Casey's spot to read

This was so cute, I had to put a picture on the blog. I put this stool in front of the door because Casey wanted to sit on the floor there to watch the outside. After I placed it there he sat down for a minute and watched the traffic. He then took his water cup, what was left of his waffle and his book and this is where he spent the next 15-20 minutes. So cute

Pittsburgh Steelers Game

Well, we enjoyed our trip to Pittsburgh. Unfortunately the Steelers didn't win. You always want to see your team win when you are there in person. We went to the Hall of Fame area before the game and took a few photos of Art's favorite things. One of him standing in front of the Superbowl trophy from 2005, one of His favorite player's locker, Jack Lambert. Also a photo of the last coach, Bill "The Jaw" Cower holding the trophy. And last, a picture of Art and I just before the game all "jerseyed up".

We had one "fun" time while we were there. The hotel we stayed in had a nice big room. We even had a fridge and microwave we didn't expect to have. The fridge came in very handy and everything was nice about the room. The elevator situation was however on life support. Literally! When we arrived there was only one of the two that were working. When we stepped into the only working elevator, I noticed that several of the floor buttons were taped over with red tape. The ground floor button was hanging from a spring. All this did not instill great confidence in this elevator working up to par. It made funny noises the door was slow to open a few times. The card posted in the elevator stated only 10 persons allowed. This wouldn't have been such an issue on an elevator that was in good working order. We were on the top, 7th, floor of the hotel. On our the ride down on Sunday morning we had 8 people on by the time we reached the 6th floor. Two people got on, and we said that's it. It stopped again on the 5th floor and a couple of people besides me wanted the one lady, who wanted to get in, to wait for the next elevator. She didn't seem to want to wait and got in. It was more than just me that wasn't thrilled with this. You could see they understood the fragility of the elevator too. This was one of the times it was slow to start and stop and the door took it's time opening. I was glad to get out of there. I never have been a real fan of elevator rides anyway, this elevator didn't help my opinion at all. We found out when we came back to the hotel to change for the game that the only elevator left was not working either. Not only that, I met a lady in the stairway, (on my way up to the 7th floor!), who said her husband had been trapped on the elevator between floors. Ok, I knew something like that would happen. It was no joy to walk up and down 7 floors and we let the front desk know it. It was fixed by the time we came back from the game, but I wasn't convinced it would work, so I walked up the stairs again. Art can tell you, I was not pleased with the whole elevator situation.

Elevator aside, we enjoyed our visit to Pittsburgh.

Visit to Rochester

It's been a while, as usual, since I blogged. I went up to Rochester to visit my family last week. It was the first time I drove there from here and it was a long tiring trip each way. But I know what to expect next time.

I had a good time just hanging out with my family. My mom, my sister Denise, and my niece Janina went to "Color Me Mine" one day. I think we spent about 5 hours there painting things. It takes a while to pick out what you are going to paint, then pick out your colors before you even get started. It was a lot of fun, I could make a habit of painting pottery. There is a picture of the small platter I painted.

We also visited a horse rescue and sanctuary later in the week. Janina is going to volunteer there on Saturdays. She used to work at a horse stable, and she knows quite a bit about taking care of them. The couple at the sanctuary have their hands full, with about 28 horses at the present. Some were abused, others were race horses that were injured and going to be put down. The brown horse in the picture is blind in one eye and over thirty years old. I didn't know they lived that long. Denise is petting a Donkey named Jenny. She was very sweet and loved the attention. After we left her pen, she made all kinds of noise until he gave her some more hay to eat.

We took a couple of walks at one of my favorite spots, Tinker Homestead. They have a nice nature trail, and a nature center for educational programs. We saw deer up close on one walk, but unfortunately I didn't have my camera during that walk. I am standing behind a tree that was a rotted out shell. The amazing thing, if you look on the right, a small new trunk is growing out of it. It was hard to see well due to all the other tree trunks in the picture. I'm including a few interesting pictures of the woods and mushrooms growing on logs as well. All in all a very relaxing and wonderful family filled time away.

