how long?

It's been a while.............maybe I need to slow down?

What shall I do??

Tomorrow will be our fourth snow day...............I am ready to do SOMETHING! One can only clean and putter around the house so much! I could NEVER be a stay at home type! Worse off, my computer died, so I have resorted to playing musical laptops with the kids!

WHAT HAPPENS IN VEGAS..........

A trip to Las Vegas for us is just not a trip to Las Vegas without a trip to see Barry Manilow. Yes, some will say that they can do without this show, but they haven't seen Barry Manilow then! As usual, it was a spectacular show!






















He has a new CD coming out in November. To compliment his CDs that are "Greatest Hits of the 50s", "Greatest Hits of the 60s", & "Greatest Hits of the 70s", he will release "Greatest Hits of the 80s"























This trip we also saw "Donny & Marie" at the Flamingo. Great show too! They were both so enjoyable and had the very same chemistry that they had during their shows when I was young! My favorite line was when Marie talked about her "Personal Summer"! Man, can I relate to that!

So, who's this little guy???

The same guy on the piano below!

Somehow the "Dueling Piano Twins" found out HE has a birthday coming SOON!

Lookin' good there sitting on that piano, honey!

What did you do there, dear, stick yourself with the pin the girls gave you?

"Hey! Her twin looks just like her"................. DUH!

___________________________________________________________

Mark's recommended restaurant for this trip:

"Toby Keith's: I Love This Bar and Grill"

They have great food too!

We stayed this trip at Planet Hollywood. This is formerly the Aladdin Hotel and Casino. They had an actual Red Carpet Movie Release there. We didn't stay around to watch........who the heck is in "Saw V"??? Is there acting in this one???

There were good food choices, excellent location, and the pool was spectacular! Love the Miracle Mile Shoppes that are connected.

But, the spa was definitely my favorite part! Sorry! No pictures of that event!!! ;)

All in all it was a great trip!

"What happens in Vegas......"

...........gets posted here"!! Watch out!

Down to the last day!!

Tomorrow is the big day! Off to WDW for summer vacation! We had a great time last summer in NYC and enjoyed visiting our friends from PA, but it's just not summer if we don't go to WDW!



The most missed part of vacation.............Luna Park Pool at BWV! We are looking forward to returning to the Luau on Friday. It's been a few years since we have done that! I also look forward to EPCOT. M&M and now ready to tackle the lines alone with the use of his cell phone. Mark and I can walk "around the world" now and enjoy the countries. We might have to "do some research" while we are visiting them!

SEE YA REAL SOON!

Our Boy Scout is off to camp!

This week Marshall was off to Lake Monroe at Boy Scout camp. Mark and I went out on Parent Night Wednesday night to see him and his set up. Personally, I thought it looked like a bomb went off in his tent, however before I expressed my opinion one of the assistant scout masters made a quick notation to us that he had just finished cleaning it up................yep! That's Marshall!!

We enjoyed seeing our son, but truthfully, we couldn't wait to get back home! (note to self....fight husband for the shower first!) Neither of us are campers nor the woodsy type. Holiday Inn is roughing it!

I honestly don't think the kid could have gotten any dirtier than he was today when I picked him up. I feared for what might be in the duffle that came home with him. But, all was well......my poor washing machine!

THREE DAYS TO WALT DISNEY WORLD!!!!

The Williams Family Visits the Queen City!

versus

Bob, Lucy & Tyler headed to Cincinnati to enjoy a weekend of fellowship, food and baseball! Tyler was all excited to see the Boston Red Sox on his first visit to Cincinnati. He was quite the gentleman and didn't rub it in when the Sox beat the Reds on both Sat. and Sun. Lucy and Bob should be proud!

Marshall was missing because he did a 20 mile hike with his Boy Scout troop! What an accomplishment!!!

On Friday Mark headed off to the game while we drove to Cheeseburger in Paradise. Everyone enjoyed the meal, particularly the chocolate nachos! Ever seen vultures attack fresh meat? I needn't say more!

Sat. after breakfast Lucy and I headed to Florence Mall in Kentucky. We visited the Disney Store among other places. Our motto for the day was "It isn't about us"! Since Father's Day was Sunday we resorted to landing gifts for the men. I struck out, but Bob got a nice gift!!! The highlight of the day was Lucy's history lesson on the Florence Water Tower. Yes, Lucy, Wikipedia has confirmed the story I was told:

"The plain water tower gathered little, if any attention. In 1974, the Virginia Erection Co. was contracted to paint the words "Florence Mall" to advertise the forthcoming Mall style shopping center - something new to the region. Mayor CM "Hop" Ewing was informed in July of 1974 by the Bureau of Highways that the signage was in violation of the law, as there was a restriction on how tall a sign promoting a business could be.
Many solutions were suggested, including everything from the obvious repainting of the tower, to covering the structure with a large tarpaulin. No inexpensive options seemed available.
During a brainstorming session with other civil staff, Ewing devised the idea of removing the vertical lines at the sides of the M in MALL to make it a Y; becoming Y'ALL. Ewing himself admitted at the time that it was a "corny" solution, but cost effective. The city paid $472 to the W.T. Marx Company of Cincinnati, Ohio to make the changes; whereas a complete repaint would have been nearly three times as much. With the completion of the modified paint job, the landmark was born." --Wickipedia

Yep, it's quite the conversation piece!!

