Friends & Kids & Pumpkins & Apples & OTR

Today was a full throttle day from the time we woke up. Sydni was up at 3am to remind me that, "kids are coming over today!!!," and from there on out it was non-stop until our heads hit the pillow again. 

"honey, it's 3am. we still have a few hours."
- [skeptical response...]

First things first: Why pay a gutter service when you can just do it yourself?

do it yourself.

:). I was wrapping up the gutters just as Trish and the kiddos rolled up, jackets and snacks in hand, for an early afternoon of pumpkin painting and carving.

the girls (: 

mamas & kiddos

 Sarah made it out after work, with her daughter in tow. There were then 5 kids attacking one pumpkin..

paint, paint... and more paint! 

the aftermath? beautiful! 

 

Once the pumpkins had been thoroughly - and I mean thoroughly painted, the kids migrated to the front yard for some cardio and leaf-mud sandwiches [made, not eaten.. as a sidenote ;).. ]

gosh... love them ;) 

Soon enough, the kids departed, and we took a deep breath in preparation for round two: Jessica and Andrew soon arrived with their pumpkins. Sydni was off to her dad's for her father-daughter dance, so the grown-ups were left to their own devices.

great action shot of bumper & sasha! 

caramel apples!! nomnomnom

lol.. pumpkins ;) 

Round 2 of the day complete [carved pumpkins & caramel apples], we parted ways again to rest up and prepare for the evening, which was decidedly going to be spent in the bows of OTR.

We started our venture at 1215 Wine Bar, if you count our standing in one spot for 20 minutes deciding where the rest of the night would be spent. If that doesn't qualify, then we technically started with a pitstop at The Drinkery before they somehow coerced me into going to - and staying at - Japp's for more than a half hour.

yeah, so i guess when i'm photographed mid-laugh,
i look... super asian. ^_^

this folks, is what otr had to work with tonight...
oh i'm proud of this one.. hahaha.. 

that fan. we're music video superstars.... ;) 

We soon retired from the heat of Japp's and found our final grounds for the night: The Famous Neon's Unplugged!  

oh, lovely neons! 

runnin' the town.. into the ground [laaa dee daaaa... ]

we found chad!
ps - can't even be mad at the chick who bombed this...
.... she nailed it. #thanksdoodydood

nobody knows. 

that time jessica's hand was 2 feet in front of my face
& managed to still look insanely inappropriate.

i'm a cat. rob's an angry ghost.
#notsure...

some more of this.. 

... and consequently this, too. 

And it's Neon's, so there's Jenga...

we lost.

Along with a few hundred of our closest friends, we closed down Neon's and made one last pitstop for grub at Lucy Blue's before calling it a night.

pizza. because... yes. 

PHEW.
.. yes, this is backdated.. 

G'Nite!

xo | cmd

Entourage

TGIF!

pretty much.

Rob took off after work today to head back to Illinois for the weekend. It is after all, Father's Day weekend, so it was fitting for him to go for a visit. I wasn't sure if I would make any plans, but as is typically the case, random plans materialized, and I wound up down in OTR with the usual suspects.


trio!

Plus a guest appearance by Beth!

heya, beth!

And that's a wrap, folks! We're back at Nader's now watching Family Guy re-runs and consuming copious amounts of Ramen.. sure, here's to the weekend! 

#noshameramenpigs.

G'Nite!

 

xo | cmd

Night Owlin'

We're doing pretty well on the whole laying low thing so far.

Today was a day of rolling out of bed when we darn well felt like, staying in PJ's until the early afternoon, and taking our sweet time on everything else after that.

I took to running some errands, which were done at such a leisurely pace that I was almost convinced that they were fun instead of being done out of necessity. Rob lazed around a bit until I got home, at which point he did his deeds for the day by mowing the lawn and weed eating.

Like I said, not too much to report from the bulk of the day.

We decided to get out of the house for the evening. It's funny that we can't seem to sit still even when we try, but I will admit there is an entirely different vibe in the air whenever our missions are crafted out of sponenaeity, rather than extensive orchestration involving like, 15 people.

Ironically enough, we did wind up running with a crowd just shy of 15 people, at least that's how it felt. We hadn't been to OTR in a while, so we opted for that.

out on the town with this guy ;)
love.. love.. love him.

Naturally, that means I'm usually on my own in a mass of derpy dudes; Carolina wasn't available tonight so I was left on a solo mission to keep up with the rowdies. It wasn't hard. These goonies aren't strangers. (:

carolina... where are you.. haha..

take 2.

[*sings the rembrandt's song from friends*]

Oy. Haha.

love you, aweesome nerd ♥

l-o-v-e. y-o-u.

That's a wrap on our sponetaneous little Saturday!
These night owls need to rise n' shine tomorrow for church.
G'Nite!

xo | cmd

Weekends Are Fun

What's a good Saturday without a late start, right? Hah...

By late start, I mean we managed to completely skip breakfast. By the time we were all up and functioning, it was nearly lunch time, so we bypassed any notions of venturing down to Taste of Belgium, and instead made a beeline for Eli's, which Jesse's never had.

.. Until today. Eli's never disappoints! 

eli's!

After lunch, we scratched our brains for somewhere to take Jesse that we've not already shown him. We settled on Jungle Jim's, which became the perfect opportunity to both give Jesse a tour of the place and restock our depleted supply of mocha. Additionally, we left with a new growler, a growler koozie [I didn't know they made those...], some various exotic versions of cheese, sausages, juices and chocolate.

in honor of marianne & ali:
jumex & cameron hughes!

jj spoils!

It wasn't surprising that it took nearly an hour and a half for us to wholly navigate through Jungle Jim's with the frequent stops to browse the various sections, so by the time we got back to the house, we were all ready to relax for a couple of hours before catching up with tentative evening plans.

pretty much the afternoon.....

