I’ve been dying to post these photos since last fall, but I had to wait, as it was a surprise for James and Chrissy. So, this past weekend, my brother James and his girlfriend Chrissy got married (yeah! – you’ll see those photos at some point). As a part of the celebration, Peter wanted to put together something entertaining for their rehearsal dinner. He came up with the idea of re-writing one of James’ favorite songs with personalized lyrics. Peter and Maria worked on that together and re-wrote Don’t Stop Believing by Journey as a song about James and Chrissy. Then Peter came up with the brilliant idea of getting as many of James’ groomsmen as possible together to make a video of the song. Peter with the help of James’ good friend Justin, recorded his version of the song and then had each of the groomsmen dress in costume and perform portions of the video. I am hoping the full video ends up on Youtube – if it does, I will certainly post the link. In the meantime, please enjoy this album of photos of Aaron, Joe and Peter in costume from the filming their portions of the video. You will laugh.

At the end of February, Amy and Joe and Justin moved back into their house after bunking with our parents for a few months while they were doing some construction. While unpacking they accumulated a large number of empty boxes, which Justin thought were great to use as giant building blocks. He and Joe used some of them to create a big box tower bridge. Later Justin and Aaron created a wall with a window. Eventually Amy and Joe actually wanted to use the room and fill it with furniture, so they recycled the boxes – but it was fun while it lasted. Click on the photo above to see the album of photos.

A friend of Aaron’s sent him some sweet gold grills for Christmas. Apparently they tasted pretty bad (they were plastic), but I got Aaron to wear them long enough for me to take some pictures of his blinged out teeth. What do you think – should he incorporate them into his everyday look?

It’s not Big Foot or the Loch Ness Monster, but almost as surprising – here’s a small folder of photos of Aaron out cutting our front lawn with our new electric lawn mower. Those of you who have known Aaron a while, will remember in his teenage days that mowing the lawn was potentially his least favorite chore. The good news is our yard is relatively small, and I think it would be fair to say that he doesn’t hate it the way he used to….he’s actually talking about fertilizing and seeding in the fall. :) My bet is that Rita (his mom) is chuckling right about now…

So while we were on vacation last month Aaron decided to do something he hasn’t done in 11 years – shave off his beard. He figured what the hell and initially went for a ‘used car salesman’ style mustache and then later in the week went for a complete clean shave. It was quite a surprise at first – especially for Chrissy and Maria who had never seen Aaron without his facial hair. By the end of the vacation Aaron remembered one of the reasons he grew the beard in the first place – less maintenance. So he’s back to the full beard and mustache now – but I thought you all would get a kick out of the pictures. I have tons of additional vacation photos I will post soon. Click on the picture of James and Aaron above to enjoy these few for now.

When Amy first told us she was pregnant, this onesie is the first gift Aaron bought for her. Justin is finally big enough to wear it. Aaron still gets a laugh over it. And to think, people say he has a twisted sense of humor…

At a recent visit with Aaron’s family, we introduced Guitar Hero to Molly, Emily and Andrew. It must run in the family because they all loved it as much as Aaron does. Even Josh gave it a shot. Click on the image above to see the new photos I’ve added to the Guitar Hero Folder in the Gallery.

I recently bought Aaron Guitar Hero, a Play Station 2 game he had been telling me about for months. It’s a music – video game in which you use a guitar controller to “play” along with specific songs, as if you were performing at a concert. He loves it. We recently brought the game to Amy and Joe’s house, and now Joe loves it too. Aaron has just ordered a second guitar controller so the two of them can play together. The game’s not really my thing, but I do enjoy watching them play – as you can probably tell from the photos above, it’s pretty damn funny just to watch.

Packing has taken over our lives. Please notice in the above picture we are numbering every box and cataloging its contents. Tonight we reached box number 118 on the spreadsheet…and we’re still packing. The move is scheduled for Saturday. Hopefully we’ll finish before the movers arrive.

So it was my birthday recently and those of you who follow this blog may remember a post a while back about some co-workers of mine who started a birthday countdown for me here at work. Well that same group of co-workers teamed up and hired a fluorescent pink gorilla to come in to work and wish me a happy birthday. I was lured into the office cafeteria with the promise of a low-key celebration, and ten or fifteen of us sat down and enjoyed some homemade cupcakes and ice cream. Fine. Just as the little party was winding down and I was getting ready to go back to work, in walks the pink gorilla with a big bunch of balloons, followed by half the office (apparently they were intrigued at the site of the pink gorilla and had decided to follow him and find out what was going on). As he danced and sang my response alternated from embarrassment to amusement to horror. One of my thoughtful coworkers (please note the sarcasm) took the above picture with a disposable camera and passed it on to me. It’s a bit grainy as it wasn’t digital, but I think you can still get the gist.