May, and then our good friends Shauna & Art installed one a few weeks ago. They thought that was reason enough to celebrate—sort of a "decking the deck" affair. So yesterday we took another roadtrip to Columbus, packing up Noah and his required 10 pounds of toddler gear and setting off for a festive evening.

As we've come to expect when we take Noah along on these outings, we didn't get much time to actually talk to anyone. Instead, we traded turns of "chase Noah," "scarf down your food as fast as you can," and "say hello in passing." Our biggest accomplishment for the evening was playing a game of cornhole with some very nice folks we'd just met (and whose names already escape me). They were kind enough to run after Noah when it was our turn to toss the bean-filled bags.

I need to mention here that I suck at cornhole—REALLY, really suck. To make matters worse, it was my turn for cocktails, which meant I'd hit up the keg for a beer or two and was not at my cornhole best. If it weren't for my teammate, who scored 90 percent of our points, the game would have been over in record time. None-the-less, it was fun to feel like we were part of the action for just a few minutes.

The rest of the evening, we hung out in the garage, cozied up to the keg. This wasn't by choice. As it turns out, Noah was in love with the garage. That space contained Art's shiny new motorcycle, a push lawn mower, a broom, dozer the dog with his plastic fetching ball, and—of course—the keg, which was nestled in a bucket of ice and water.



We couldn't get our son away from that keg! Mostly he loved to chase the ice cubes with his little arms, but then he discovered the tap. And once folks needed their empty cups topped off with frothy beer, Noah became bartender for the night. He learned lessons all parents are proud of: how to push the tap lever to pour the beer and how to pump the keg to get the beer out. Both were equally exciting to our little man, who was gleeful each time someone stepped up to the tub. Hot dog! A new customer!

Yep, it was a proud, proud day for me.

I did manage to capture a few pictures in between wrangling Noah.

Here's Art, grilling up some burgers and dogs to feed the masses.



And Ben was having fun showing off his new son, Jude (7 weeks old) and their snazzy Zeppelin shirts. Jude's mommy, Bethany, looked fantastic. I'm guessing all of her maternity clothes are already packed away. (Nope, not jealous too much.)



Here's me, Noah and Shauna (Noah already in his jammies), just before we left. And yes it appears that Noah is copping a feel. I have NO idea where he gets that!



Thanks, Shauna & Art, for a fun evening!