Real Life Legos

Yes, we are very happy with our decision to leave this one to the professionals...

...And happy that the professionals like us enough to leave us a smiley face on our dusty basement window!

Handyman Tenderfoot

When we moved into our new house, we learned that a long time ago there used to be a koi pond in the concrete outlined area (now filled with dirt and mulch) in the back of our yard.  The koi pond was then transformed into a vegetable and herb garden, and it is now a mulch bed (with hopes to be a veggie garden...next year...)

We also learned that some of our concrete window wells were falling apart, and we thought better to get those babies replaced before our plant beds collapsed into the windows of our basement.  We had the front window well repaired (there was only a little damage), but the rear window well needed to be completely replaced.  (We are right in the middle of replacing that one!)

We decided to leave digging the 5' deep hole to the professionals!

But, in the process of having the front window well repaired, Brian learned how to do some concrete repair work, and decided that rather then paying someone to fix our 'future' veggie garden, he would do it himself!  I am so proud of my 'learning to be handy' husband!  You will be proud of him too!

Before.  It is evident where the repair is needed, right?!

Look at that near perfect framing!!

And perfect mixing!

Jack plays the 'Project Manager' roll.

And sits patiently waiting for the next layer!

Now, we sit and wait for it to dry!

And there you have it - a perfect repair!


I am extremely impressed!  And I can honestly say that if handyman-ness were anything like the boyscouts, Brian just advanced from Handyman Scout to the first rank - Handyman Tenderfoot!

I love you, Handyman Husband!

Operation 60th Anniversary Cake Topper

About a week and a half ago, Brian's Grandma asked me to create a cake topper for their 60th anniversary.  I have never in my life created a cake topper, mind you, but I'm always up for a challenge and I love to get creative, so I thought, 'what the hey, of course I'll do it!'.  I was given free reign with any ideas that I came up with.  The only thing I was told was that the colors were purple and white.  As I started brainstorming, I came up with a few ideas and ultimately decided that while I didn't have anything really set in stone, and I wasn't quite sure how all of these ideas would blend together, I would just get started and figure it out along the way.  And figured it out is what we did!  (Yes, Brian helped!)

I started by gathering a few supplies: styrofoam, a plastic top, moss, and sticks from our very own yard.

Moss 'n sticks.

Then, I covered the styrofoam that I glued to the plastic top with the few different types of moss that I bought.  (I wasn't sure if you could just stick styrofoam on top of icing, so I decided to play it safe!)


Moss covered styrofoam.


Then, I added two white paper flowers and started glueing together some of the sticks that I found and cut:

White paper flowers 'n sticks.

After I let the styrofoam, plastic top, moss, flowers, 'n sticks dry for a few hours, I took a card that I had made previously and started working on the subjects of the cake topper.

One of my fav cards!

Finally, I added a banner (compliments to Brian for coming up with the 'flag' idea.  Originally it was a cut out '6o', but the banner really adds so much, and was much easier to cut out!)

Voilà!


Last, but certainly not least, we added said topper to the cake the day of the celebration:



And it fit wonderfully!


I was extremely pleased with how it turned out and had a lot of fun making it.  Plus, it seemed Brian's grandparents were happy with it as well!

The cake topper with the honorees.



Operation 60th Anniversary Cake Topper was definitely a success!



Happy wonderful 60th Anniversary, Morris & Marilyn!

Weather Lore

I was once told about a saying:

Red at night, sailor's delight
Red in the morning, sailor's warning

It was in reference to the sky.  If the sky was red at night, then the weather forecast was good and the sailor's could sail on.  If the sky was red in the morning, then the weather forecast was not so good and the sailor's should take heed if sailing on.

This morning, while on the water, the rain started pouring from the sky.  All nine of us sat in our boat, rowing through the rain, awaiting the next few sheets of rain that were harder than the last.  It rained, it rained harder, and then, just as quickly as it came, it stopped.  I enjoyed every minute of it, but, as I gazed around the sky, I didn't see any red, only gloomy, looming dark gray clouds, inevitably forecasting more rain.

Oddly enough, at the end of practice the sun was shining, but the forecast for today is rain, rain, and more rain.  Perhaps the 'red in the morning' adage only holds true if you are on the ocean, or if you get up earlier than I did!

Dirty Frank's Hot Dog Palace

This past weekend we had another visit with some wonderful out of town guests - my grandparents!  They drove in from Maryland on Friday, arrived just in time for dinner, stayed through the weekend, and left on Monday morning when Brian and I both had to get to work.  It was plenty of time to get into trouble!

