November 2022

 With the holidays I got a little behind on the blog.  Let me spend today getting caught up!

Thomas and Brennan were home over Thanksgiving and once earlier in the month as well. It's always good to have them home.  And the dogs enjoy it too!

Bailey and Brennan

Remy, Thomas, and Brennan

We had a great time celebrating Thanksgiving with the Borowskis and Towsleys.  Our friendships go back about 30 years, when David and Scott were at Ga. Tech together, and when we were all new in our careers at Cummins.  With 7 kids between us, 3 are out of college, 2 are about to graduate, and 1 is going into the Peace Corps next month.  It's fun to get the gang back together.

We also got to celebrate Ginger!  With a Thanksgiving birthday, she doesn't get to celebrate much so we took her out for an afternoon with the ladies.

I joined my friend Lisa and her mom in West Virginia for an overnight trip to the Blenko glass company in Milton, WV.  We had a great time shopping and catching up. 

We stayed in Huntington, WV and toured Marshall University.  This is the site of the memorial to the football players and staff who perished in a plane crash in the early 1970s.

And here I am with very big hair.  Cindy, Laura, and I dreamed up a Dolly Parton party in honor of her latest album that came out - Diamonds & Rhinestones.

We went overboard on the decorations, the hair, and the FUN.  The evening included a choreographed dance that a bunch of us ladies rehearsed with our choreographer friend Rhonda.  Another fun night with friends.

Cindy, Bonnie, and Laura

 Part of the 12 person dancing crew - Brittany, Bonnie, Cindy, Laura, Karen, and Violet

And we joined the Hacks for Trivia at Luciana's one night.  Our success story was one for the trivia books - we started well behind all the other times and came back to win.  Incredible :)  It doesn't hurt that Gene and Laura are educators.

October 2022

 David and I got home from our 30th anniversary trip and 10 days later I left to volunteer at an English Immersion school in southern Germany.  I opted out of going to Germany in January (brrrrrr) and instead took them up on their offer to attend the program as a volunteer in October.  

Unfortunately when I arrived in Munich, I tested positive for Covid.  My symptoms were resolved but I could not be around so many people.  Instead I had to figure out what to do in Germany for a week.  I made it work.  Solo travel in an international country turned out to be OK.  I stayed safe and stayed within my comfort zone, and saw so many amazing places.  I'll put all of that in a separate post sometime when I can really organize it all.  But for now, here is the rest of October 2022 for us!

We enjoyed some great nights out with friends during the beautiful month of October.  The weather was really great all month and the fall colors were just beautiful this year!

(hi Coco!)

David and I took advantage of early voting one day

And we celebrated David's birthday with friends at our book club, and at our go to favorite place in town.  Homemade Black Forest cake - recipe from Germany, I had to translate it first!

That weekend we met up with the boys in the nearby town of Franklin and had lunch, presents, and then the boys came home to see their dogs.  It was a nice weekend to hang out a bit.

We shopped at a sweet bookstore in Franklin (we all love a book store)

And the dogs were very excited that their boys came home.

Speaking of the dogs, they are doing just fine.

Here's little Bailey who is going to be 9 in a couple of months.

And Remy who is just 4 this year.

They protect our backyard, front yard, and neighborhood from threats like UPS and other dogs being walked, even on a rainy day.

David and I went to Brown County Music Center and saw Johnny Depp (!!!) and Jeff Beck in concert.  Crazy night.  Johnny was the only one who sang and neither of them really talked with the crowd much but it was fun to be out on a school night :)

The back of the concert t-shirt

October 24th was a hard day as it would have been my mom's birthday.  We miss her and Carolyn every day.  

I went with Ginger and John to see Broadway's Abby Mueller at the Cabaret at the Commons.  It was a really great concert.  We are so lucky to have so many talented artists coming to our neck of the woods.

Brittany and I promoted our romantic comedy podcast in our community as we were invited to help kick off our local Film Festival.  We had a great time with the promotions and preparing for the festival, which is a fundraiser for a local family center. (Our podcast is RomCom Love and we have recorded 100 episodes!)

We had a nice turnout for our Live event at the theater.  We watched "Something's Gotta Give" and then recorded the 100th episode.  Fun night and we are thankful to Mike and David and so many of our friends for coming out.

Finally - we had a great night on Halloween.  The weather was perfect and there were a lot of families out.  A teacher who lives not too far from us in a different neighborhood said they had 1000 kids!  Halloween is alive and well in Columbus!

Happy Holidays!

September 2022

 September was a big month as we got to see the boys over Labor Day and enjoyed the beautiful weather with some outdoor activities, and then celebrated our 30th wedding anniversary in Europe!

It is always great to have Thomas and Brennan home!  We usually create a good meal together, hang out with the dogs and the boys talk computers together.  Looking forward to seeing them both this weekend to celebrate David's birthday.

I went on a hike at Yellowwood State Forest with friends.

And David and I took the dogs to Bernheim Forest in Kentucky for an afternoon of hiking.  They LOVE a road trip.

Two of the 3 giants we hike to at Bernheim

The walk out to see the forest canopy

We found our brick on the 1821 Bicentennial Trail that's been expanded downtown Columbus.  They had not even grouted it yet.

Brennan attends events at the art museum in West Lafayette and he heard about a dog event so Bailey got to tag along.  

I understand he did really well at Brennan's apartment and with all the other dogs at the event.

Bailey loves to have his photo taken.  Here he's posing with his bone.

David and I were so lucky to get to go to Europe for our 30th.  We could not have asked for better weather.  We chose to do a Central Europe rail trip of 3 cities along the Danube River.  We flew into Budapest, Hungary for a couple of days.  Then we took the train to Vienna, Austria for 2 days, and then we took the train to Prague, Czech Republic for another couple of days.  It was a really great trip!

Here are a few photos of our time in Budapest.  I really enjoyed seeing this capital city.  It was a lot more modern than I expected it to be.  And just so clean and pretty.

We also enjoyed Vienna.  It had been a very long time since I had been there.  I really didn't remember much.  We toured Schonbrunn Palace and a lot of the old city.  Our hotel was in a newer, more modern part of the city so it was nice to see both sides.  

And then on to Prague.  I think I was most excited to get to know Prague since I've heard such great things.  It measured up for sure!

These are just a FEW of the photos we took.  September is a great time of year to visit Europe!

Happy Fall Y'all!