Route 127 sale and lost in Kentucky

I have heard of the longest yard sale a couple of times in the past year, but I kind of forgot about it. Then I spotted it on an e-mail I received last week. So, I decided to try it out. I left last Friday at about 10:30 in the morning and headed for Kentucky. It seemed to be the quickest place to catch route 127, and the most scenic. I took Anderson Ferry over to Kentucky and found 127 fairly easily and quickly. A lot of the route was commercial for a good bit at first. Then I found an estate sale and a couple of other sales along the way. The best spot was by Big Bone Park. It was interesting, and I met a lot of nice people. The main problem I had was getting home. I'm not a big highway person, so I try to find other roads to get places. I don't like fast highways, but I also like the side roads because of the scenery. The roads made all kinds of weird turns, some weren't marked. Needless to say, I took the long way around and it took me a couple of hours to get home. But I really enjoyed the scenery. The pictures are of one of the yard sales and some of the cars parked on lawns and along side the road. Some areas were really crowded with cars and people. Next year I need to get started early in the morning so I can cover more of the most populated areas.

The tomato offenders

There is also a picture of two of the tomato culprits sitting on our backyard fence. I couldn't resist snapping this pic, even though they are our backyard enemies at the present time. They sat lined up like this on the fence for quite a while. I thought it was hilarious.

How my garden grew this year

This is the first time in about 10 years that I have grown a vegetable garden. I had a lot of success with the tomatoes and eggplant. That is until the squirrels decided to browse the salad bar. I should be specific. They really only seem to like the tomatoes. I think they almost have had as many as we have. Almost daily we find a half eaten tomato in the backyard. They do seem to come back later to eat the rest of it, so we usually leave it for them so they won't pick another right away. I have tried putting Cayenne pepper on and around the plants with limited success. I think the next plan is to buy a motion detecting sprayer. It is hooked up to a hose and sprays water on the offending tomato thief. From what I have read this works pretty well, we will see. I have included a couple of pictures of some of my harvest and the veggie and herb garden, as well as a small one of the front flower bed.

I wanted to include a picture of my Crepe Myrtle bush. It seemed to take forever for it to get leaves on it. Finally it grew a nice bunch of leaves. Art was doing very well cutting around it when he did the grass. Until one fateful day, he mowed it right down to the ground. I wasn't sure it would come back, but it did start getting some new leaves. I went out and bought this metal flag to mark the spot so that wouldn't happen again. As you can see it is coming back good right now, hopefully to grow and bloom next season.

New Casey photos

Here is a picture of Casey relaxing in the recliner with the cow animals he likes. He came in the room and placed these in the chair and climbed in and sat down beside them. The other picture is of Casey sitting in his walker that he is obviously too big for. I haven't put it away yet and he still likes to play now and then with some of the toys. This day he wanted to get in, but I think once he tried it he realized it was too big.

For Katie

Katie this is for you. I know you rarely see Art in casual clothes that doesn't include a white t-shirt. So, I thought I'd include a picture of him when he was wearing a matching short set. Looks much better than his usual.

Casey's new water table

We bought Casey a new water table to use outside on hot days. He seemed to really enjoy playing with it, though his favorite thing to do seemed to be filling up his cup and dumping it down the front of himself. He also seemed to enjoy running around the patio table between douses. After coming in to dry off Casey found it funny to have the towel on his head. Cute Casey.

Pittsburgh pics

I couln't put these pics of the Pirate game on the last blog. I guess I used up my room. So, here they are. This is a really pretty city and a beautiful ballpark.

Rochester visit, Father's Day and Pittsburgh Pirates

Ok, I know it's been a while. So, I decided to write on a few things at once. First, we went to Rochester to visit with my family. We had a great time hanging out with everyone.
Art and I went down to Park Ave and walked up and down the street. For those of you who don't know, it's a very eclectic area of the city. We had lunch and visited the Parkleigh pharmacy. It's a neat place that has so much stuff in it, it's way more than a pharmacy. We bought some great bread and other tasty items at a local bakery. We had so much fun, I forgot to take any pictures. I kept telling Art that I needed to remember to take pictures, but the camera was getting left in the car, or in the room. So, I thought I'd put some old pics of past visits to Rochester.