On Friday night we headed to El Vaquero, a mexican restaurant right down the street from us, and then headed to Goodale Park for a short stroll to walk off all the rice and beans!  The next day, we started off with a visit to Dirty Frank's Hot Dog Palace.  (Side note: For those of you that have never eaten here, you must!  It is what I would call a 'gourmet hot dog restaurant', if you've ever heard of such a thing, but the hot dog concoctions are out of this world!  There are so many good dogs to choose from AND, if you are vegetarian, you can replace the normal all beef hot dog with a tofurkey veggie dog!  You have to look at the menu here.  It.is.amazing!)

After we were stuffed with hot dogs, we headed to Jeni's ice cream.  (Another Columbus, OH must eat.)  And, since there's always room for ice cream, we sampled and taste tested and bought a little scoop for each of us!  We spent the rest of the day making cupcakes and guacamole (ignore the weird combination) for a Father's Day picnic we were attending on Sunday, ordered Donatos pizza (yet another Cbus, OH must eat), shared a bottle of wine, celebrated Grampy's birthday, and watched The Fighter.

On Sunday, we celebrated all of our Fathers and Grandfathers at said picnic which was complete with all the summer essentials: a pool, lemonade, iced tea, tons of good food, great company, and even squirt guns!  It was a fantastic way to celebrate the day and lovely end to a magnificent weekend!

It was so wonderful to see you both, Grammie & Grampy!

(Our weekend appears to be food driven, but I can assure you it was 'spending quality time but also needing to eat' driven! Plus, we had so many good things to introduce to our visitors, and you've got to experience the local cuisine when you are on vacation, right?!)

Written In the Stars Pizza

You don't have to search within. You don't have to ponder relentlessly for an answer. All you have to do is make a pizza!

I still wonder if Brian knew what he was getting himself into by putting a ring on my finger...

(By the way, Jack didn't "sample" the pizza crust before we made this pizza. It was a frozen crust, and we had a hard time peeling it away from the other frozen crust so little bits ended up breaking off. Sounds appetizing, huh?! Sometimes you've gotta do what you've gotta do.)

From Maryland to O-Hi-O

My Mom, Scott, and James came into town to visit this weekend.  We are trying to soak up our visits as much as we can before their great move to Canada.  (7 hours in a car is much easier than 13!)

We went canoeing, we had lunch at Katzinger's, we had a water balloon fight, we had a BBQ, Mary & Tom came over, we celebrated Mom's birthday, (and my birthday in a round about way - thanks, Amy!), we played Cornhole, we squashed in bed and had a big slumber party (I'm not kidding - it was Brian, me, James, and Jack in one bed for two nights!), we laughed, we joked, we carried on, we drank, we hugged, and we thoroughly enjoyed each other's company!

It was wonderful to have them in town!

Europe in HDR

As many of you know, and for those of you that don't know, Brian is an avid photographer.  He loves learning new techniques about photographing images, people, stadiums, etc, and I highly doubt he will ever tire of the hobby.  I think it's a great hobby!  There are some unbelievable photos out there and someone has to take them, right?!  Plus, I tend to like photography too, and it gives me the opportunity to play around with some high tech equipment that I usually wouldn't be able to use.  Typically, my handy dandy point and shoot Canon PowerShot SD1400 IS Digital Elph tucked away in one of my pockets is enough to keep me happy, but every now and then I get a wild hair and want to shoot with the Big Dog.  (Brian's professional camera...)

Knowing that we were headed to an incredibly beautiful part of the world, ah hem, Europe, we decided that not only would we pack our pocket cameras for our quick photo ops but we would also bring the Big Dog for our more sophisticated, artsy, professional shots.  And we got some unbelievable shots!

Currently, Brian has been exploring HDR(I), or High Dynamic Range Imaging.  It is his latest and greatest endeavour on the camera front, and creates a very dramatic, almost unreal, image using three individual photographs taken at various settings.  Some of the HDR photos that he created are amazing!  You have to see for yourself!  Click on the image below to explore some of our favs from European Vacation through the Big Dog!

Prague, Czech Republic

Neither Brian nor I have ever visited Prague, but we heard nothing but good things about the city, and we had both been told that it is absolutely beautiful.  That, we found, is an understatement.

Prague is stunning.  The gothic architecture, surrounded by Baroque architecture, surrounded by Renaissance architecture leaves one wandering with mouths wide open, speechless.  For the 3.5 days that Brian and I stayed in Prague, we never got sick of the gorgeous buildings, cathedrals, and houses that we were surrounded by.  It was incredible.  Every time we ventured out in the city it came alive.  It looked different in the morning than it did midday, evening, or at night, but all were equally just as pretty as the other in a very different way.

