Sunday, October 31, 2010

Ah trick or treat. Look at those costumes. On the left, our dear grandchildren, is your Uncle Mark...the scary demon and the C's dad is a cute little, scary pirate. On the right is the A's mom as a green crayon and a friend...we think it's Heather, but are not really sure about that. So there you are kids....even moms, dads and uncles went trick or treating! But we still checked their bags and then ate the Reese Cups!

Saturday, October 30, 2010

After we cooked the dinner for the homeless (for Sunday lunch), we had supper with friends at the Oriental Wok. Everyone who worked there was in costume. This young lady was dressed as a Mai Tai...an asian fruit drink. She was also passing out small tasting portions of Mai Tai's....it was a fun evening and I think it was the first time ever that papa/gump ate in a Chinese restaurant. He even ate white rice...not much, but he ate it. We had a great time and I think he would say yes if someone suggested we go there again. YEA!

Friday, October 29, 2010

We received two pictures of girls in hats this week....Abby had hat day at school and this is the hat she chose...I think she got it at Claires the same day she had her ears pierced. Chloe's hat....well, did you ever see such a cute little witch? Two girls, two hats, two grand-daughters...we sure are lucky grandparents. Send more pictures

Thursday, October 28, 2010

Before
This is a Honeycrisp Apple...I'm not sure if this is some kind of new apple or if they just became available in our area recently, but they are really good. Most of them that we find at Kroger are about the size of a baby's head...but I found some "apple-sized" apples at Whole Foods. I had this one this afternoon....it goes "crunch" when you bite it and then it tastes really sweet. Most really crispy apples are tart...I think who ever discovered the Honeycrisp apple did a really good thing! After

Wednesday, October 27, 2010

This is Oscar Nordt. He lives in Connecticutt with his mommy, Erin and his daddy Rich. Erin works for the same company as I do and I've known her since before she and Rich were married. Now they have Oscar...he's 9 months old and this is the cutest picture I have of anyone in a pumpkin patch. I can remember when I had pictures of all of you in pumpkin patches all over the country...we kinda miss ya'll being 9 months old and loving being in a pumpkin patch!

Tuesday, October 26, 2010

Check it out....Stonehill at the Whiskey a Go Go. This is pretty impressive for those of us over 60....this is the place all the bands we listened to in the 70s got their big break.....or made big names for themselves in LA! Funny to think one of us (that'd be Christian) actually was playing on that stage...wow, pretty impressive CDV! and we really like Stonehill's music...can't wait til the EP comes out.

Monday, October

Our new best ever movie...Secretariat. We went to see it this evening after supper. It was a wonderful movie, from start to finish. The funny thing about it was, that even though we knew how it ended, we still found ourselves holding our breath as Secretariat came around the last turn and pulled out all the stops. It was fun to watch and remember this very special horse. Maybe we'll have a triple crown winner in 2011!

Sunday, October 24, 2010```

What a beatiful Sunday we had. Italian coffee this morning, church, long walk to Ciccinnati and Newport...pizza, Bengals and a stop at Barnes & Noble....small Graeters ice cream....more Bengals....pork tenderloin outside with a full moon and then another walk. Hope your day was a spectacular

Saturday, October 23, 2010

We went to Slatts for dinner tonight. We were supposed to meet old friends, but they stood us up (that means they didn't show). We stayed anyway and enjoyed our evening. This is a picture of one of the menus. The restaurant is owned by the Slattery family. There are 10 of them and the menus each have one of their pictures (like this one). On the back it tells a little story about the person and where they live now and what they're doing. It was a nice place for dinner but a little far unless we were meeting someone.

Friday, October 22, 2010

Lucy had a recheck at the vets today and got a clean bill of health...she was a sick little kitty for about 2 weeks. I think the fact that we took her picture (she doesn't travel well) to church for the St. Francis celebration of Pet Blessing. So here she is with her St. Francis prayer and her St. Francis medal and she's all better....think they might be connected? Probably the antibiotic shot she got, but we'll let her think it's 'cause she was blessed.

Thursday, October 21, 2010

Ah Starbucks and a good coffee pot. I was away for 4 days and I have to admit, I missed this coffee pot and that bag of Italian ground Starbucks. The coffee they give you in hotels is just not the same as we make at home in this pot. We use this pot to make coffee every morning during the week. On weekends, we use the "moka" pot we bought in Italy. This one has a timer on it, so we can set it all up before we go to bed at night and by the time I get out of the shower in the morning....there's coffee....it's a good thing!