I know Katie already put pictures on her blog of Father's day. But I thought I'd add a couple of the ones I took as well. The evening was enjoyed by all. Casey of course always steals the show. And why wouldn't he, he is after all the cutest baby in the world. But I may be biased. (And right)

Art and I went away to Pittsburgh for the weekend to see a couple of Pirate games. Friday nights game went to 11 innings with no score by either team. Finally in the 12 inning the Pirates scored a run. It was also fireworks night, so we stayed to enjoy them. Getting out of the city and back to the hotel was an adventure. It took us so long to get out of the city because of the amount of traffic and the construction. The road we wanted to take was closed and we had to follow a detour. Which wouldn't have been that bad if there wasn't wall to wall cars, and to top it off it was dark out and we weren't sure exactly how to go. The Saturday night game went better. To start out we found a parking lot that placed us right in front of the hi-way we needed to get on when we left the game. We scored two runs at the beginning of the game, and won the game as well. In fact we won both games we attended, that was certainly a plus. We got up on Sunday morning at 5:30 so we could make it back in time for Sarah's shower. The shower was very nice, Katie really did a lot of work to make it all happen without a hitch. It was a long day, and very busy, but enjoyable. I think that pretty much catches us up, until next time.....

Matt Home on Leave and Casey's 1st Birthday

I know it's been a while and this is going to seem a little old, but I had computer problems. I had to get a new mother board for my laptop, so I couldn't blog for a while. I never thought being without a computer would be such a hardship until I didn't have one for almost a month. I won't get into all the gory details how I finally got my internet to work once I got my computer back. Matt helped me out a lot when he was home getting my internet up and running. He also helped me go out and rent a rug machine to suck up the excessive water that seeped into the basement, and ultimately into our carpet from the downpours we had for a few days at the end of March. There is more to that story, but since I'm not sure how that's going to get ironed out yet, I'll hold off on the details for now.

It was great to see Matt again and difficult to see him go back to Iraq. But we know it won't be as long until we see him again. I've included a picture of one of the nights Matt, Katie and Casey came over for dinner. We went out and got a dining room table a week or so before Matt came back, so there would be enough room for everyone. It makes the dining room look so much nicer, and more formal.

We had Casey's birthday party today. It was fun time, thought Casey didn't know quite what to make of it. He enjoyed playing with all the new toys, but didn't seem to like getting messy eating his cake. I can't believe he is already one year old. It's all gone so fast, we've had such a great time learning to be grandparents and watching Casey grow into the cutest little boy. How can you argue with the pictures posted here today. We love you Casey!

Valentine's Day

I know it's been a while since I blogged. I thought I'd tell you about our Valentine's day. Those of you who know Art well will know he usually doesn't think much of this particular holiday. As far as he is concerned, it was invented by card companies to bring up their profits. Sometimes I get a card and sometimes I don't. So I didn't know what to expect this year. I decided to celebrate the holiday even if Art wasn't into it. I set the table with a red and pink theme, along with some heart shaped confetti. I topped it all off with a balloon I tied to the inside garage door knob, so he could see it when he came in to park the car.

He was plesantly surprised with all my efforts. I made him some of his favorite things for dinner and gave him a little polar bear wearing a sweater with a heart on it. I thought he might like it for his desk at work. That is in fact where it's home is now. Well, he had a surprise for me also. He not only gave me a card, he bought tickets to see the ballet version of Romeo and Juliet this past Sunday. I thought that was so romantic. That wouldn't have been one of the ways I would have described Art as of late. So, he threw me a curve. Needless to say we had a good time at the ballet, even though it did end in a tragedy. This Valentine's Day didn't.

A couple of new pics

I just thought I'd include a couple of new pictures of Casey. He was enjoying his afternoon snack when I decided to take a few pictures of him with the evidence on his mouth. He really enjoys having his picture taken. I had no trouble getting him to smile, he did it without any prompting. He seemed to like his garden vegetables. Pam

Holidays are over

Well, all is quiet after the holidays. We went to Rochester to visit my family for Thanksgiving this year. We were only there for three days, but it was worth the trip. We all met at Denise and Peter's home and had an enjoyable dinner, eating way too much of course. Our trip back and forth on the highway was uneventful, but a little long.

Katie, Casey and I went to the Cincinnati Zoo to see the lights just before Christmas. We actually did see some animals too, but in the dark we didn't see very many. It was a fun evening and one we will have to repeat in the years to come.

We went over to Katie's for Christmas morning. We had some great food for breakfast and opened presents. Then it was off to Cindy's for Christmas dinner and more presents. The food was great and so was the company. We are looking forward to many holidays spent with family and friends. We are especially looking forward to Matt's attendance at the next Thanksgiving and Christmas gatherings. Pam