Katrina's graduation from RIT

I know it's a shock, but I'm actually blogging already. We went to Rochester for my niece Katrina's graduation from Rochester Institute of Technology. She graduated with highest honors with a bachelor degree of fine arts in illustration. She also received a medal for "Outstanding Undergraduate Scholar" at a special banquet a few weeks ago for keeping her grades at a high level for the four years she attended. It was really special to be there to see her graduate and we were all very excited for her and this new chapter she is starting in her life. There are pictures of Katrina and her grandparents(my parents), and one with her mom and dad. The last one is the celebration meal we had at Bugaboo Creek Steakhouse. In that picture you will see Katrina in the front, her dad to her right, then her brother-in-law Tim, her sister Janina, Denise and my sister-in-law Jackie, my mom, my sister Denise, me and last Art. We all had a great time. It was a short trip, but we wouldn't have missed it for the world. Congratulation again Katrina on a great job!

A culmination of events

Ok, it's been a long, long time since I last blogged. So I decided to put a few different events in. There is a picture of Casey walking in the Park with Art and one of him trying on the hat Matt wore at the reception we had when they first got married. Then we got together for Easter with Sarah, Kevin, Libby, Matt, Katie, Casey and Morgan. We had a nice time and it was a nice sunny day, so we took some spring photos. One of Katie and Morgan, and then some of Casey having an Easter Egg hunt. He loved picking up the eggs and finding jelly beans inside. He ate them right away and decided to toss the quarters he found in some of them into the grass. After all, they didn't taste like jelly beans, and had no value he could see. He also decided at one point to make a circle around the yard and walk under a metal flag holder I had in the grass. Pretty funny, you had to be there. We went to Lunken Airport on Saturday for the celebration for the vets. We went there hoping the day would clear up, since it was going to be rainy, but clearing later in the day. When we got there it started to sprinkle, but by the time we got to the tent and grabbed a seat, it was pouring. It rained for a good 20min to a half hour. We couldn't hear most of the ceremony since it rained so hard. We almost lost the tent one time when a gust of wind picked it up at the corner, but Matt ran over quick and grabbed the corner pole and re-set it. We all kept a watch on it the rest of the time since it kept threatening to pop out again. There is a cute picture of Morgan all bundled up in her stroller. It was breezy too, so we were a little chilly. There are also a couple of shots of Casey sitting in a firetruck and a hummer. He was a little reluctant to get too close at first, but we all encouraged him to go see it and sit in the seat. He kept saying "no firetruck noise".

Finally, there are some pictures of Casey pushing his car/cart in our driveway on Tuesday evening when Katie, Matt and Morgan went to get Ringo. He got going pretty fast downhill, but Art was there to put the brakes on for him. Whew, I am going to try to keep up better next time.

Welcome Morgan

It's been an eventful few days, and I am finally getting around to posting pictures of our new granddaughter, Morgan Julianne. She is a beautiful little baby. I haven't had much experience with baby girls, but I am looking forward to the adventure. Here is a few of the pics. One of Morgan and I at the hospital the day after she was born, and the other two are on her first day at home.

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.