Casa Blanka: September 2008

Monday, September 29, 2008

Road Trip to Athens

Dennis and I went with Larry & Brenda to OU's Homecoming last weekend. The weather was great and I took so many pictures I have created 3 slideshows of the weekend so you can reminisce. :) The theme was quite fitting for Athens: "Get your Green On". The first is the parade.

Here is a campus tour :)

Nothing like football on saturday!

Movie of Marching 110 alumni band below
turn up your speakers. :)

Thursday, September 25, 2008

Jack Visits the Lake :)

Sandy & Jeff and their adorable (and very well-behaved) grandson, Jack (age 3) came out for a visit to the lake tonight. :) Jack loved his first boat ride and had fun at the Copper Penny. It was more than a little chilly on our return and probably marks the end of boating for 2008. :(

Introducing.....Carter Joshua Napier

This is our new nephew, Carter. :) Isn't he precious? This is Mandy's third baby, and first boy. Carter was born on Monday, September 22, 2008 and weighed 7# 5 oz.

The proud grandparents, Joan & Bob, hold their new grandson:)

Lots of grandparents for little Carter. :) Larry & Brenda hold their first grandson.

The happy family, dad Josh, mom Mandy, Riley Kate age 3 and Chloe age 6.

This is Mandy's cousin Stacey and her little boy Ross who is 9 months with Mandy and new cousin Carter. :) Stacey took all the pictures and sent them to me. Thanks, Stacey!

Downtown Columbus on a Saturday Night

This is very hard to make out but it is a picture from COSI, looking across the river to downtown Columbus. In the forefront, is some blue and pink color that is a bandstand with a band playing and the bright spots you see behind that is "waterfire". This consists of floating fire pits full of firewood that are lit from a boat and burn on the water. It is a really pretty sight and they do this several times each year.

We then walked over to an Arts Festival at Genoa Park along the Scioto River in front of COSI. There were some beautiful things but we were just not in a buying mood. :(

Sandy & Jeff Glassman and Dennis at the Gay Street Festival. We ate at Tip Top and had Salmon Fritters and Eggplant Fries. They were out of their fried green tomatoes. :( The festival was just a conglomeration of booths and a band was playing. The weather was beautiful.

This was interesting!
We were downtown and walking along High Street when we saw this "Parade" come by. It turned out to be a memorial service in the form of a parade for their friend, Damen Johnson, who died a couple of years ago.

Amy Runs Half-Marathon in Chicago

September 14, 2008. It rained all day! Amy finishes with her best time of 2:45:46 and this after having major knee surgery in February! Congratulations! :)

Wednesday, September 17, 2008

Gabe's Transplant

We were still without electricity but we got up and headed to Cincinnati for Gabe's long awaited kidney transplant. Dr. Munda performed the surgery at Christ Hospital. Friend Jason was the donor. Both patients did quite well. Gabe's new kidney was putting out urine immediately! We saw him a few hours later and he looked fantastic and said he felt great! See for yourself. Alex and Laura were there along with us to support Co. The transplant nurse and social worker checked in too. Co said last night Gabe was watching the game! Amazing and great news!

Stickrath's at the Lake

The Stickrath's brought their exchange student, Marcello, from Brazil. We celebrated Kelsey's 16th birthday.
This was supposed to be a GO BUCKS weekend at the lake. :( Well it did start out that way!
The weather cooperated and we posed with Brutus at the Copper Penny for lunch. We tubed and kayaked. We got all geared up for the big game with USC. I even got a fortuitous picture when OSU was leading 3-0! Oh well.....Buckeye fans are pretty resilient.

It was a little windy on sunday morning but warm and sunny so we went to Smitty's on the boat for breakfast. We had a fun weekend in spite of the game! :) Little did we know that same afternoon would be a terrible windstorm and we would be without power for 48 hours!

Thursday, September 11, 2008

Tribute to Fred & Howard

The Legacy Fund of the Columbus Foundation put on a Tribute to Fred & Howard at the Conservatory Tuesday evening. It was quite a crowd that turned out to honor two great movers and shakers of Columbus-
Howard of course posthumously. :(

It was good theater when I got a picture of
the Mayor and the Mayor!

Arnett Howard is a friend of Fred's (who isn't in this town?!)
and he entertained the crowd

Fred broke his neck in January and is still in a wheelchair.
What a trooper though! He had some cute remarks and was there to greet everyone!

More tailgating - Janie Gets Busted!

Britney stopped off to tailgate
on her way to the MTV Awards-
if anyone knows where to find a good party
it would be her ;)

We have not tailgated away from the main area of campus in so many years we really were quite naive about the alcohol police! We were shocked to see a large contingent of men and women in black shirts with bright gold letters reading AGENT descend on the tailgaters. I was quite fascinated and started taking pictures. As I came back to our tailgate, my little red camera in hand, an agent came up to me and said many of us work undercover and you are not permitted to take our picture. He said he would have to TAKE my camera! I explained that we could just erase those pictures and he said NO, he would have to TAKE my camera. I tried again to explain we could easily erase them when he said he had handcuffs!! At this point everyone started laughing
and it turned out they had put him up to it!
and I call these people my friends! ;)

With no staff parking pass for the first time in many years, we were forced to tailgate with the "masses" at the Fawcett Center this week. If it were not for the trouble that our guests had finding a place to park I thought it was kind of fun to be in all of the action...well maybe not the alcohol police action, but..... seriously the other drawback is that without a pass people told us to get the best spots near the grass they arrive as early as 4 am!!! :( We are still working on what to do next time.....we were there at 7:40 am and the lot was virtually full!