The Labor Day BBQ Hullabaloo

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Well, that was something!

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Then again, I tend to say that a lot. But truly, this past holiday weekend was beyond full of fun and extravaganzas! So much so that I went four whole days without a blog post for ya'll.

That said, in the past four days I did enough living that I have content to publish for quite some time, so no sad faces here.

But enough blathering! It is time to get down to the meat of this post, the Labor Day BBQ Hullabaloo

We have these neighbors who are cut from the creative and industrious cloth. Seriously, these people turned a ten acre parcel of land that was neglected and covered in former meth lab trashed single wide trailers into a rustic-themed party and gathering paradise known as The Venue.

Granted, the transformation took the better part of the last sixteen years, but seriously, the place is absolutely gorgeous, and this year they began hosting weddings at their showplace of awesomeness.

Every year for quite a lot of years though, has been the Annual Labor Day BBQ. The party is actually a two day festival of fun and food and live bands. And after going through fair month, I really appreciated partaking in all of those things. Especially because I actually get to go and enjoy it rather than facilitate everything for once. Yay!

So, this past Saturday we jumped in our old Toyota Tacoma, cooler full of drinks and lawn chairs in the back, and rolled down our dirt road to our neighbor's back gate. After parking and strolling through the pine trees a bit, past all the travel trailers from out of state friends who were visiting for the BBQ fest, we arrived on the lush green grass covered grounds of our friend's gorgeous home.

Then the fun began.

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The first order of party business was costumed slip and slide kickball. The rules are simple: all players must be in costume, always have a drink in their hand, and run the slip and slide bases.

The rules may be simple, the execution not so much.

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I found myself on an all women team. It quickly became apparent that due to my improvised Rambo costume that I was the only member of my team who could run. And we were going to be playing the teenagers first....

For instance, one of the ladies was in an air up hippo costume. While hilarious, it made it absolutely impossible for her to run, bend over, or even see. I'll admit, I laughed. A lot.

Our hostess was on our team too, and she was in a costume that made her look like she was riding a flamingo. Also not the best for running.

So, I ran. A lot.

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We also had a small child on our team. She was running the bases for her pregnant mom so she could play (because she couldn't run), which really was a smart move. I found out why when I barreled down the glitter and soapy water-covered plastic slip and slide to first base and tried to dodge a ball that was being thrown at me only to find myself crashing down onto my flintlocks so hard that I am pretty sure I have shrunk an inch. The cool part, quite literally, is that I slid right into the kiddie pool that was first base. Yee haw.

The teenagers that we were playing didn't have costumes, so in order to make things a bit more fair, we made them kick with their off legs. They still kicked the crap out of us because they weren't encumbered by hippo fabric and snowman shaped polyester. Heathens.

We fixed those insolent youths though, we made them wear all the costumes when they had to play the winning team in the championship match. Funny thing, they lost heh.

After kickball we moved on to an experience that I am still slightly in awe over. The foam.

One of my friend's friends is a professional event foam provider. I didn't even know such a thing existed, but he travels around the country and provides foam in massive amounts and ways at events.

All I know is that we had a foam machine on top of a playground structure and in a few seconds time the foam was over ten feet deep and at least sixty feet wide.

As I felt the foam's magnetic-like draw reel me toward it, I suddenly found myself at the edge of the quivering mass. Then a form manifested out of the foam. It was my little kickball, base-running buddy! She grabbed my hand, in the most five year old kid way possible, said: "Let's go! If I squeeze your hand twice it's cause I can't breathe!"

Off into the foam we went. The sensation of being fully immersed in bubbly foam is almost like being completely sensory deprived. You have no idea what is up or down or around you. Me and my little friend plowed through the foam, stopping once in a while to make a hole big enough so we could breathe. It was incredible!

We zipped around like professional foam tunneling rats, dodging slightly inebriated adults who were playing an impromptu game of foam beach volleyball.

Not gonna lie, I loved the foam.

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After playing in the foam for a long time, we were all a bit peckish, it was time for the food!

And what a bounty of food there was! Street tacos, pork carnitas, smoked queso, five gallons of freshly made salsa, rhubarb crumble, three hundred different kinds of salads, the list just goes on and on! After all the running I had done, let's just say I ate my fill of all that tasty finery!

And then the band began plucking out tunes. That night's band was a bit on the bluesy rock side, they played things like Tom Petty and Dire Straits. So my dinner eating view included watching people dance, play cornhole, and toss horseshoes while I listened to a fine musical soundtrack.

It was a great BBQ indeed!

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And I hope that you all had a marvelous Labor Day weekend! This Kat is completely refreshed and ready to roll out posts like a boss!

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And as most of the time, all of the images in this post were taken on the author's thankfully not foam en-coated iPhone.

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