Uncle Ringo's BBQ

This weekend, after lots of shopping in NY for the new house, we went to a BBQ in Jersey at Phil's Uncle's house. He's not really an Uncle, just a friend of the family, but when you're Chinese everyone's an Uncle or an Aunt...Anyway, his Uncle Ringo has an annual BBQ every summer. Now that we're back in the tri-state area Phil was actually able to attend this year.
Here's Uncle Ringo and his wife at the grill.
There were burgers, hot dogs, ribs, chicken - lots of yummy food.
After all the eating Phil got taken over by food coma and took a little nap on the lawn.
In the meantime Phil's mom and Aunt's went pear picking. They started picking pears from a tree on the edge of Uncle Ringo's property. We're still not sure who technically owns the tree, him or his neighbors...At one point Phil's mom climbed up the tree to get to more of the pears. Then they decided to make it easier and just started pulling branches off the tree. Here's his Aunt holding one of the branches.
All the kids were laughing, but Phil's Aunt Ruby swore that the pears were really sweet...just not this one apparently...

After everyone was done eating and the excitement over the pears died down Phil, his cousins and one of his Aunts decided to kick off their ritual volleyball game. First his cousin Kevin took a ride on the swing set...from the sounds it was making I don't think the swing set was very happy.
Here are some pictures of the volleyball game.

Phil getting ready to play, with Lucia and Kevin checking to make sure the swing set is still standing.
Lucia and Kevin getting ready to serve.
The whole group mid-game (Phil's Aunt, Lydia, Lucia, Phil and Kevin).

Official Homeowners!

After seeing the house one last time this past Sunday for a final walk-thru, we had our closing on Tuesday and officially became homeowners! Such a scary thought...
Now that the house is officially ours we were able to take more pictures. It definitely looks different with all the furniture gone. And there's a lot of work to be done...but hopefully we can move in by the end of the month. For now enjoy some pictures of the house.

Front entrance into the house (split level).
Upstairs living room area.
Kitchen.

Upstairs hallway.

Phil peeking out from the attic.
1st bedroom.

2nd bedroom.

Master bedroom.
Upstairs bathroom.
Downstairs bathroom.
Downstairs study/office.

Downstairs living room area, with sliding door that opens to the backyard and electric fireplace.
A view of the house from the backyard.
Above ground pool.
Backyard and shed.
Once everything is painted and we're all moved in we'll post more pictures - hopefully soon...

Boone County Fair

Phil has been travelling to and from Florence the past couple weeks for work (Florence, Kentucky, not Italy...) On his most recent trip he got to experience a true piece of Kentucky culture when he attended the localy county fair with his coworkers. They saw everything from demolition derbies and monster trucks to pig scramble (a game where kids swarm around a greased up pig to see who can get their arms around it first!). Phil even took part in a hot dog eating contest!

Welcome to the Boone County Fair...
Of course Phil couldn't be at a fair and not try some of the fair food. Specifically the corn dogs. Here's a picture of him with his coworker, Sarah, pointing at what they'll be ordering on the menu in place of a receipt for their company reimbursement. I'd love to see the expression on his boss' face when he gets this photo attached to Phil's expense report.
Here are a couple pictures of the monster truck show.

Now, on to the hot dog eating contest. Phil's coworkers talked him into joining. Although he seems pertty happy at the registration table. Or maybe he's just happy because he got a free bucket for signing up...
Basic rules for the contest were to eat as many hot dogs (buns included) as possible in 5 minutes. Before they started the contest the announcer went down the line of contestants to find out how many everyone thought they could eat. Some people said 11, some said 15. There was a kid right before Phil that said he could eat 12. Then when the announcer got to Phil he said 5...one for each minute...I can't say those are Kobayashi numbers, but it's his first hot dog eating contest so we'll cut him some slack ^__^

Here he is getting ready to compete. To his right is the kid who said he could eat 12 hot dogs in 5 minutes.
It was a tough competition. First place went to the guy to Phil's left who ate 18 hot dogs. Phil came in at 7 hot dogs, above his expected 5, but he was still beat out by the kid next to him by 1 hot dog.

Phil jammed the 7th hot dog in his mouth as the announcer called an end to the 5 minutes. You can still see him trying to chew as they announce the winner.
But no worries, Phil was content with his Boone County Fair bucket. He even had one lonely hot dog left...

Surprise Bridal Shower

So, somehow this post got deleted...so I'll try my best to reconstruct it...

This weekend we had a surprise bridal shower for my best friend, Susan. She's getting married in September at the camp where she met her fiance. So romantic! The two of us actually got engaged on the same exact day (a year apart, but still...). Anyway, since it was a bridal shower/bacholerette party I had to leave Phil at home. We were waiting for Susie to drive down from upstate New York - she definitely looked surprised when she arrived. After playing some games we started opening presents. That's Susie's fiance, Chris, on the right. Since he's the groom-to-be and helped with the surprise we made an exception to the rule and let him stay through the opening of the presents. The present on Susie's lap is the present from my mom, my sister and me. In true Lin fashion we made her a wedding cake out of the sheets and comforter on her registry, with some fake flowers added on for decoration. Always a big hit.
And her mom had ordered a lovely cake with a picture of the happy couple during prom back in highschool. Ah, the good old days...

And what would a bridal shower be without a shark costume! Apparently Susan's college friend, Bracken, is really into shark week, and keeps a shark costume in her car for special occasions like this. Too bad she left her mustard, hot dog and turkey costumes at home ^__^

After we finished cake the bridal party ended and the bacholerette portion of the evening began. Which was basically the same people minus the adults. And what else do you do at a bacholerette party..mini golf!!! Ok, probably not what most of you have in mind when you think bacholerette party, but we still had fun. We definitely got a lot of strange looks when people saw the bride-to-be all decked out. You would be surprised how packed mini golf gets on a Saturday night in Jersey...

From left to right: Liz, Maura, Mollie, Susan, and Bracken
Post mini-golf group photo: Bracken, Mollie, Maura, Susan, Cheryl, Liz, me

On an unrelated note, Phil and I are getting ready to close on the house! The countdown to official homeownership begins...