Wednesday, October 20, 2010

This is Mary Erfle. She lives in Philadelphia and we do the same job only in different cities. I visited with Mary this weekend before going to Baltimore for work and we had a wonderful time. This is a picture of us down at the boat yard in front the Legg Mason building. We were out for a walk at lunch today. It's been quite a visit and lots of classroom work.....I'm glad to be home though and Lucy seems to be glad to see me too....pretty sure papa/gump is glad too!

Tuesday, October 19, 2010

Philadelphia is a wonderful city full of history and art and excellent street food. It must be good....here's a "Eat More Chiken" cow getting his morning bagel and cream cheese from the vendor. I walked down to the coffee shop to get a really strong cup of coffee this morning, and the streets smelled sooooo good....the vendors were selling bagels and other breakfast stuff, but were also getting the hot dogs and sausages ready for lunch...yummmmmy you gotta love the pig! Philadelphia smells good, but I still haven't had a real Philly cheese steak? Maybe next year.

Monday, October 18, 2010

Free Library....maybe that sounds funny to you but before Benjamin Franklin founded this "free" library way back in the 1700's in Philadelphia, all librarys were by subscription memberships. This concept brought the ability to read books to people who before couldn't afford to either borrow them from a library or buy them....free library is something we just take for granted....and story time and cd's and videos my hero!

Sunday, October 17, 2010

I'm in Philadelphia and papa/gump isn't. This is my friend Mary and we were out for a long walk and a little shopping. This is a picture of Mary in a "pocket park" in Philly. They have bunches of these and they really are nice. This one has a water feature, but no swings...we walked through two others both of which had swings! We walked past the Waterworks building that is now a restaurant and up a steep hill to the Art Museum where Rocky Balboa ran up the stairs. There's a statue of Rocky outside...hummmm, not sure why. We also passed the "Free Library" started by Ben Franklin and attended Mass at the Basilica. It was a very nice day and I'm looking forward to more walking tomorrow. Papa/gump is taking care of Lucy and sitting down on the river smoking a smelly cigar!

Saturday, October 16, 2010

Keeneland in October...not sure there's anything better (for adults). We drove down to Lexington today and had a little tailgate lunch in the parking area. Since I'm pretty sure none of you have been to Keeneland, the parking area is really a huge park with lots of trees and parking spaces. During race season, people tailgate (sometimes very big meals) in this parking area. As you can see from this picture, the sky was very California blue and papa/gump was enjoying the walk from the parking area to the race trace. We bet on a few horses, but mostly just watched all the people! Kentucky is beautiful in October!

Friday, October 15, 2010

It's fish Friday. This big fish looks like it's trying to get away from McCormick and Schmicks by climbing up the side of the Weston. Actually, the big fish is advertising for M&S. I'm guessing the five of you don't have to eat fish sticks or grilled cheese on Fridays at school. When we were in school, the standard Friday lunch at school was either fish sticks with spagetti or grilled cheese with tomato soup. The reason was that at that time kids that went to the Catholic church couldn't eat meat (like burgers or hotdogs) on Fridays so we all had to eat the fish/cheese things....not complaining since we LOVE grilled cheese and tomato soup, but those fish sticks.....not so much!

Thursday, October 14, 2010

Would you believe it's National Chili Month....a whole month to celebrate eating Skyline Chili...in fact, papa/gump did exactly that tonight. I think he eats Skyline more than once a week, but he's not telling the exact number of times. What I do know is that tomorrow is Friday and we'll be sitting at our favorite Skyline in Newport enjoying our small three-way (for me) and regular three-way for him....don't you wish you lived closer so you could enjoy a little "Skyline time"?

Wednesday, October 13, 2010

Can you guess what this is? The wind has been blowing pretty hard today, so out on our walk today, we decided to show you what was blowing out of the trees. The long snakey looking things are seed podsfrom the tall trees on 2nd Street and the little yellow leaves are from the same trees. The seed pods get very dry and when you step on them they crack. Inside are bunches of little seeds. I try to step on as many as possible...I think they're neat trees!

Tuesday, October 12, 2010

This is Lou the Flu. Today was flu shot day for both of us. We didn't use to get flu shots

but now that we're older (not old, just older) and the shots don't cost too much, we stick out our arm and let them stick us. Last year was the first time either of us had a flu shot, and neither of us got the flu...so this year we thought it would be a good idea to get the shot again. I don't think young people need to get a flu shot....hope Lou doesn't find you!

