Gramma's China Hutch

Now almost 2 years after Gramma died, we were finally able to get her china hutch to my house.  It is a perfect fit in my dining room nook.  It has about 1/4 inch of clearance on each side!!  I was able to get a lot of things I had just stuffed in cabinets displayed including a pitcher given to my parents at their wedding, silver and crystal that was Gramma's, silver that was my Aunt Joy's and some silver and crystal of my own.

Here is with all the doors open.

 Here is an up close of the top.

Up close of the bottom where I've now hidden the 17 bottles of liquor or mixers that I have somehow collected!  Glad that stuff doesn't really go bad! ;)

A Great Game Against an Unfortuately Great Kentucky Team...

Saturday night was the much awaited match up with the #2 ranked Kentucky Wildcats.  The cats destroyed us up in Lexington earlier in the season so this was for revenge.  We played a great game and held starts John Wall to 13 points and 2 assists and DeMarcus Cousins to only 5 rebounds.

It came down to the last play and AJ Ogilvy missed a floater in the lane for the tie at the end of regulation.  Memorial was silent and we will have to wait for a chance to beat Kentucky another day.

Here are Jane and I with our pregame faces on.

The enemies, Brooke and Justin.

Mom and I a little sad after a great game.  Too bad it was a loss!

Funny Candid's

More pictures from the Kanter/Bartz wedding!  I had such a hard time choosing which pictures to keep or really which pictures I could eliminate from these two pages.  There were so many funny pictures, almost all which included Adam in them. I was so glad my parents got to come in for the night also. 

Random comments about these pictures include:

• Adam stealing my camera and taking 7 self-portrait pictures with 6 different people including Elizabeth's mom, my mom and some guy who is supposedly one of Dr. Kanter's partners... Who knows!
• Jen not remembering taking this picture even though it was taken pretty early in the evening.
• Elizabeth and I doing 2 of the 30 shots the bartenders made after their liquor license expired at 1am.
• Emily's beer bottle not in her hand, but at least in the picture. :)

House Painting

Over the past 6 weeks, I, along with my parents, and one weekend, Darren, have undertaken the job of painting my house.  It was just getting dirty to the point that I couldn't handle it.  The paint on the walls was still the builder's cheapo flat paint.  I really liked the light color but wanted something that was much easier to clean.  I went with Porter's Brandied Pear.  You can see below where the left, aside from around the outlet, has not been painted yet.  You might not think it is that big of a change but I'm very pleased with the results and how easy you can clean the walls now!

The First of a Few...

The first of a few reception pages.  These pages include the obligatory cutting/eating of the cake, toasting the happy couple, first dances, parental dances, tossing the bouquet and garter.  I'm on a streak of not catching the bouquet after 2 or 3 in a row. It's Jen's turn!

The Basilica

The wedding was held at The Cathedral Basilica of the Assumption in Covington, Kentucky.  This church was amazing and really rivals most church's I've seen pictures of in the world.  The stained glass is the world's largest stained glass window in a church.  It's so beautiful that pictures really do it no justice.  You'd never know something so beautiful would be hiding in little Covington, Kentucky!

Professional Pictures

After the "big reveal" of Steve seeing Eliz for the first time on their wedding day and a few pictures of the whole bridal party, we hopped into a limo to take some goofy limo pictures.  It was then on to an incredible overlook with beautiful views of the Ohio River and downtown Cincinnati.

Primping

The morning of Eliz &Steve's wedding started off with breakfast at the Kanter house.  With the mom's and the junior bridesmaid's there were 10 of us getting ready which meant lots of hair and makeup time.  It was a very EARLY morning.  Especially after a very late night at the baseball game and then getting lost somewhere in Cincinnati due to Elizabeth's excellent navigating skills! ;)

After primping for a long time, we started off with professional pictures in the early afternoon in the backyard.

THE Wedding of the year!

Elizabeth and Steve got married this past October.  It was a huge event for me to scrapbook since I was the MOH and there were about a bazillion pictures to choose from, including ALL of the professional pictures.  I narrowed it down to about 100 maybe, I lost count.  I get somewhat frustrated trying to scrapbook things this large because how do I effectively divide it up in pages that also tell their own story.  Well I gave it a good effort and so far, (I'm not quite done yet) I've been really pleased with how it has turned out. 

Up first is the rehearsal dinner that took place at the Great American Ballpark in Cincinnati. It was a chilly night but the unlimited beer helped keep us warm. ;)

Scraplifting

One thing Sarah and I have done a lot lately before scrapbooking is souring the web for ideas and copying ideas to try at a later date.  This is a page we've both used, because we think it is so cute, celebrating Sarah and Jen's birthday's this past September.  The picture with Sarah and the cake is my successful cake... Because we all remember my terrible cake FAIL! ;)

Michigan Football

Remember in September I got my first real tailgating experience along with my first trip to The Big House?  I got experience both a "Maize Out" and a Michigan Victory!

