St Paddy's Day tomorrow!

I love St Patrick's Day! Being a Lutheran, I can celebrate it too. If it hadn't been for St. Patrick, Christianity wouldn't have taken hold in Ireland and Great Britain as much as it did. He was a great servant of the Word.
So we celebrate by going "pub-hopping" every St Patrick's Day with my husband, son and my husband's bagpipe band. We just get Diet Coke... But it's great fun and we love the music!

LOUD, AIN'T IT?

The kids and I gave my husband a little bagpipe we found in an Irish catalog for his birthday one year. He loved it and said that he wished he could learn how to play it. So for his birthday the next year, I found a teacher for him and he got started learning. Oh - the bagpipe we found for him is only suitable for a mantle we discovered... The real one (above) is a lot more expensive... He's been playing for 7 or 8 years now and we think he's pretty good. For a long while he only knew Happy Birthday and got little gigs here and there playing that and Danny Boy in the wee hours right outside the birthday boy/girls house. My youngest daughter at the time, no matter what he was playing, would run around singing Happy Birthday. She must have gotten it in her head that that's all he knew, so even "Brown Haired Maiden" became Happy Birthday, if you sung it right.

His teacher got him involved with the Iowa Scottish Pipes and Drums and he's been with that group ever since. He doesn't think he's that good, but we think so.

Every New Year's Eve, we all gather in our driveway huddled in the cold. Someone carries a flashlight, someone carries the sheet music and Robb plays Auld Lang Syne to bring in the New Year. Over the years, the neighbors have joined in. One year, the neighbors across the street came out banging pots and pans, not sure if that was to shoo us away... Another year a neighbor down the street gave us an encore with his Saxophone. I love our neighborhood!

St Patrick's Day Iowa Scottish Pipes and Drums
Click here to see my video for St Patrick's Day a couple years ago.


The band got to open for Rod Stewart a couple years ago as well. Robb didn't get to meet the man, but still sports an unopened beer in his office that was compliments of Rod.

Now you may be thinking... Isn't St. Patrick's Day only for the Irish? Well, I believe it's for all the Celtic Nations and like I mentioned earlier, St. Patrick did much to spread the Word of God, so I think anyone can celebrate.