Monday, October 11, 2010

In 1945 after World War II, Berlin, Germany was divided into 4 sections: the American, British and French in the west and the Soviet Union (Russia) in the east. Because the Soviet Union was a very closed communist society, they put up a wall...either to keep the west out or maybe to keep the people in East Berlin in! Anyway, it was terrible and families were separated by the wall and lots of people risked their lives to get people from East Berlin to West Berlin and freedom. In 1987 President Ronald Reagan visited Berlin and urged the Soviets to tear down the Wall....and finally in November, 1989, the Wall was torn down. Now that's a bit before any of you were born, but it was quite an exciting time to see all the people move back and forth between the two Berlins without a Wall to stop them. The picture is of a piece of that Berlin Wall now at the Ronald Reagan Library in Simi Valley California....

Sunday, October 10, 2010

So much happened today, it was hard to know what to write about...some of it bad (Bengals and Reds wahhhhh) and some of it was good. So we decided to write about the date. 10/10/10. I love numbers and it's such fun to see dates that do things like be consecutive (8/9/10) and today 10/10/10. It really was a top 10 kind of day. The weather was perfect and although both our teams lost, we had 7 people over for supper this evening and that definately was a 10! It was so nice we were able to eat outside and then sit talking for a very long time. Hope your 10/10/10 was a 10 for you!

Saturday, October 9, 2010

Well is this pitiful or what. Poor Lucy, she's apparently had an allergic reaction to something and has been chewing at her bottom. So the doc gave her a shot and said she had to wear the cone thingy for 2 weeks....like that's going to happen. She's pretty embarassed and won't come out of her room....thought you would like to see what she looks like in her cone. OK, I can hear you laughing from here!

Friday, October 8, 2010

Friday evening with friends...this is Joe and Gail...we've been friends with them for a lot of years and always enjoy an evening at their house. Too bad they're not baseball fans. We had to keep looking up the score on papa/gumps phone. We were excited at 4-0, not so happy at 4-3 and at the end we really weren't happy! But the evening with friends was great!

Thursday, October 7, 2010

It's been a really hot and dry summer, so they say the leaves won't be as pretty this fall as they usually are. I always enjoy our walks around our neighborhood because we have so many beautiful trees....not so much this October! Well, except for this tree right outside our parking lot. It's a sugar maple and when the sun shines on it, it's absolutely beautiful...all green, gold, orange and red leaves - all at the same time. I hope you get to see a beautiful tree like this.

Wednesday, October 6, 2010

Sick kitty....we're not sure she's really sick, but we do know she doesn't feel well. When she does walk around her little tail is down, sure sign she's not well. We think it's probably a reaction to the smell from the new carpet. So she's spent the last two days on the futon and we've been taking turns trying to make her feel better. Poor Lucy

Tuesday, October 5, 2010

So I said to your papa/gump, the kids haven't seen a picture of us for a long time, do something so I can take a picture of you...and he says to me "this IS what I do"....so here's a picture of your papa/gump watching poker on ESPN...."this is what he does"

Monday, October 4, 2010

Not so exciting news for you, very exciting news for us! New carpet in the two bedrooms....it's been 11 years since we had new carpet and Lucy said she was really getting tired of throwing up on the old ones. On Sunday night we had to move everything...even dust bunnies out of the two bedrooms (except the bed) and then tonight we had to put it all back...yikes what a job. Poor Lucy had to spend the entire afternoon in the bathroom....she really was unhappy with me...but when we had the hardwood installed she tried to eat one of the guys and they said they wouldn't come back unless we locked her up...oh well, she survived and the installer survived and we have great new green carpet! YEA

Sunday, October 3, 2010

Today's the crazy day we have to remove everything from our two bedrooms so we can get new carpet laid tomorrow! Everything but the beds and dressers (without the drawers).....we have WAY too much stuff and I'm not sure if it will all go back in! Anyway, we decided we should fortify ourselves for this awesome task with a few Five Guys burgers and fries and, of course, peanuts. So glad you weren't here Christian...really good for us....not so much for you! So now we're home, with happy tummys and working like crazy to get this place ready for new carpet. Maybe I'll post pictures of the new stuff tomorrow.

Saturday, October 2, 2010

Dinner and a movie night at the Don's. We had a great evening with friends having a good supper and then watching Godspell. This is a very old movie....made after a stage play from the 70s. It tells the story of the Gospels in song and story using New York City as a setting. If you haven't seen Godspell...rent it now and watch..the music is fun and the scenery and costumes are great!

Friday, October 1, 2010

Today is October 1st and the beginning of Breast Cancer Awareness Month. It's a very important challenge to find a cure for this terrible disease. There was an exhibit on Fountain Square today that had lots of information and pink ribbons every where and a bunch of decorated bras that were going to be auctioned off. This is a Nissan Z with a "car bra" and women were being asked to sign it as they went past. If you look carefully you can see my name and "Covington KY" below it. You may see lots of people running, walking or doing other activities to raise money for Breast Cancer research.....cheer loudly for them!