Our team director, LeAnn, invited us down to her house to say “farewell” (and “good riddance“) before I leave the team to go back to school in August.  But this party definitely wasn’t all about me.  We were also celebrating two additions to the team, a birthday, pending nuptials, and a baby on the way!  From the left to right, that’s Bernadette (preggers), Erin (da brat), Justin (newbie), Zoe (birthday girl), J Lu (bride to be), Tiffany (newbie #2), and LeAnn (hostess).

Here’s a (hopefully not too personal) tour of the house.  Ask LeAnn where she got something, and everything has a story behind it.  “Oh, I picked that up in Tanzania…  I commissioned it from an artist friend of mine…  I got those from a Saudi Prince for rescuing him from a band of pirates…”  (I didn’t actually hear her say the last one, but I also wouldn’t be surprised). If you came to my house that answer would almost unanimously be, “Got that off my wedding registry at Bed, Bath and Beyond, Crate & Barrel, or Target.  Or the wife picked it up at World Market!”

Zoe was digging the art and kept insisting that I take these pictures…

Besides the art work and furnishings, LeAnn and Geoff have some impressively green thumbs.  Here, she’s feeding us some of their cherry tomatoes.

The rest of our afternoon was spent, lazily, on the back deck.

LeAnn had ordered enough Greek food from a local restaurant, Evia, to feed a small army (which we are).  And my wine glass seemed to be bottomless.  🙂

After my belly was chock full of moussaka, she brought out the most decadent chocolate on chocolate cake – ever – from a local bakery, The Prolific Oven.

J Lu was up to her old tricks…

As a sign of thanks for having us over, we brought her a house warming present.  (Which reminds me, I owe somebody some money.)

“I’ve got just the place for that…”

Right here. 🙂

LeAnn doesn’t eat meat, so her gesture of bringing lamb into her home was very generous…but the leftovers had to go with us.

OK, all together now for one last shot.

 

I think people in business often refer to their office mates as family to invoke a sense of camaraderie.  But it’s mostly fluff.  In our case, though, I’ve known these guys for more than 2 years, have been baptized by fire with them in a countless number of emergencies, have stayed well-enough informed of their day-to-day lives outside work, and resolved enough internal conflict to round out a pretty good sense of (as close as one can in the workplace) family.  Keep in touch guys.  I’ll see you again, no doubt.

 

Cheers!