Welcome 2011!!!

Let me start by saying...

THIS IS MY WEDDING YEAR!

Holy cow. I can't believe it's 2011. In fact, today is 1/1/11, the last time for another 1,000 years!

Yesterday was our annual Blankenheim New Years Eve Pig Roast. As always, it was a smashing success.

The day began with Mike, Tim, Shane and Raymond getting the pig ready to roast. It's quite the process. They have to get the pig onto the spit (a lot easier said than done) and then get it stuffed and all sewn up. It's stuffed with potatoes inside, for flavor and to absorb. Some people claim to be able to eat the potatoes (Raymond) and some claim that they give you the trots (Nancy). Since it was New Years, I decided to air on the side of caution and skip them. Here are the pictures of the pig being prepped:


Putting The Pig On The Spit



Stuffing The Pig



Ready To Roast!

Once all of that prep work is done, we basically wait for eight long hours. Over that time period, lots of sauce is poured on (made up of white wine, garlic, onion, spices and hot sauce), many beers are consumed and lots of cooked pork skin is picked off to be eaten. We basically had people coming and going all day long!

Adding The Secret Sauce

This year, we were really luck to have one of our friends, Chris, make the beer for the party. He's started a little home brewing operation, and let me tell you, it's delicious. We had a pale ale, a pilsner and a wheat beer. They were fantastic!

Finally, the pig was ready to come off, which is followed by one of the best spectacles of the night. At this point most, if not all, the people at our house empty out into the garage to watch four guys with electric carving knives take the pig apart. This year, aided by beer (maybe it's not the best idea to give four guys with electric carving knives beer?) we got some pretty funny pictures:

Mike & Sean Whispering Sweet Nothings To The Pig Ear

We had a wonderful time. We played Wii, hung out down at the bar and around the fire outside. The rain managed to hold off until early this morning, so it was just really cold outside. At midnight we still had a pretty decent contingency of people (some years we do, some years we don't) and we had lots of noisemakers and party horns.

Nancy and Nicki even got a birthday cake for me (they started the "tradition" last year). Miss Skyler played "Happy Birthday" on the piano for me and everyone sang along. I can't believe I'm going to be 30 tomorrow! More on that in tomorrow's post!

To see more pictures from the party, click here.