Sunday, May 30, 2010

Whew...what a day. First church, lunch, packing, and then dinner with our supper group from church. Home now and ready for a vacation...leaving at 8:30 in the morning and will be traveling until we reach Rome at 8:30am on Tuesday....long day(s). We will keep putting just short notes in this blog, but we are going to try and document our days in the other Italy Blog. Check there for lots of pictures! Addio bambini, noi ti amiamo!

Saturday, May 29, 2010

Tonight we were very busy....first we had our quarterly turn at cooking for the people who will eat at the homeless kitchen tomorrow. Then we went down to the Ludlow Bromley Yacht Club for a quick burger with friends and then home....this picture is of wild strawberries growing on one of the stone walls in the alley between 2nd Street and the river. It was our last nightly walk along the Ohio River. This time next week we'll be walking along the Arno in Florence, Italy...wooohoooo. BTW, Andrew's baseball team is eatin' 'em up in the KC Tournament...good job Outlaws.

Friday, May 28, 2010

Counting down now to our leaving for Italy.....we will have a whole bunch of "firsts" to report, but right now we're working on "lasts" as in last Skyline for a month...yikes, I don't know what our systems will do without Skyline. I'm pretty sure they don't have 3-ways in Italy! BTW...it tasted realllllly good!

Thursday, May 27, 2010

I'm guessing you can't see the funny colored duck too well, but we were among a group of people down by the river taking pictures of this duck. They were originally sitting right by the sidewalk, but when people started taking pictures, they started waddling off. Anyway, look carefully and see if you can tell it's a duck....and a normal looking duck with it!

Wednesday, May 26, 2010

The good news is....the City of Covington has put in these new "Pet Waste" bag holder and disposal units! Of course this is great if pet owners use it 'cause then we don't have to be worried about doggie doo on the sidewalk. The bad news is.....no one has figured out how to make the geese clean up after they poop on the sidewalks...yuk!

Tuesday, May 25, 2010

Happy Birthday Aunt Ann....today is Ann and her twin sister Amy's birthday. I won't tell you how old they are, but they are younger than Uncle Mark! It's been a little while since we've seen them together, but they really are identical twins. I don't know if ya'll know any identical twins, but they're pretty unusual. So let's have a big shout-out to Aunt Ann and Amy.

Monday, May 24, 2010

Almost pool time....I think the pool is ready, the weather is hot and we're leaving! Actually, the outside pool opens Friday, so it the weather stays this way, papa/gump and I may have time for one swim before we leave. We understand the C's have already been swimming quite a bit, and the A's pool opens Friday too....oh, by the way Happy Last Day of School tomorrow A's.

Sunday, May 23, 2010

Da boyz with their 2nd place ribbons...congratulations Chan and the entire team....we can't believe how tall Chan has gotten and hope some day we can watch him play soccer...we hear he's very good! School's almost over...hope you have some good summer workouts planned.

Saturday, May 22, 2010

Remember the other night when I said Chloe was expecting a surprise...well, here it is. She went to see Glee on stage this afternoon....hope she liked it! Her daddy/Uncle David and Jess went too. Surprises are so much fun!

Friday, May 21, 2010

This is the life....sitting by the river, phone in hand, watching the ducks swim up and down the Licking. Papa/gump said one of them called a meeting and suddenly all the ducks swimming around gathered in a bunch and took off down the Licking. Must have been a dinner meeting. I think he was pretending we were already in Florence and sitting by the Arno...

Thursday, May 20, 2010

So this is what I saw last night on my cell phone. It's tornado time in Tulsa and Abby and Andrew spent a little time being silly in the pantry. I'm thinking being shut up in a closet with all that candy and cookies can't be a bad way to spend the evening. Glad Abby was rescuing the dalmation.

We also know that Chandler's soccer team begins their tournament this weekend. Woohoo....and Chloe is expecting a surprise and Christian....drum-roll please....got a 1900 on his SAT's..excellent scores!

Wednesday, May 19, 2010

Kicks...NEW kicks just for papa/gump. He needed some shoes that would allow him to walk all the miles we plan to walk...at least in Rome. These are just like his old shoes (no surprise there) but they have nice thick soles for walking on all the rough cobblestones in Italy. He's going to start wearing them tomorrow so they are broken in by the time we leave. New shoes are fun.

Tuesday, May 18, 2010

Cincinnati Reds....YEA! It was a great afternoon game. The billboard on the highway said "skip work today, Reds 12:35 game". Well, we went to work and followed the game on mlb.com on the computer....and they were losing the entire game. They finally tied up the game and then in the 9th inning Joey Vatto hit a walk off single to send in a run from second....yipee the fireworks went off and we all cheered! REDS are in 1st place...wooohooo!

Monday, May 17, 2010

It's National Cherry Cobbler Day! This is a very old-fashioned dessert and one that I used to make for your mom's and dad's when they were little....I really think they liked the cool whip on top better than the cherry cobbler. I didn't know people even made this anymore...I think dessert has gone out of style...too bad!

Sunday, May 16, 2010

Here are the shields of the 17 Contrades in Siena. The 17 compete against each other every July in a mad-dash horse race around the campo. Each Contrade has it's own church and on the Sunday before the race, the horse and it's rider are blessed at the church and then there's a big party....think what happens if they win!!! So what we would like from the 5 of you is to tell us which Contrade we want to pay special attention to when we are in Siena. Their names are Eagel, Snail, Owl, Giraffe, Turtle, Shell, Caterpillar, Dragon, Porcupine, Unicorn, Wolf, Ram, Swan, Wave, Panther, Rinoceros, and Elephant. We need a mascot for our trip and would like you to pick one for us! Let's hear what you think....

