Saturday the 17th Sue and I held The Great 2012 St. Patricks Day Backgammon Tournament And Blarney Stone Irish Stew!It was such a nice day that we had all the doors and windows open, even though in the woods behind us you could still see large patches of snow remaining.

Though we had started food prep early around 3:45pm, I was still in there tending to things all the way until 7:30 when we finally ate. I was able to hop out of the kitchen every now and then, but I was constantly going back in to mess with something. Fortunately, Sue was able to get in some backgammon and chat with everyone.

And even though I had made a huge pot of stew and Sue had baked a large Irish soda bread, the 12 of us did a pretty good job of gobbling most of it down! And for desert, the Nancarrows brought a wonderful ice cream filled cake that everyone enjoyed as a pause after the first half hour of the movie of the night, Shaolin.

Sunday I worked on my Forex analysis program until around noon. Sue and I headed out to Northwood to take a hike out at the Northwood Meadows preserves. It was the first time I had been out there and it was beautiful. It was such a nice day, temps in the low 70's, that we walked all the way around the lake and out.

We read out on the deck until I had to start prep work on the stir fry I was fixing for dinner; a goulash of broccoli, snow peas, chicken, herb spiced chicken sausages, garlic, sherry, cauliflower, carrots, celery.... I mean, it had just about anything you could think of. Movie of the night was Rudy.

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Sue made this really, really neat St. Patrick's Day center piece for the table.

I'm ready to party! Bottle of Killian's under the booty.

Teaching Frank a little about backgammon. We'll start him off with the game; the trash talking can come later.

Rick in St. Patrick's Day character.

Tim came ready to play!

Linda, Chris, and Jim sharing stories or hoping the food will get there soon?

Explaining that the food is on the way.

Tim and Eleann's daughter.