Another Great Ribfest!

First and foremost, congratulations to Joisey Ken and his new bride Dawn!! They got hitched on the third and are holding the reception next weekend, which I'll be attending. I texted him on the Fourth to see how married life was treating him and in hopefully not a sign of things to come, Ken was sick as a dog on the couch trying to keep food down. Not sure what he caught, but it doesn't sound good. He's had a lot of stress in his life recently, so maybe that all finally caught up to him after the ceremony.

On the Fourth of July things were pretty quiet around the Sutton household. The evening before, I had headed over to Ricardo's abode for very nice gathering with friends and my very first game of Ladder Ball (AKA Monkey Ball). As of now, you are talking to a man who is undefeated, 3-0, in the white trash Olympic event. So on the Fourth I just recovered and reveled in my undefeatedness.

For the fifth of July, however, a very full day was on the docket. After two softball games in the morning in Arlington Heights, I had two work meetings out at a Starbucks in Naperville. The first meeting was really just to help a friend evaluate their business idea and the research they've done to date.

After the meetings, it was off to Ribfest in Naperville. Last year, Naperville Greg, Kleveland Kim and Greg's brother Denis hit the Fest. This year, Denis couldn't make it, but we added one of Greg's other brothers, Portage Terry, his wife Sharon and their kids Emily and Erin along with a good friend of Greg's, Oliver and his wife (both from Arizona) AND one of my softball teammates (and its sponsor actually) Paul and his wife Gretchen who have also made my blog before. It was quite the crew!!

Last year we tried Desperados, Mojos and Fast Freddy's Ribs. This year we started with Sgt. Oinks, who both this year and last year won third place best sauce. Best ribs and the second best sauce was Sweet Baby Rays. I didn't feel the need to try the sauce since I have it in my refrigerator. Instead, the best combo I had was Rays Ribs and Sgt. Oinks' sauce. Armadillos sauce was ladled on and copious, but very spicy. Too spicy. Mojo's ribs were meaty, though the first batch was meatier than the second batch. The Australian ribs and sauce were decent enough.

Here are the pics:



Here's the group shot, sans Paul and Gretchen. Note that Erin is holding my beer for me while I take the picture. Ha! I'm already negatively influencing the kids. How about that sun?? It was hot!!









Naperville Greg and Kleveland Kim. Kim's beer was spilled in an effort to get up for this picture. Sorry Kim!!











There's Paul and Gretchen. Gretchen is chomping on a rib bone.













There's Erin, Sharon and Emily. Cute family!












Oliver and his wife Chris.














We were this close to the stage where Joan Jett played!! I think there were three songs that I knew well: I Love Rock'n'Roll, Crimson and Clover (the remake of the Tommy James and The Shondells song) and Do You Wanna Touch Me. It was pretty cool. She still looks great!









After many ribs, no Ribfest is complete without a Black Cow. Yum!












And no Ribfest entry is complete without a picture of me groping the completely out of place Hawaiian mannequin in a bikini top and hula skirt. Ahhhh, tradition.