Wednesday, January 1, 2014

2013 The Year in Review



Hello friends and family and complete strangers that read this blog,

It’s time, once again, for the year in review blog;

2013 was a great year indeed!   I got engaged to Kate and we got hitched up as well, yeah!

Sadly my wrestling event attendance was down considerably since last year from 21 events to only 6.  However it was Kate and Addison’s first time going to wrestling.  Kate, Canaan and I attended the WWE live event at the Augusta Civic Center in June, Canaan loved it.  Addison’s first was at the Topsham Fair in August that we attended with Canaan, Kate, and the Chase Clan.  Kids had an awesome time! 

On the concert front Kate and I hit some great shows!  Starting with Jewel at the Merrill Auditorium in March with Holly Williams, we loved both of them.  We bought the live recording of Jewel’s portion of the show.   June saw us attend back to back days of music awesomeness.  Saturday we headed to Meadowbrook with Caleb and Emma for Old Crow Medicine Show & The Avett Brothers.  It was a great show and a hippie fell on me, he was very apologetic.  Sunday we went to the Old Port Festival, in total we saw like 7 acts, the only full set we watched was Charlie Mars at the CLZ stage, he was great.  That night Erin & Chase met us at the State Theatre for Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zero’s, an awesome show to say the least.  The finished out our concert season with free tickets to Grace Potter and the Nocturnals also at the State Theatre.

John and I sat front row at the State Theatre for Weird Al Yankovic, it was simply phenomenal! All around one of the best shows I have ever been too!  Sang my favorite songs of his plus a couple I’ve never heard of.  Surreal with the whole audience singing along to “The Saga Begins”. 

On June 27th, after months of planning with the hall booked and invitations ordered Kate decided to heck with all of it and we went to City Hall and got married.  It was a lovely ceremony on the lawn under a tree with our friend Meagan as one of the witness as well as the Gardiner Animal Control Officer.   We had lunch at Alex Parker’s Steakhouse and then I went to work for a double.

Sadly I had to bid farewell to the Blazer.  She was a good vehicle whose time had come.  I sold her to Paul’s Pick Apart and used the money to register the Dodge Caravan, our new ride that we love!

We had a couple nice vacations this year.

The first was a family reunion of sorts in Maryland with Kate’s family.  It was a nice drive in our sweet new van with Caleb & Emma.  It was a lot of fun with food, music, fishing, crabbing, and more.

The Second was out kick ass Honey moon in Northern, Maine, Canada, & Downeast, Maine.


Even though we exchange vow in June we still had the reception in September at the Sportmans Club in Gardiner.  We had a nice turn out, some great food, and great dancing.  It was a lot of fun!

We took in two musicals this year.  In October Kate & I, John & Julie, Johnny & Magen, and Caleb & Emma all traveled to Lynn, MA for Evil Dead the Musical, it was fantastic.  Then in November Kate and I took in Hallowell's Gas Light theatre production of Promises, Promises.  It was really very good and well worth the ticket price!

In November we rented a house in Randolph on Hillcrest Avenue, a house that we just love! It’s two floors with the upstairs being a big loft with a bedroom for the kids to play in, basement, wood burning fireplace, big backyard with a hill that had a slope just enough to provide decent sledding! 

The Fireplace came in handy during Christmas week and Ice Storm of 2013 when we lost power for about 24 hours.  Minor compared to mom and the Roods who were out 5 – 6 days.

The kids had great years as well, Addison started the 4 year old program and participated in Fall Cheering.  Canaan entered 2nd grade, continued with Karate, played baseball, flag football, and is currently midway through his basketball season.   They are both doing great in school. 

They are both are growing up so fast, especially Canaan, that it’s scary.

It was a good year for the Labbe’s.  



 

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