Irish...If Only For A Day

After living in Elmhurst for nearly 9 months now, I have begun to pick up on a few things. Like, many people have grown up here and are now raising their children here...a good thing - shows it's a great place to live. The other thing is that there are a whole heck of a lot of Irish people here...another good thing. If you've ever met a true Irishmen, then you know they are a lot of fun! Because of the vast amount of Irish-Americans, Elmhurst holds a parade that just so happens to be the second largest in the state for St. Patty's Day.

But, as we found out, it's not just the parade, after all, we are dealing with fun Irish peeps here. It's an entire day of activites to celebrate this very special day. So, we started the day off with a brunch at a friends house before the parade.

Now, being Dutch (aka ultra conservative), I kind of expected a few breakfast casseroles, coffee cake and strong coffee. Nope, this was an Irish brunch. Lesly had the biggest spread ever, severly effecting peoples choices of what they gave up for Lent, which for me and most of the other women was sweets. Then I went for the coffee. We Dutch, take it black, but if you want to have a little fun, you add some cream. Wanna get crazy, make it hazelnut. But, next to this coffee pot here? You guessed it, Baileys. Which I first thought to be chocolate milk. Good thing my kids don't care for that cause I would have poured them a big stiff drink. Anyway, next to the Baileys were the mimosas, and across from the mimosas was the bloody mary bar. It was then that I felt the 2% of Irish in me coming through. Yes, parties can be more than ham on buns with potato salad!

Let's not get too carried away, we did have a parade to go to, so we had a bit of fun and sat on Spring Road. Then we started looking around. Hmmm, were we back in Europe? Is drinking on the street legal? Apparently if you are Irish and at the Elmhurst parade. Tom was a bit disspointed that all he had was coffee. The kids didn't seem to notice and we went home with a boat load of candy.

A breather and then on to the next party, where I have never seen so much corned beef and cabbage! A night of great fun trying to pack away all 30 pounds of meat! We rolled home just in time for bed. And as we laid there, we were thankful for our great Dutch heritage, but pretty impressed with being Irish... just for the day!