A Trip to the Big City with Family

We spent Saturday with Kerri and Patrick. The day began with me making my famous oatmeal for everyone. The walnuts, flax and brown sugar were added to each person's taste. To my surprise some people don't pour milk on their oats.

Then we went to McGinnis Sisters where Dee could show our family around and introduce them to her boss. Then we headed out to the Strip District and downtown Pittsburgh. Kerri wanted to gt a tiny Palamalo Steeler shirt for the new baby to war home from the hospital in April. We explored some of the Steeler clothing stores in the Strip and then had a fantastic lunch at a new place for us. It was called Belle Nolte (Beautiful Night). It's a Pizza shop with various kinds of sandwiches. Kerri had a piece of pizza that she shared and it was "outa this world". The crust was crisp but crunchy and yet soft on top with real fresh mushrooms. Pat and I got the Italian Stallion sandwich and Dee and Kerri had a Philly Steak and Cheese. What a great meal! We'll be back there for sure.

From there we headed to the Market Square area of the city and found a parking spot on the street (no need for a parking lot) and walked over to the PPG ice skating rink and large Christmas Tree. PPG had windows filled with gingerbread houses made by school children. Inside the Atrium, there were more prize winning displays of gingerbread houses in a village and train setting. (See Photo)

As we walked around, we looked at the "Santa's from around the world" displays. Here's one of the Irish Santa with Pat and Kerri. !

As it turned out, there was to be a concert by the "Trombones on Ice." There were 80 trombones along with trumpets, tubas and flugelhornes among other brass instruments. The musicians were of all ages grade school through 70 years old. They played Christmas music specially arranged for brass. Awesome

When we returned home, Kerri took a nap since she'd been sneezing all day. Her allergies had kicked in and there aren't many approved meds for a pregnant person to take for allergies. She was worn out. Looked more like Rudolph than Kerri. Afterward, she and Patrick headed out to Megan's place for a dinner planned for them. They decided to stay in the Monroeville area overnight because it was about 45 minutes closer for their drive home.

What a wonderful visit we had with them! My new son-in-law is easy to talk with and we find lots to talk about. Kerri looks radiant as a mom to be. And we shared their joy and excitement about their moving to a new place the week of Christmas in preparation of the new baby girl.

After they left, we chilled for a while and then went to Barnes and Noble for a relaxing time perusing books and magazines. Back at home we watched a recorded television program and then hit the sack. What a great weekend!

Time with Pat and Kerri

Here is another photo from our breakfast yesterday.

We finished the day watching a couple of close football games and then we all went to themovies. We saw "Four Christmases" with Reese Witherspoon and Vince Vaughn. It was about two dysfunctional families at Christmas. The story wove in the theme of the importance of honesty and being truthful and did it in a humorous way.

When we got home we chatted awhile and then watched the Christmas episode of "Psyche" and called it a night.

Thanksgiving Day

Thanksgiving Day went well. I picked up my mom at her house and brought her to our place. She and Bonz did well together. She even let him sit on her lap briefly in the basement on the lazyboy chair. Kerri and Pat and Don and Veronica joined us for the dinner. Everything was superb and the Amish Turkey pictured here was awesome! We sure laughed a lot telling funny stories of family events.

Later, Jan called and talked with mom and later me. She had us look up Luke's Drexel a capella choir on You Tube so we could vote for him and so we all could see his group singing.

<

On Black Friday we went to the Freedom Square restaurant for breakfast. I had coupons for each of our meals so that made it nice. Then I took my mom back to Monongahela and we stopped to give the pharmacy her prescriptions to be certain she gets what she needs for the next month. She's to pick them up tomorrow. We also checked out a concern she had about gas company right-of -way work above her property. Everything looked fine. We found one of the property markers to indicate her property line. She was concerned that some of the work up there might cause trees to roll down onto her property. Everything looked fine to us. Then Pat and I drove back to Cranberry and re-connected with Dee and Kerri at Babies R'Us. Then we had lunch at Primanti Bros. Restaurant and watched the Pitt defeat West Virginia in the Backyard Brawl. It was a close game with a nail-biting finish.

The Garland was Hung on the Banister with Care

Here's a view of the snow village on the fireplace from the loft.

On Wednesday while Dee was at work, I picked up the Amish Turkey and eggnog before the store got busy and then went to the Rotary meeting. It was Turkey Raffle day. Everyone brought in wrapped gifts to be raffled off. And there were 5 turkeys as part of the raffle. The tickets cost $20 for 10 tickets. Some people brought several gifts to be raffled off. All proceeds went to the Lighthouse Agency. Some of the wrapped gifts were gag gifts and others were nice - like bottles of wine, boxes of candy, etc. I won a large box of mixed nuts with a nice bow.

What amazed me about the whole thing is that the prizes cost most people next to nothing, and then we all chipped in $20 to play the raffle game. Some people bought more tickets because it was for charity. Anyway, when all was said and done, we raised about $1,200 for the Lighthouse. And had fun doing it. Amazing!

