A busy week

We've had a bit of an action-packed week so there's plenty to tell you in this post. One thing we forgot to mention last week was our first trip to the Dodge Music Center in Hartford. It's an outdoor concert venue that's a man-made bowl but also has some seats that are under cover. We went to see Maroon 5, supported by Counting Crows and bought our tickets months ago - when we were still in the temporary house. A bunch of our friends were also going, but where we'd bought seats, they'd gone for lawn tickets, which are basically pick your spot on the grass at the back.

Well, it turned out that our decision to buy seats was an inspired one. Despite being the middle of August, the heavens opened for the entire afternoon, soaking the town. Apparently the lawn area wasn't too bad, but it was still a little muddy, and it did rain lightly at one point during the show. But we were protected from it all by the roof

The concert itself was mixed. Counting Crows weren't great performers and we couldn't make out anything the singer was saying. Plus we didn't know any of their material (Big Yellow Taxi didn't feature at all). Maroon 5, however, were very good and rocked the place. The gig didn't finish until midnight though so we got home at 1am. Annalie was a real trooper though as she had a gym appointment at 8am on Saturday morning and still got up to go to it! That's dedication for you.

Monday brought a return to work for Annalie, which was a shock to the system after two weeks off. And it's straight into budget planning for next year, which is an interesting activity, especially whilst trying to manage the budget for the remainder of this year at the same time.

Tuesday brought about the IAE golf league night again and we just about managed to squeeze the whole nine holes in. Annalie was in the last group and finished as the sun was on its way down.

There was more sport on Thursday as Annalie got to play football, sorry, soccer, for the first time in over four years. Shannon, one of the girls at IAE, asked Annalie to play for her co-ed (mixed) team to make up the numbers. Ian has played for them before and we were both invited to play - the first time we've teamed up on the football pitch! In fact it was the first time Annalie had seen Ian in action in the nets. She was very impressed with his performance, which is more that can be said for Annalie's! But then she's been on the sideline for so long It was an enjoyable game and we won 13-6 and we're sure Annalie will be taking to the field again at some point.

On Friday we invited some of our friends over for a BBQ and had intended to do a fun casino night but we couldn't be bothered with that part of it in the end! We sat around with a few beers, some nice food and good conversation. Plus a bit of Wii and Uno Extreme! It was a relaxed and fun night to get everyone together.

The night had started off with us going to the Irish American Society in Glastonbury as Munster rugby team were in town for a match against the USA. The Heineken Cup was travelling with them and was "on show" at the club. We actually got to take the Cup for a photo ourselves. There was also a youth 7s tournament going on but the quality wasn't that great so we headed off to ours to get the party started.

Saturday saw the aforementioned rugby match taking place at our local stadium, Rentschler Field. It's actually an American Football stadium for UConn (University of Connecticut) and was chosen because Hartford is almost dead centre between New York and Boston. There are such huge Irish communities in both of these cities, so Hartford is ideally-located for both. About 20 of us descended on the car park at about 12 to get the tailgating started (when in Rome, you know!). Hot dogs and burgers aplenty, and a lot of fun and games, and that was all before the game kicked off! The weather was glorious, almost too hot, so we were all slathered in plenty of sun cream, but still got a lot of colour from being sat in the direct sun for the entire game.

Ian decided to have a wager on the score with one of the young American guys from IAE. The bet was that Munster would beat USA by at least 20 points. For about 75 minutes, the score did not reach this gap, and with five minutes to go, the USA broke away to score a runaway try to reduce the gap to 12, leaving Ian with very little chance of winning the bet... or so we thought. As it happened, USA were pulled back for a knock on, giving Ian's bet another chance.

With two mintues to go, Munster finally sealed their dominance with another try and conversion to win 46-22 and win Ian's bet for him (phew!). The prize was a free night of beer that evening at the Irish pub in Hartford, Vaughans. So we duly headed off for a night on the town. Our friends, Mhairi and Steve, had offered to put us up for the night and the pub is just two minutes' walk from their place, so we didn't have to worry about driving home or taxis.

It's been a packed week but a lot of fun. We just hope there aren't too many more of them!