Entertaining

Our final 2025 neighborhood happy hour to cheer on the Pelagic Run Club runners on 10/20/25

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We’ve decided to use the imminent time change on Sunday, November 2, 2025, to suspend our Monday happy hours for the winter. Shallowness alert: Because what’s the point of cheering on shirtless runners if you can’t even see them?

To that end, we were going to make Monday, 10/27, our last happy hour, but the runners are participating in a special Halloween run route through nearby Oakwood Cemetery, which means they won’t be coming by our house.

So, our 10/20/25 happy hour was our big hurrah for 2025.

We wanted to let the runners know about this, which we did with this week’s signs:


Our friends and neighbors:


And the stars of the show, the runners:

Here they come!

And finally:

capturing the playlist for 2025:

10/06/25 A record attendance to cheer on the Pelagic Run Club runners

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Not that it’s a competition, but our previous attendance record for happy hour in our front yard to cheer on a local run club was 32 people. Today, we had 40!

This week’s signs:

Special guests this week were my sister, Vivian, and her husband, Jeff, who helped us set up.

Yard, house, and revelers!

And those who make it all possible.

Insta post on @pelagicbeer:

New England & Canada BearCruise meet & greet

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Next weekend, we embark on the New England & Canada BearCruise:

and Bob and I hosted a meet and greet for the Raleigh guys going on the trip.


(from l-r): Bob, Steve, Chad, Ben, Al, John, Brent, Ken, & Cronin. We also invited our neighbors Jeff & Brian (not pictured) who are considering a future BearCruise.

Bob decorated the walls for the event!

Brent bought everyone a door magnet that says, “Warning. We bought the drink package,” and Bob and I bought a bear paw with our names on it — before we learned that NCL doesn’t allow door decorations per item 36.

Long-time friends:

And the meet and greet hosts (yours trulies):

I wish my eyes squinted even more when I smile or laugh. NOT.

The potluck food:


Food included: 7-layer taco dip w/Tostito Scoops, pasta salad, chicken wings, ham-delight sandwiches, deviled eggs, castrated church brownies (no nuts & no weed), and chocolate chip walnut cookies.

Complete, but important aside: See that little line of tinfoil toward the front end of the taco dip? The portion closest to the camera is for me. It’s actually a 6-layer taco salad that Bob makes for me, because I don’t like beans! (Can you say, “Princess?” I know I’m spoiled!)

The open bar flowed and after dinner, all of us sat out on our deck to continue our cocktails and conversations while enjoying the beautiful weather.

09/08/25 Another successful happy hour cheering on the Pelagic runners!

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We broke another record with the number of friends and neighbors — 32! — who joined our happy hour to cheer on the Pelagic Run Club runners. We used to call it a front-porch happy hour, but it has spilled over into a front-yard happy hour!

The weather was absolutely fantastic today, and our sign was a message of gratitude to the runners! 😂 😂 😂

Our tools of cacophony, along with our whooping and hollering, to cheer on the runners:

And this is how we sound:

 
More whoopin’ and hollerin’:

Front-porch revelers:

I sent a message to Pelagic to let them know we had this new blog entry posted, and their heartwarming response was:

Thanks to all our friends and neighbors who came out to enjoy this glorious day! Cheers!

Many thanks to our good friend Dana for the photos and videos!

See all of our posts about cheering on the runners.

08/25/25 happy hour to cheer on the Pelagic runners

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Another successful, well-attended front-yard happy hour to cheer on the Pelagic Run Club runners!

I was up by the road taking pictures at one point, and one of the runners came close by for a high five as he ran by, which was a first — and cool. Some shots of the runners, who were a big crowd today, because the weather was gorgeous (i.e., in the low 80s instead of the recent mid- to high-90s):

See all of our posts about cheering on the runners.

08/04/25 – our biggest run club happy hour to date

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Today was great fun hosting our biggest happy hour to date (~25 people) to cheer on the Pelagic Run Club runners — and arguably our best signage yet.

Close-up signs, including the one with the special athletic supporter “guests” — jock straps & sports bras:

Click to enlarge
Click to enlarge

Neighbors enjoying the event:

A shoutout to us on the Pelagic Instagram account!

And two Instagram “stories” posted by runners as they passed our house:

See all of our posts about cheering on the runners.

07/28/25 – our Monday front-porch happy hour to cheer on the Pelagic Run Club runners

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We host a neighborhood happy hour on Mondays to cheer on the runners of Pelagic’s run club. Pelagic Beer & Wine is a bottle shop about a mile from our house, and our neighborhood is on their run club’s route.

Click images to enlarge.

We open our bar at 5:30 and neighbors begin to gather on our front porch and sometimes they spill over into the yard. The runners usually pass by between 6:20 and 6:30. It’s kind of like the Kentucky Derby in that it’s over in just a few minutes, but that doesn’t stop us from continuing to drink once all the runners have passed by.

The activity has evolved over the almost-a-year we’ve been doing it, starting off with just screaming and yelling encouragement. Over time, though, we’ve kicked it up a notch with various visuals and noisemakers:

A couple of previous yard signs:

And other accoutrement:


Here’s an Instagram “story” they posted about this week’s happy hour:



I commented on their posting and we had this short exchange:

And, of course, some of the people who make it all worthwhile!



What fun! Thanks to all our friends and neighbors who participate!

See all of our posts about cheering on the runners.

Bartender extraordinaire

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We had hired someone to help us with our ambitious “Lotsaversary Gathering” — with 92 attending of 200 invited, but he had to cancel due to not feeling well.

We were going to have him barback, not bartend, but as it turned out our friend Fadia comfortably slipped behind the bar and actually took on bartending of her own volition!

Fadia, the bartender with a heavy pour

She had a lot to juggle but did it beautifully.

Midway into the evening I was checking in with her, and she told me she was having so much fun, asking people drinking highballs if they wanted singles or doubles, and many took her up on doubles.

It was then that I noticed that the jigger she was using was actually for a double, so she’d really been pouring doubles and “quadruples” — and into 10 oz. cups, no less!” We have little doubt that that greatly contributed to the success of the party!

Our thank-you note to her:

Thank-you card to Fadia
Thank-you sentiments to Fadia

Progress on our deck bar

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Getting excited about our new deck bar! The guy who’s building it gave us this rendering today, and it’s going to look great picking up the design of our grilling station at the other end of the deck.

Grilling station in the foreground.

Artist rendering of the bar to be built at the other end to replace that standalone one.

Here we grow again… another deck upgrade

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It’s time to replace the outdoor bar set that you can see at the far end of our deck. This one is a replacement of the exact same one that we had before it.

Instead of getting a third identical one, we’ve decided to have a nice bar added on to our deck.

This won’t be the final version, but it’s the drawing we’ve given to the builder as a starting point. It is going to be built off of that existing privacy wall, and a lot less elaborate than this one. And, it definitely will not have a TV in it!