"In Heaven there is no beer; that is why we drink it here."

Happy St. Patty's Day! What better way to celebrate than by posting about last weekend, when K and I traveled to PA to celebrate the holiday?

Evidently Scranton, PA, has a can't-miss St. Patrick's Day parade -- it's the 3rd-largest in the country. And what's funny about the "can't-miss" parade is that all of K's friends who've left their little hometown came back for it, which is why we made the drive too, but none of them actually go to the parade! Evidently the "can't-miss" part applies to the bar hopping after the parade.

We started off with lunch around noon -- at a bar, of course -- where we watched the parade on TV. Since we were planning to go all day long, I started off with Coke for the caffeine and a chance to hydrate before dehydrating. Turns out it was a good move, since our DD backed out on us, saying he didn't want to stay out until 2 a.m. (don't know why he couldn't have considered that before offering to be the DD 3 weeks ago)!

Once we got to downtown Scranton, I allowed myself to have a few beers until 7:00. I had just enough beer to loosen up and get a little buzz. Then we had dinner, and I was the sober observer after that.

We took a beginning-of-the-day picture after we were all together at the first bar downtown (second bar of the day, if you count lunch).

K and me, all greened up!

Love The Office; love the sign!

When K starts to get tipsy, he starts to flex -- a lot.

Funny shirts!

Since I was the DD, I figure it's not fair to share everyone else's drunken photos. So here's our end-of-the-night picture, taken at about 12:40 a.m. A much smaller group, and a very happy me. I was SO ready to go home! (Just so you know, K was totally acting in this picture. He wasn't that drunk. As for the guy on the bottom, not acting. He threw up as soon as he got out of the car at his house.)

Tonight there's more St. Patty's Day celebrating in store. This time, there will be a lot less driving. Fingers crossed that includes less driving on my part!