Later I took Bonz to have his claws trimmed and ground just to be sure he didn't accidentally scratch anyone tomorrow. The I hung the garland on the staircase and went to get a wireless remote switch set that can turn lights off and on without having to go and unplug them. It does up to three outlets. During the evening Dee tweaked the garlands and lights and we discussed where we might put the tree. But that's for another day.

The creche is up

Yesterday I went to the men's Bible Study at church - our topic was the transfer of power from David to Solomon and Solomon's reign as king. We noted that David told Solomon to "be a man". this led us to a discussion of what it meant then to be a man and what it may mean today. We shared about defining moments when we felt we asserted ourselves as adult males in relationship to our fathers. Good conversation.

Afterward we all helped put up the two Christmas trees at the church. One was a 12 foot tree and the other was about 5 feet tall and had a ball on the bottom of roots and soil wrapped in burlap for later planting on the church grounds. The tall tree is in the fellowship and greeting area and the smaller one is in the sanctuary next to the pulpit. With all the guys helping to put the tree up (we used some scaffolding and they had a hook in the ceiling to steady it if for any reason it should tip to the side.)The congregation will be decorating them on Saturday morning at an "Eat and Trim Breakfast".

Afterward, Earl took me home and I showed him the dining room table leaf he made for me 25 years ago. He'd forgotten all about it. It still looks like the day he created it. It's a perfect match. We put it in the table in preparation for Thanksgiving Dinner. Later I put some finishing touches on the creche scene in the basement. The figures were made by my mom (I think) when she took a ceramics class many years ago. She gave us the figures on Christmas and we've used them before. The little shelf in the basement is a perfect place for it and we see it every night when we're reading the paper or watching television.

After Earl left, I sent the recordings of our Bogmeister chorus to the director so she could send them to the people who need them. I was glad the microphone worked as well as it did. We'll tweak it some for future recordings, but it was a good start.

In the evening Dee and I went to the worship service and "pie social" afterward at the church. There were about 75 people there. It was a nice event. We met some new people and got to build on relationships we've begun there. And the tree was still standing from our morning efforts at putting it up.

After we got home, we built the "lighted village scene" on top of the fireplace that divides our living room from the dining room. I'll put a photo of it on the blog tomorrow. Dee arranged the village and I was the gopher who handed the items when she needed them. It really looks nice. I think I'll get a remote switch so I can turn it on and off without having to plug it in each time I want to light it up. (I could use one for the rope lights on the deck too.)

Our next decorating project will be the garlands for the staircase banisters. The"garland grabbers came from QVC and they seem to fit the banisters just fine. More to come...

Practice for "The Shows" during December

Yesterday while Dee was working I did the various errands on our list. Signed Bonz up for the Brickyard Dog Kennel in advance of our Christmas trip to be with Kerri and Patrick. (I was surprised how many places were already completely booked up for that holiday week.) Dee has a co-worker who uses Brickyard Kennels and she said it's clean and her dog really likes it.

I picked up some snow for the fireplace village, did the banking and so on. Then when Dee got home we had a very quick dinner (sandwiches) together. I had to go to Barbershop practice early to set up my new microphone and old laptop so we could record the practice session songs. Our director wants to use the recorded songs to make part dominant voice overs for the new people so they can learn their parts quicker. The recordings turned out pretty good for our first try at it. I had invited a new guy at church to come to Barbershop practice and he came! He likes to sing, even though he can't read music, and he did just fine with the help of others in the group. I hope he comes again.

Later, when I got home, Dee and I took advantage of our hot tub and the relatively warm evening ( 40 degrees) before the snows came. Ahhhhh.

A Quiet Day

Sunday we went to church and attended the Sunday school classes prior to worship. I continue to be amazed to the number of children and youth attending each week. It's nice to see the various age groups there. After worship I practiced with a mixed quartet for a little since we are scheduled to sing on Dec. 14 for worship. They want to practice on Monday nights but that doesn't work for me since I already am committed to Bogmeister practice. So we got together right after worship to have our first practice. It went well.

Then, we went to lunch with Earl and Marilyn at Eat'n Park. It's always a pleasure to have lunch with them. Earl indicated they decided to join the church and plan to let the pastor know this week. That's nice.

Afterward we headed home and pretty much stayed inside the rest of the day. Dee found out that the "snow" blanket we bought for her village is too puffy and not like what she needs or thought it was. I worked on the creche background with the blue poster board and gold stars. I still have to figure a way to hang the ceramic angel. IO tried "invisible thread", but it's hard to see and tie and the angel flips right out of it. Hummmm. I'll figure it out.

We watched a little football and then a movie called "Holiday in Handcuffs". With Mario Lopez. A cute story that had issues of forgiveness, following your heart, and reconciliation themes at the end.