*I searched the word “seven” in every language looking for one that starts with “p.” Congratulations, now you know how to say “seven” in filipino! My dedication to alliteration is alliterastupid.
Also, I originally had this titled as the eighth pie party because I can’t count.
Pie People:
- Scott & Maya
- Gayle & Jeffrey
- Chris & Monica
- Sandy, Ben, Elena, & Zoe
- Janna
- Lori
- Sue
- BARB
- Wendy & Summer
- Andrew & Karen
- Blake, Haley, & Calvin
- Haley’s mom
- Robbie, Nikki, Eli, & Levi
- Maggie, Ivan, Annabelle, & Lila
- Amber, Steve, Teddy
- Valerie & Dustin
This is the first time Kara missed a pie party! But she was running in the Chicago marathon so I guess that’s an acceptable excuse.
Ok guys. You know the drill by now. We rented a pavilion, people brought pies, people ate pies. After seven years, there’s not much deviation to the formula. This will mostly be photos because I remembered to bring the good camera.
This year was exciting though because we had some new blood! Maya & Scott were here from Nashville (I liked to tell people that the pie party was THE ONLY reason they traveled here, though they did say it was the reason they picked that particular weekend to check out Pittsburgh as potential new digs), Henry’s co-worker Andrew and his wife Karen came, and Valerie brought her husband Dustin who I was excited to finally meet! And this was Lori’s first pie party too, because she couldn’t make it to last year’s pig-out.
I wanted to go bare-bones this year, because I honestly didn’t want to have one at first but then some of my friends talked me into it. Originally it was going to be bomb shelter themed, with just some old newspapers thrown down for tableclothes and some scattered slices of Velveeta for tablescape decor. But in the end even that was too much. We left the table bare-boned, no succulents to meet & greet, no mason jars of crayons to assist with doodling on the tables.
We did decorate the actual pie table though and thankfully Scott and Maya were there to help me because oh what a shocker, Henry ditched me again to go and fetch so forgotten item at the store. He does this every year and now I’m beginning to wonder if it’s intentional?!
I enjoyed this time with Scott and Maya though because Chooch wasn’t there to interrupt constantly – I have things to say too!
Also, Scott is super tall and excelled at hanging things from the rafters.
Obviously, my contribution was something Korean. Choco Pies 4 lyfe. (Surprisingly, every single kid at the pie party took one bite and then slowly handed the rest their moms. I’m offended!
I saved the “BABY” balloons from Blake and Haley’s baby shower because I figured I’d find a use for it again one day. October 6th, 2017 was that day! Mmm. Pie, baby!
(Every time I looked at it, I kept hearing Joey Tribbiani yelling it with zeal.)
Remember when I joked that the theme was “pies that Trump hates?” Maggie won the whole entire event with her ImPEACH 45 pie. Maggie’s Pie for President!
Twins!
I was sad that Amber1 and her twin sister couldn’t make it because I wanted there to be two sets of twins at the pie party just so I could say, “Yeah well MY pie party had TWO sets of twins, how many did YOURS have?” and then that person would be like, “None because wtf is a pie party, that sounds dumb.”
YEAH WELL FUCK YOU IMAGINARY PERSON I’M COMPETING WITH!
I think this was a picture of Henry staring adoringly at all of his grandbabies and kids, all under one pavilion roof covered with the graffiti of high school lovers.
(They must have painted it recently, actually, because there seemed to be less adolescent devotion up above our heads than usual.)
Lori literally made a cherry pi. So good!
There were so many savory pies this year! Sandy made a delicious corn and tomato pie, Andrew made some kind of chicken pot pie thing (the first pot pie ever, if you can believe that!), Blake & Haley went above and beyond with this super-hearty butternut squash, goat cheese, pine nut concoction that ate like an entire Thanksgiving meal in one slice. I can’t even explain how filling that sucker was! Henry conceded to my begging and made a kimchi quiche which even the pickier people enjoyed! It had a quinoa crust, which I thought was interesting.
You guys. I’m so excited to tell you — I’m betrothed to a pie! I never want to be without it.
Chooch had Sandy’s kids and Blake playing some dumb game with rocks. It had something to do with The Kingdom of the Unobtainium Rock? Who cares.
Except those guys cared and played it for like a solid hour until Blake got carried away and tried to hide one of the rocks in the rafters, which caused Sandy’s kids to try to climb to retrieve it, so I had to be a mom for once in my life and yell at Blake to get the goddamn rock for them.
Maya’s first pie party!
Janna brought a Mexican chocolate mousse. We did not build a wall around it though. Mexico is cool.
Anyway, this mousse brought the heat! It was delicious.
Pie party or not, his face always looks like this.
Here’s Monica holding Calvin, freshly pulled from the oven.
This was taken sometime after I told Chris she had a spider in her hair, landing me above Chooch on Monica’s list of least favorite people. I’m a really awesome friend!
My favorite part of the pie party is how welcoming my friends were to Scott and Maya. Here’s hoping they move here and can join us for more pie in the future! My least favorite part of the pie party was when I was on hug-giving auto-pilot and misread Lori’s body language when she was saying goodbye and started to make a hug motion with my arms, then quickly dropped them down to my side when I noticed she was slightly recoiling, and then the next day she texted me to tell me that this was her favorite part of the whole pie party and that was sad I wasn’t at work because she wanted to tell everyone about it and embarrass me and I died a little but. I have a NO HUMAN CONTACT reputation to uphold, but the stupid pie party always ruins that because there are always people there who demand to be hugged upon departure and I have trained myself to leave my body for a bit in order to get through this.
I am so awkward, it hurts sometimes.
On that note: it’s hard to believe the 7th pie party is in the books! 7 parties-worth of hugs. OMG.