Girls Gone Wild! Metro Detroit Edition

Every year, for the past eight now, we throw a big BBQ on the Sunday of Memorial Day. Some years it's been hot and sunny. More often it's been cool and occasionally rainy. Either way, the party has been our official start of summer. This year it fell into the hot and sunny category. It was so hot we got a kiddy pool for people to put their feet in.

Every year, for the past eight now, we really look forward to this party. There are a bunch of people that we only get to see a few times a year. This is one of those occasions.

I snapped a few photos at the beginning of the 'Q, but I was manning the grills (that's right, plural! I don't mess around!) and feeding the masses. We had about 40 people over the course of the day. Some years have hit 100, but the hot weather kept more than a few people at home.

A lot of, and I mean A LOT OF, drunken antics and stunts have happened at these BBQs over the years. The last time we had a kiddy pool, many people, myself included, met a late-night fate that involved involuntarily entering the pool's watery depths. Nobody involuntarily entered the pool this year. I think we're all growing up (I also think that the age of cellphones and iPods has changed this, you don't want to toss someone in a pool when they probably have a few hundred dolla's worth of electronics in their pockets).

The party wasn't necessarily tame; many beers were consumed, and I sat on the deck talking with friends until 5 in the am. It's just that we talk now, rather then pulling stunts, I think.

We're past the year where we played "flameball" (let's just say that it was a game we invented that involved sparklers, a soccer ball, and a tray full of gasoline. The rules were basic and easy to understand, and it took a year for the grass to grow back), we moved on to discussing stuff. We still talk about music and art, but we've added home improvements, careers and families to the range of stuff we can talk about.

And at what point did it stop being a job and we started talking careers? I actually talked shop at the party. I never used to do that.

It doesn't mean stuff didn't happen. I try not to be too racy on this site, but there was one incident this year that was a bit Girls Gone Wild. I'm talking about one young lady in attendance who felt that it was a good idea at the time to strip down for a topless swim, even though there were cameras in evidence, and everyone knows that public nudity finds its way to the Internet.

I like having the little ones around the parties. They're fun. This is new, the kids. We're reaching the point where they're starting to pop up at these events.

Baby B has chubby feet. Her mom assures this is normal, and that the bottoms of her feet will have slimmed down by the time she needs to walk on them.

I think it's official. Summer has come to Detroit.