Cross Catch

The Party Stache

(from August 17th)

This here is birthday party girl. She decided to go business casual for her guests. The party worked out alright. For some reason I never come away with many photos, entertaining and all, and trying to polish off a case of Yuengling all on my own. But there did seem to be a weird unintentional theme taking place that may not be typical to a four year old's birthday party.

And finally, for the first time, the kids were old enough to be awake when the movie started. Shut it down folks.

Sweet Dogs And Sweet, Sweet Dogs

A long and tiring weekend ends with a party that we are too old for over at Thomas and Jesse's. Kids and dogs and more 90's radio hits than I heard in all the 90's combined. And a soldification of fact that Yuula needs a new swing.

Sweet dogs over there, but kind of demanding. I must've thrown a slobbery dog toy every five minutes, but no mater how far into the woods I'd chuck it they found it every time

Aesop enjoyed his first party, but was still slept thru most of it.

We were all starving and even Yuula took time out of playing to eat up a hot dog.

Fun neighbors, finally. I'm sure you'll hear more of them.

The Most Of The Snow

Good thing Laura isn't 5cm dilated or anything, right?

Judee may have found her limit for snow

I love our new neighbor Tom, even if he does show up 5 minutes after I've already dug out

 staying safe and dry and warm, begrudgingly (notice the boots on)

From Slough To Ka-Pow In Under Two Hou....rs

The ripple effects of an accidental [pun] appointment with the dentist and the intention of killing three birds with one stone found us late on NYE way up in Scranton, Pennsylvania, which is every bit as wonderful as the Americanized late hit television series The Office depicts it, as in, not very wonderful. But as we do, we make the best of it, and managed to have an entertaining dinner at the only joint open at 9pm, one Ruby of Tuesday (still the only entity giving any purpose to that specific day of the week), with the company on Susie who downed her fair share of classic margaritas amongst a multitude of randomly shaped/colored pills from a gold brass box she keeps hidden somewhere on her person for just such an occasion, what we can only hold responsible for us now being able to add such visually magical terms as "the shrimp dance" and ... well, let's move on from it.

Laura got her steak so all was right with the world and Yuula enjoyed the challenge in capturing a photo of diners as they stuff their faces one last time for the year.

I felt a bit like I was watching it all happen, as I went for the 8oz of malbec and overheard the vast array of resolutions being made and subsequently broken before they even saw the light of day.

Then the baby boy dropped before the ball in Times Square.

We brought Susie back to her place, recovered from a day of highs and lows, and began the winding roads to our place just before 11pm. By the time we got to our home and got our shoes off, ready for bed, throwing in the towel on 2013, we (Yuula) got a 3rd wind and decided we'd take up our young new neighbors on their earlier invite to their place for a little Auld Langing. When we walked in the door it was 11:44. At 11:45 I was halfway thru a pint of Yuengling. At 11:46 I had a second, as we caught up with some of our other neighbors we'd met once before, but never scraped any surfaces. They were silly, and well ahead of us on the inebriation, considering the four of us were drinking for one. We giggled, one girl admitted to just vomiting moments before. This was a party. We found shelter from the beer pong in the warmth of the front room (I'm not sure this houses rooms have designations yet), as a mad rush to arm the parties occupants with things that make pops and smoke, including the three year old, and as the countdown hit 00:05 someone threw a blanket over me and ran away. I was thinking how strange this all seemed when we started hearing loud blasts coming from just outside, so....

Happy New Years. We were home and in bed by 12:06am.

Bad News Buttermilks

Last night after Mom & Dad left we took a walk down to give a gift to our neighbors who just had a baby girl last month. We got caught up chatting up some potential new neighbors along the way but managed to make it over just as Peter and Matthew, their oldest, was finishing up a game of Kick the Ball and Make Noise. Love that game. They invited us in and we met lovely little Victoria, who slept thru the entire visit, but we barely noticed after Peter started popping corks and giving us the best seats in the house. Yuula and Matthew played cautiously on the back deck while we caught up with the Buttermilks (their last name translated from Polish) and we learned that they'd be moving to Chicago in the next couple weeks. Sad news as we just finally were getting to know them and enjoy them as neighbors. We'll have to have them over sometime for a little cookout before they move on. Good luck Buttermilks. I've enjoyed your pancakes.

Our Poor Neighbor

The house down the road burned down sometime earlier this year. Now the house just sits there. I walked thru the other day and took a few shots. I hope they pull it together. Sad thing.

Hello Neighbor

"I know I can still play, but it's like I told my wife, I'm just tired mentally. I'm just tired."

-Brett Favre, March 2008



Good luck Mangini!





An interesting sidenote while we're on the subject, we actually did meet a new neighbor yesterday. His name is Rich and he has two prosthetic legs. He would like to buy our hot tub and horse buggy. He gave me his phone number. So... friends.