Saturday, May 15, 2010

Remember our orange, yellow and green comforter that I made when we moved to the condo? It's gone...my friend Charlene made the blue pillowcases you see here, so of course we needed to have a comforter that went with blue pillowcases! We are getting used to it, but Lucy finds the slick comforter a bit suspicious!

Friday, May 14, 2010

Friday at last, and tonight was the annual Mother/Daughter dinner at White Oak Christian Church. The woman in the middle is Barb and she is a member at WOCC and each year invites Bonnie (the lady on the right) and I to attend. We sit with Barb, her daughter and a bunch more family...it's always a fun evening. So there I am with my friends Barb and Bonnie...papa/gump ate Skyline and watched the Reds!

Thursday, May 13, 2010

Have you ever heard the phrase "stop and smell the roses"? Well, here are the roses that we stop and smell everyday. They are in the yard across the street from our house and we pass them every morning on our walks (mine to work, papa/gumps for exercise). So as busy as we are and as much stuff as we have on our minds, from May until October, we get to "stop and smell the roses"! Life is good!

Wednesday, May 12, 2010

Jessica's brother Jeff has a website that gives periodic challenges to do something and then take a picture and post it...I'm not sure but there may be a winner. On Mother's Day the challenge was to make something your mother taught you and take a picture....I couldn't get it done since I was in Tulsa, but tonight when we were walking to the Levee, I saw this little patch of clover and remembered my mom teaching me to make "clover crowns" when I was a kid...so there's my "clover crown" that my mom taught me to make a lot of years ago!

Tuesday, May 11, 2010

Sunset somewhere! Actually, it's sunset on the Ohio River. It was our first sunset at the Ludlow-Bromley Yacht Club....palm tree, river, hills, sunset...and a really good burger. It was a lovely evening with friends and we're glad it was warm enough to sit outside.

Monday, May 10, 2010

Guess who came to see me on Mother's Day in Tulsa....Gillian and Scrappy! and their mom and dad too....they like to come and visit Spanky...he's much bigger but moves slower than they do. We had a great grill out and then went to a baseball game. It was fun to see Uncle Mark and Aunt Ann. I guess the next time we're all together will be August! Have a good summer.

Sunday, May 9, 2010

Mother's Day weekend in Tulsa and what a weekend it was....Friday Abby won 1st place in the Tulsa Gymnastics, Saturday Aunt Liz/Mommy won 3rd place in Tulsa Figure Competition and today Andrew's baseball team won 2nd place in his baseball tournament....winners all around! I really enjoyed watching everyone compete this weekend and Aunt Ann and Uncle Mark also came over to Tulsa from OK City....wow!

Saturday, May 8, 2010

And the winner is......Ellen, Aunt Liz/mom's friend standing next to her on the stage...what a night it was. We really enjoyed watching the competition, but the best part was seeing Aunt Liz/mom win the Third Place "sword"....it was fantastic....What a lot of hard work she put into getting ready for this competition...we're very proud of her

Friday, May 7, 2010

It was Abby's day to shine.....she won All Around 1st place for 6 year olds in the All Tulsa City Gymnastics meet this evening. She had wonderful scores and the best thing was....I got to see her in person. I really enjoyed watching Abby compete in beam, bar, vault and especially floor exercise.....she was pretty proud of herself...she worked hard for this! Go Abbs!

Thursday, May 6, 2010

this is what you see when you come through the final door at the Tulsa Airport...which I did tonight...but almost didn't. My plane from Cincinnati to Atlanta was supposed to land at 8:20, but at 8:20 we were still at 5500 feet altitude...yikes. We finally landed at 8:33 and I did an OJ Simpson through the Atlanta Airport, running over little kids and old men...yelling "excuse me" "excuse me"...made it just as they were going to close the door....out of breath, but on the plane....can't wait to see who wakes me up in the morning.

Wednesday, May 5, 2010

Today is Cinco de Mayo....the 5th of May.

It marks the victory of the Mexican Army over the French at the Battle of Puebla. Although the Mexican army was eventually defeated, the "Batalla de Puebla" came to represent a symbol of Mexican unity and patriotism.

President Benito Juarez (president of Mexico from 1858 to 1872) declared the meanings of the colors were to represent hope (green), unity (white) and the blood of the national heroes (red).

Tuesday, May 4, 2010

I really meant to put this on Sunday 5/2...since that's just three months until these two really cute people get married. Dad/Uncle David and Jess will be getting married on August 2 in Temecula, CA...and we'll allllll be there to celebrate with them. This picture was taken by Jess's brother Jeff and is one of a whole bunch he took around Pasadena...good job Jeff!

Monday, May 3, 2010

This is the header from a new program I found on the internet. After much yelling and screaming at my computer, I was able to download all the required programs and updates and now....and now....what I can do is borrow audio books from my library for my iPod Touch. It's such fun...no sticking disks in the computer and ripping them to iTunes...just a button or two and there it is....in iTunes and ready to move to the iPod....I'm loving this. It usually took me hours...many hours to put an audio book from the library onto my iPod....I LOVE technology!

Sunday, May 2, 2010

A rainy Sunday in Covington. After church this morning we went to Skyline for lunch and then home again for the afternoon. This is what papa/gump does on a rainy Sunday afternoon. I'm not sure what he was looking at, but he sure spent a lot of time doing it. I think he's planning for the Preakness. Hopefully all this rain will make my allergies go away!

Saturday, May 1, 2010

Derby Day in Kentucky....for 136 years! And there we are at a Derby Day party...hat and all. It was an icky day at Churchill Downs in Louisville, but just about the time the horses came out on the track for the Derby, the sun came out. Kentucky is a most beautiful place when the sun shines. We sang the National Anthem and then "My Old Kentucky Home" and then yelled at the horses....no winners in our group. We understand Uncle Mark and Aunt Ann had the winning ticket in OKC!