We arrived in the late afternoon via a luxury bus which we picked up from Nurmberg, Germany.  We had previously taken a first class train ride to Nurmberg from Stuttgart.  (We both agreed that first class was amazing!  We had our own little carriage, with a sliding glass door, and six seats all to ourselves!  We were spoiled!)  When we arrived in Prague, a driver from our hotel picked us up and transferred us to the hotel.  Talk about front door service!  We arrived at Hotel Černý slon (aka Hotel 'Black Elephant') on Saturday evening and were already amazed at the beautiful city!

(By the way, Hotel Černý slon was fabulous!  It was right in the heart of the center, we could walk everywhere, there was a complimentary amazing continental breakfast every morning, the staff was friendly, we had rides arranged to and from the train station and airport, and it was by far the best, most convenient, and most comfortable place to stay.  We were so happy with the selection!  Anyone venturing to Prague needing a place to stay should definitely look into this hotel!)

The first evening we were there, on Saturday, we were just so excited to be in Prague that we picked up a map from our hotel and just started wandering our way to [some of] the touristy spots.  At first, it was difficult to navigate.  The Czech language is not similar to any language we've ever seen and words are not similar to any words we are familiar with, but once we got used to the map, the language, and the city, we were good to go!

We wandered around Prague's Old Town Square, which was right around the corner from our hotel, saw the Astronomical Clock, the Church of Our Lady before Tyn (our neighbor to our hotel!), and the Church of St. Nicholas.  Then, we headed toward Charles Bridge, only the most visited Gothic bridge in Prague, and grabbed a quick bite to eat!  We were so excited to be in Prague!

On Sunday, we awoke early and once again made our way to all the hot spots around Prague.  Our first stop was Prague Castle, though we hit the Old Town Square, Astronomical Clock, Charles Bridge, and the Strahov Monastery (in a round about way) before we even got to the castle!  We were amazed at the lack of people around.  We awoke relatively 'early' for vacation, I guess, but the town seemed completely dead from what we had witnessed the night before!  It was very quiet!

We ended up traipsing around Prague all day!  We walked every where and saw so many beautiful things!  The castle was unlike any castle we have ever seen.  As a matter of fact, we didn't even know we were in the castle when we were!  It was like a small village!  We toured different buildings, saw St. Vitus Cathedral, which is stunning, by the way, walked through the castle gardens, and got to check out the famous Dancing Building.  We did all of this before our Segway tour that night!

When we actually did do the Segway tour, we learned so much and saw so many different sites in Prague that we didn't even know about.  It was a lot of fun, after we got over the initial dorky feeling!

We spent our last day in Prague relaxing on the Vltava River.  We went to the local Tesco, a grocery store in Prague, stocked up on some wine, beer, cheese, crackers, and cookies, and had a make shift picnic on a paddle boat!  The weather was beautiful, and the views were absolutely incredible!  I will say, the Vltava River is not the cleanest thing you've ever seen, but paddle boating was a lot of fun, so it was well worth it!  Plus, it was nice to be able to have a day to relax, soak up all the beauty of being in such a fantastic city like Prague, and enjoy our last day on our European vacation!

All in all, and I know this is an extremely long post as it is but I just have to say this last bit, Prague was incredible!  The history, the beauty, the architecture, everything is all so interesting.  We hope that rubbing the plaque of St. John of Nepomuk holds true and returns us to this lovely city one day!

Click on the photo below to view our pictures from Prague!

Haribo Heaven!

I know I've mentioned this before, but I seriously would move to Germany based solely on the gummy selection, and I am not kidding.

Haribo is everywhere!  It is not only everywhere, but it is also always accompanied by the greatest selection. And they are all amazing!


Here is an example of the Haribo selection, at a gas station, mind you!

And here is an example of the gummy selection at the train station!

Now that I think about it, perhaps it is better that I don't have the daily temptation...!

A Proper Cahstle

We started the day off going nearly 146 miles per hour down the unlimited speed zone of the German autobahn in my Dad's Z06.  OMG!  I realized that I have no need for speed, and riding in a car that was going that fast scared the living daylights out of me!  (Not my Dad's driving, that is, but the fact that you have absolutely no idea what other cars are going to do.)  His Corvette is the hottest, sexiest, sweetest ride I have ever riden in, and probably ever will for that matter!  We each took a turn in the passengers seat, and braced ourselves for the rides of our lives!  It's an incredible car, and it is unbelievable how fast it accelerates from zero!  Thanks for sharing your toy with us, Dad!