Cypra's Wedding Revisted

Here is the layout I did for Cypra's wedding.  A lot of the layouts coming are 2-page ones but so they are bigger when you click on them I'll do them as single page pictures.  Who could forget the hooch, friends, fun times and or course the "Leaning Tower of Tazewell!"

Insipred

Sorry for the long delay here... I've been inspired while scrapbooking lately and have been taking advantage of that.   So prepare for a deluge, not to be confused to de luge happening currently in Vancouver (sorry, I know that was dumb), of finished layouts coming your way.  Starting now!

Up first was the first Vanderbilt football game... Yes I'm behind, and that was a long time ago, but at least it was a win.  Those were few and far between last season!!

Country Music Hall of Fame

Saturday, the Country Music Hall of Fame was having a free day so Jon, Sarah and I decided to go check it out without paying the $20 entrance fee.  Here are a few highlights.

Elivis' 24 caret gold plated piano.

Carrie Underwood's Lava dress.

Hank William, Jr's Monday Night Football jacket.

Three cheesy grins.

The Stage

Friday night we made another pilgrimage to our favorite haunt, the Stage.  Sarah's husband Brice was playing (drums) which gave us a good excuse to go out.  Sarah, Adam, Emily and I had great night full of laughs, mostly at Adam's expense. ;)

Adieu, Vacation

On Sunday we disembarked back in San Juan .  We walked around the part of San Juan we missed the prior week including up to the the Fort San Felipe Del Morro.

Our Last Night

We had a great time on the cruise and especially at dinner.  Our waiters Meha and Dewa, both from Bali, were so nice and hysterical.  They would dance or sing to us as a group almost every night. 

That night we also decided to go play Bingo before the show.  I got 3 cards for $20.  They were all so bad to start with Darren was laughing at me telling me I went to the wrong line and picked the wrong cards even though it was completely random.  Well after they had called 55 numbers and no one had yet filled their entire card, I only had 3 numbers left.  I couldn't believe it but it only took 4 numbers for them to call my 3 remaining numbers.  I SCREAMED bingo and fortunately was the only one who got it and won $1,000!!!!!  Definitely ended a great vacation on a super high note!!

Philipsburg, St Maarten

I learned an important lesson on St Maarten.  The island is actually two countries and not just one.  The Dutch half of the island is spelled Sint Maarten while the French side of the island is Saint Martin.  Darren thought I was dumb for not realizing it was really two countries but I'd never really had a reason to think about why it would be split.  This is the "boarder crossing."  No stopping, just a sign and some flags.

We once again enlisted the services of Carnivals excursions for this day but unlike in Dominica, I don't think it was worth the cost. We were picked up in a motor coach and taken the French capital of the island, Marigot.  On the way we stopped at a beautiful overlook of the coast.

Once in Marigot, we were let off the bus to explore on our own.  The problem was it was so early that very few of the vendors in the market were open and none of the stores were either.  This is a fort that overlooks the town.

From there we were taken to a beautiful beach but only give about and hour to hang out and swim.  This was also compounded by the fact that the weather was ehh in the morning and turned to bad in the afternoon.  A sad day to end our vacation for sure!

That afternoon we did a little souvenir shopping in Philipsburg before setting sail back to San Juan.

As Requested

Me as a soldier at the Brimstone Hill Fortress in St. Kitts.

Basseterre, St Kitts

In St Kitts we set up a tour which in my mind I had anticipated being like our day at St Lucia.  In that regards I was very disappointed but we did end up having a really nice day.  We started out meeting our guide who proceded to tell us that the other group didn't show up to go with us.  Typically he changes a lot more for private tours than group tours but he didn't want us to get screwed because the other group didn't show.  So he set us up with his "cousin" who took us on virtually the same tour the guy was supposed to take us on but we had to pay to go into the fort.  Since I wasn't 100% positive who was supposed to pay that entrance fee to begin with this really didn't bother us. 


We started the morning with a coastal drive to the Botanical Gardens at Romney Manor.  They have a tree there that is 350-400 years old.  This thing is massive.  In the picture you can see really small people at the bottom.

Then it was up to the Brimstone Hill Fortress built to defend the island in the late 1700's.  

The view from the fort was beautiful. 

I even made Darren begrudgingly pose as a soldier. ;)

Our last stop on our tour this day was at a beautiful overlook.  In the background of the picture, the body of water to the left is the Caribbean Sea and the body to the right is the Atlantic Ocean.

We again had another beautiful sunset.