Meeting Peter Bear

Not surprisingly, all this lovely warm weather we've been having on the weekends has led to a lot of gatherings and BBQs. We traveled to Plymouth to attend one such BBQ in Andrew's childhood neighborhood, in honor of old friends who were visiting from CA.

First, the food was pretty typical BBQ fare but I had to point out the cupcakes that were decorated to look like boxes of popcorn - you guessed it, this was the same neighbor that had made corn on the cob cupcakes for Memorial Day weekend:

But back to the real subject of my post, the highlight of the BBQ was catching up with Andrew's old friends and more importantly, meeting their seven-month-old son for the first time.

While it was fun to watch Andrew splashing about in the pool/trying to drown his friends under the guise of playing a diving game...

...my eyes kept getting drawn back to this little cutie.  Andrew and I had laughed over how his big his eyes were in pictures but I have to say from seeing it firsthand, yes, it's true that Peter's eyes have that "I've just stuck my finger in the wall socket" wide-eyed look:

He was a little charmer in person, and was happy and calm even as he was passed around from person to person.  Of course he was happiest when he was in his dad's arms:

Or being used as a fishing pole by his grandfather:

Or gnawing on his giraffe:

The only time those big baby blues closed was when Peter went down for his nap, and let me tell you, he fought it for a long time. In the end, he looks as cute and cuddly as his middle name suggests:

While Peter was sleeping, the big boys tried their hand at playing a game that we had never heard of before - Ladder Golf. Apparently it's huge on the West Coast and it seems to be making its way to the East Coast - the hosts of the BBQ had actually bought their (admittedly cheap) set at Marshalls, of all places:

I feel like this is one of the games like cornhole which appears to have been invented at some Midwest or West Coast tailgate and caught on in popularity.  Annoyingly enough, despite the fact that it was Andrew's first time playing, he was pretty good at it (I kept complimenting him on his form):

Popcorn cupcakes, an adorable baby and a new game? It was the perfect way to enjoy the nice weather and the company of old friends.