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

Shopping Carts. All Day.

First things first:

aaaaaaaamen! 

Contrary to what most employees would say, I like when my business owners are here and engaged with the day-to-day activity of our business. We're a small, hands-on mission here, and we are fortunate enough to all work well together.

When the owners aren't here though, it creates a gap that obviously must be filled, and in some cases requires stepping away from the office. What I don't really mind, is when that mini trip away is straight to Sam's Club for an office supply run.

boom. we're good! 

We won. Elisa & I knocked out the entire office supply list, along with the snack list for the team, and walked away loaded up with everything we needed, and spare time to boot. Winnnn.

After work, I headed out to get Sydni, then back home for a night of relaxing, Disney princesses [she still had no idea what's happening on Sunday] and of course, preparing for tomorrow:

she's reaaaaady! 

we're all set & ready to go, kiddos!
... seeee you tomorrow! 

TGIF!

xo | cmd 

Pumpkin Chuckin'. OWLS!. Bluegrass | Asian x2!

Today was something of a random day. I know that's surprising. Haha.

It started off with my trekking down to Catie's place and heading out together to one of Cincinnati's park areas for a Pumpkin Chucking festival. It wasn't a huge production, but everything you could possibly need on a chilly Saturday was all in one spot: Hot chocolate, apple cider, grilled cheese, burgers, midieval trebuchets for pumpkin launching, an owl, a falcon, a goat & a sheep, and most importantly, one of my best friends playing some mean fiddle for a live bluegrass rundown.

+ I hugged the sheep. Let's be real, he looked warm.
Like I said, slightly random. But awesome.


owl! i almost stole him. | cincinnati

catie & her band! loved loved loved it | cincinnati

trebuchet for pumpkin launching | cincinnati


Once we were cleaned up from the perpetual dew that still hadn't burned off by the time the morning was over, we tailed it to Eli's BBQ [recommend!!] for some true pit BBQ, before we all split off on our separate ways for a bit. 

not even a hard decision. this place is amazing. | eli's bbq | cincinnati

>> Insert Nap. 
+ in a hammock. (:

Becky and I decided it would be a good idea once she was off work to head up to Kenwood to grab some coffee and then to Norwood for a window-shopping visit to REI [who does that?! Oh wait, we do..]. It was a successful mission until we started digging in to our personal lives and spilling onto each other all of the things that move us to the core. As Becky happens to be one of my closest friends, it wasn't hard to give her the raw, unaltered version of my life in real time, but not without the consequence of a few tears. We drove all over Hyde Park, O'Bryonville, Madisonville, Norwood and Kenwood in search of food that sounded good, but landed ultimately right back at The Comet in Northside. Go fig. We managed to pull ourselves together, grab some food, and head back to her apartment. She left to go have a slumber party with her aunt and uncle's dogs [sitting, yeah!] while they're out of town, and I managed somehow to put myself into a presentable shape for dinner at Sung Korean [another recommendation] with Catie & Jen.

jen & me! | otr.cincinnati

^^ Would you look at that? There's another Asian girl around these parts! Haha. I joke, I joke. I only say that because of the circle in which I typically ran the last time I lived here, it was myself and my two dingo brother bears and that was the extent of the Asian presence. I always thought it would be nice to have some mocha estrogen around, so as it stands now I'm pretty stoked to have JEN, who, in a streak of awesome coincidence, is Pinay, too. Bah-riiiiing it. Haha. I'm joking. (:

I love these folks.
Blessed, yeah.

xo | cmd

Pumpkins 2012

Guess what we did tonight...

joe's [left] & cori's [right]

Happy [almost] Halloween!

That's the 2012 version.. It kind of got me thinking back to some of the past few years of pumpkin carving. I thought for the sake of coming up with a new design next year, that I'd share some and see if I can think of anything new. 



ghost in a graveyard [2009]

That one there was from 2009? [I know, I'm heavily ashamed that it's been 3 years since I last did any sort of pumpkin carving; there was always something else going on and we just never got to it. Oh well. Never too late to break the cycle :) I did this round of carving with KP, Brittany & Joe. We went big on that one and even had the tarp out on the backporch. We don't mess around when it comes to pumpkins.. haha.


proud pumpkin owner ;) [2008]

And then there was this year: 2008, with Catie & Burg, back at the 23-49 in Norhood. Haha. Those were definitely some fun times, but I would have to say pumpkin carving and pumpkin seed batching with those two was one of the highlighted moments.


"skell" - we named him. haha. [2008]



*phew. Pumpkin carving can really take the wind outta ya. Well, probably not most people, but if you're like me and realize that you've been holding your breath through the majority of those detailed little areas, well, you should know it's tiring work ;) 

Happy ALMOST Halloween, blogbots! 

xo | cmd