After our lighting speed, we drove down to the Hechingen area of Germany (in a regular car) and visited the Hohenzollern Castle.  This has got to be the most proper castle we have ever seen!  It is situated smack dab on the top of a hill that overlooks all the land around it.  It is complete with proper crenelated walls, towers, lookouts, sheer dropoffs, and a swirly, twisty, windy route to the top of the castle!  The Hohenzollern family really perfected midieval castle architecture, and it is evident in this castle!

It was a beautiful, relaxing day, and a wonderful way to spend our last day in Germany together with my Dad.  Tomorrow we are off to the Czech Republic to visit the wonderful city of Prague!

Ribeauvillé, France

Ahhh, France!  I cannot tell you how beautiful the Alsatian wine region of France is, and my words won't do the area justice.  You just have to go and see for yourself!

Today, we hopped in the car and drove into France for a trip down the Route des vins d'Alsace (wine route of Alsace) and headed to Ribeauvillé - a small, quaint, gorgeous little town along the wine route.  It was a wonderful day!  The weather was perfect, and the wine route was just fantastic!  There were vineyards as far as the eye could see, and we passed through 10 or 15 unbelievable little wine towns similar to Ribeauvillé before we reached our final destination.  Every where we looked was a stunning view of something French - vineyards, cottages, storks, tarte flambées, hanging baskets, etc - and we thoroughly soaked up the French culture! 

When we arrived in Ribeauvillé, we headed to a restaurant tucked away in a small alley.  We devoured the most incredible quiche lorraine, tarte flambée, and wine.  The French really know how to do food!  After lunch, we walked around town, picked up some macaroons, and the most delicious French strawberry pastry things.  (I couldn't tell you what they were called, but I will say that the three of us were in 100% agreement that they were the best desserts we have ever had!  They were some kind of strawberry shortcake, times a million, and the pastry, strawberries, filling, entire concoction was to die for!

Today's trip was definitely a highlight, and Brian and I have decided that we must explore more of France!

We.heart.Ribeauvillé!

Heidelberg, Not to be Confused with Hindenburg...

Yesterday, Brian and I headed to Heidelberg, Germany - a great walled city situated right along the River Neckar about an hour and fifteen minutes away from Stuttgart.  We hopped in my Dad's car, set the Garmin to Heidelberg Castle and started on our way!  Surprisingly, the Garmin lead us right up to zee cahstle.  (Yes, I purposely said 'zee cahstle' expecting it to be read exactly as it sounds because that is how I was talking the entire trip!)  And, not surprisingly, we couldn't park in front of zee cahstle, so we headed down to the market place in the old center area and got a public parking spot.

We could not have planned our parking better.  We were smack dab in the middle of the market place and were certainly impressed with our chance parking!  We were able to walk around town, grab a quick lunch at a Lebanese restaurant called 'Sahara', take a funicular back up to zee cahstle, grab some amazing views from said cahstle, and head back down to the Old Bridge where we were able to grab some more amazing views!

It was cloudy and slightly chilly but not cold enough to prevent us from being touristy!

That night, we when returned back to my Dad's house, we headed to Funzel in Sindelfingen and had some authentic German roast beef, spatzel, sauerkraut, and beer!  It was probably the best meal we have had so far!  But, we decided that the next time that we eat at Funzel we will probably split one dish!  The portions were humongous!

Today, we headed to the Koenigstrasse, the downtown area of Stuttgart.  We went to the Schlossplatz, the largest square in the center of the city, and home of the Neues Schloss (New Cahstle).  It was very chilly today, and we were happy with the decision to scratch our original plans of heading into Strasbourg, France, with a relaxing day in Stuttgart.  We'll have to save Strasbourg for our next visit!

Tonight, we went to Tanz der Vampire (Dance of the Vampires), a musical at the Palladium Theater, where I, once again, got in trouble for taking a picture before the show had even started.  I'm beginning to notice that cameras are not allowed in more places than I have originally recalled!  The musical was entirely in German, but it was fantastic and highly entertaining!  We may have missed the funny one liners, as was evident when the audience broke out into laughter and the three of us just sat there in silence with our eyes transfixed on the scene, but we got the jist of the story, and it was a great performance!  What made it even better was the song that we instantly recognized from the play!  We heard the German remake of "Total Eclipse of the Heart", and it was definitely entertaining knowing the lyrics but hearing them in German!

We've just been having so much fun on vacation!