Fast forward a few hours to when we all woke up from power naps, it was time to rendezvous with Carolina at Mango Tree. Sushi tonight was a deeefinitely a good call!

mango tree!

Halfway through dinner, we finally started making some solid plans for the rest of the evening; Carolina figured out where Nader & Co. would be, which meant a trip downtown. I hadn't even taken Rob down to any of the venues in the actual downtown district, so we figured it wouldn't hurt to try it out.

We met with Nader, Keith, Eric and few others at one of the Irish pubs, then tried out some wannabe-ritzy place about which I'd never even heard [which was a bust beyond belief]. It wasn't long before we came to the surprising realization that we'd actually rather be in OTR. Sure, OTR is fun, but we thought it was due time to switch things up. We didn't count on wishing we were back there. Hah.

So as it happened, OTR became our final destination for the evening. We greeted the typical crowds with a little more patience than usual, realizing that the alternatives at this point were ridiculous in comparison. We landed at The Drinkery, which coincidentally proved to be a miniature reunion for several different people that represent the various different parts of my life in Cincinnati before I started moving all over the country.

I ran into Lora.... love & miss this girl!


lora & me, circa 2009

Then I turned around and bumped into Justin Jeffre, a friend of mine from years ago that has quite the history both in Cincinnati and well, internationally, but that's neither here nor there... haha..



justin & me, circa 2008?ish?

And of course, it wouldn't have been any sort of night without some double trouble [just kidding, they're not trouble]! I saw Regina & Renata for the first time in probably eight years.

& tonight, with regina & renata!

And of course, my lovely friends, awesome boyfriend and visiting guest of the weekend were there with me tonight. It was the perfectly energetic, hilarious Saturday night & I'm thankful for every single minute of it! (:

On that note, goooood night blogbots (:

xo | cmd

Let The REAL Moving BEGIN!

Itty bitty backdated... it's whatevs.

It's gettin' real here at the new digs, folks.

saturday warm up!

The first thing I have to do is acknowledge Rob, Jesse & Anna as being saints for enduring the trip out here. I say that because apparently, in the midst of trekking out here, the boat trailor suffered a flat tire, which meant an extra goose chase to replace it. By the time they conquered slow speeds, hilly climbs in Cincinnati, road construction and general traffic, Jesse & Anna had named the apparent face on the boat from following it for so long. They were all ready to get out of the car. I don't blame them one bit.

With their unfortunate delay, I opted for a quick visit to the gym to get the muscles warmed up for the day. Plus, the UA's are still in the process of being properly broken in; we're getting there!

After some brief leg stretching, there was the matter of planting a boat in the driveway. It might've been a 15-minute ordeal, but eventually Rob managed to settle the Stingray into its home for the cold months. I would've had the thing halfway in the yard, so no complaints here.

boat & truck: parked like a pro!

Nobody had any real expectations of anything being unloaded today, so with that being said, we took a few minutes to all collect ourselves before readying for a night out in Cinci. I learned earlier this week that Magnolia Sons [the super-talented collection of artists from Nashville] was scheduled back to The Drinkery tonight, so we sculpted evening plans around that.

We attempted to visit Bakersfield for dinner; they were at occupancy capacity, so for the first time ever, I visited Taste of Belgium outside of standard brunch hours. Of course, that didn't stop us from ordering the usual chicken & waffles, appropriately replacing orange juice with some Belgium house brews. Nader & Keith joined us for the experience, and it wasn't long before we were finished there and en route to heart of OTR.

Drinkery it was. Magnolia Sons it was. Awesome set list, it was [again]. We were not disappointed.

... after finally managing this around nader's head haha.. magnolia sons!

'Twas a good night all around, definitely :). It's great to have some of Rob's friends visiting, even if everything right now is up in the air and all over the place as far as sleeping arrangements and whatnot. We're taking comfort in the fact that it will not always be like this, haha.

For now, we're back with the pups, who were proud today to sport their new collars and tags to the bunch. They're ready for some snuggling, and we're all ready to call it a night.

xo | cmd

Entertrainment Junction | Keepin' It Mellow

I made an executive decision today to take Rob somewhere in Cinci that he's not yet been. Usually, I would've reserved this type of field trip for a day when Sydni was also here, but she's already been at least once and he hasn't... so... yeah. Entertrainment Junction it was!

On our way up, we had the fortunately-safe experience of witnessing a high-speed, multi-patrol car chase up Highway 75; reading the newsfeed later on, we found it was a shoplifter who had run over a police officer's foot in her getaway mission from Northgate Mall. The chase ended within visible space just past the exit we took. I've never before actually seen a high speed chase happen.... definitely an exhilirating thing.

high speed chase? uhhh, sure.

We made it to EJ without being witness to any other calamity on the roadway, and when it was all said and done, we both agreed it was a worth a day trip.

didja know?

displays

more displays

me & my love | santa & a window washer ;)

And since we're back in Cincinnati, it meant today inevitably finding some familiar faces for the evening. It wasn't hard. Well, it almost was, after I passed out for about two hours in what felt more like a coma than a nap... but who's counting, right? Rob was nice enough to kick me off the couch and into something better than sweats so that we could head out for a little while. We didn't have any specific ideas, so we defaulted to OTR, land of Neon's, Rheinhaus and Co.

fireside @ neon's

outdoor fire pits & silly friends (:

We found Nader and Keith in no time, and I even ran into some even more familiar faces [Kyle!], and some characters from as far back as college [Sal, Renato & Mischa - hii!!]. Sometimes I forget what and who I'll find roaming around this town now that I'm back. Go figure (:

Easy night though. Church in the morning!

xo | cmd