After some shopping we returned to Cincinnati and headed to the game. It was a great game even though the Reds lost. It was exciting and even went into extra innings!

Next we headed up to Mt. Adams which is an ecclectic area overlooking downtown Cincinnati. The view is amazing! We had dinner at the Mt. Adams Bar and Grill. After learning on the sign at the Blind Lemon that George Clooney is a "local" Lucy was determined to see him (that wouldn't have disappointed me either!!). In the meantime, Mark is always teasing me about seeing my favorite Reds player Bronson Arroyo (a former Red Sox) when I am not around. So as usual, he says, "There's Bronson"! And my regular comeback remained, "Yeah, right"!! But, as I looked up, there he goes walking across the street from us!! Lucy did NOT believe it because she kept insisting that it was some "kid" who was about 16!! Sorry Bronson!

Lucy was done for the night because she had hit her two drink minimum!! I returned to my room later to find a note telling me she was "dizzy" and would see me in the morning!

Sunday we met for breakfast and sat in the lobby to "watch people". Another win for the Red Sox and happy Tyler was 2-0 for the weekend. I enjoyed sitting with him.

I decided to take some more pictures, particularly those of the people around us. You see, there are two particular items you must eat in Cincinnati that are also served at the Great American Ballpark; LaRosa's Pizza and Skyline Chili Dogs. I will reserve the picture of Bob, but below you will see that Lucy enjoyed the Chili Dog with "A POUND OF CHEESE"!!!

Man, that's one hunk of cheese!!!!!!
Don't worry Bob, I didn't post the picture of your LaRosa's!

After the game we headed off to Cadillac Ranch for dinner. Once again, good food! We also enjoyed watching the guys ride the mechanical bull. As we walked back to the hotel we stopped by Graeter's for some fabulous ice cream. My suggestion is always the black raspberry chip. The cool thing about Graeter's is that when they say "chocolate chip or chip" they mean CHUNK! YUMMY!

Outside Graeter's is the famous fountain. Hanging out around the fountain were the Reds cheerleaders (yes, cheerleaders for baseball......Bob and Mark think it's a good idea!).

Now these girls never mentioned that Tyler has "boy cooties" like Mallory did all weekend! He looks pretty happy here!

I wonder if this is when Mallory proceeded to dump chocolate ice cream down her leg, on her sock and inside her tennis shoe!!!

Mallory and Lucy look so adorable here posing with one of the Reds' mascots, Gapper. Lucy is also quite fashionable in her "Father's Day Hat"!

Coming soon................WDW!!!!!!!!

So, why are you here???

OMG! I bet we heard that twenty times this weekend!!! The Reds were in South Beach, so we tried to give the kids some "non baseball time"! Everyone we ran into that knew us were puzzled as to why we were in Cincinnati! But, the major reason was my Mother's Day gift.....

This show was INCREDIBLE! It was so entertaining and the music, of course, was awesome despite every other word being the F bomb! But, you have to portrait real live characters honestly and they did! Everyone enjoyed it, including Mark!

Saturday morning was overcast and sprinkling. HHHMMM.....perfect day to go the the waterpark! Yes! The kids had the place to theirselves riding all their favorite water slides multiple times! I found a comfortable chair and they ran all over! They checked in periodically and spent over five hours there! At around 4 p.m. the sun came out and people started coming in, so we left around five.

Next weekend.............the Williams Family!! Yes, the wrath of Jenny and Lucy (and Mallory)! The town will never be the same......

Go Reds!

Our weekend in "Hot-lanta"!!!

Mark and I took a weekend alone to follow our beloved Reds to the south.

Here we are outside of Turner Field, home of the Atlanta Braves. The most amazing thing about this field is how friendly the employees are. We were constantly approached by people asking us if everything was o.k. and did we need anything. I have never had that kind of experience at any ballpark.

As usual I had to find a statue of a local famous player. The obvious choice here is Hank Aaron. The man broke Babe Ruth's record finishing with 755 home runs the HONEST WAY! In my opinion his record should still stand.......

In 1987 I attended the former "Peach Bowl" to see my beloved Hooisers against the Tennessee Volunteers. That took place in old Atlanta/Fulton County Stadium which is next to Turner Field. What is left of that stadium is the blue wall (with red lettering) in the middle background of this picture. I thought it was cool how they left this wall up because it is the wall that Hank Aaron hit his famous #715 over to pass "The Babe".

If you watched the Opening Ceremonies of the 1996 Atlanta Summer Olympic Games, you saw the incredible part where Muhammad Ali raged with Parkinson's Disease carrying the Olympic Torch and climb the last stairs to light the Olympic Flame. This is that platform just beyond the wall of the old Fulton County Stadium.

After the game on Sunday, we took a walk and visited some of the places we saw 6 years ago when we saw the Indiana vs Maryland NCAA final game in Atlanta. This is outside Centennial Park where the unfortunate bombing took place during the Olympics. It was PACKED with people celebrating Cinco de Mayo.

We ended up walking through CNN Center before dinner. It is attached to the Omni and has tours of CNN as well. Today on my flight home there were several members of the CNN staff flying to Indianapolis as well in preparation for the big primary election. I have never seen so many cameras and paraphenalia!! Wow! It actually counts here this year...that's new!

They were calling for a volunteer to take a later flight. As I started up there (I was going to do it) a lady pretty much PLOWED me over to get the $400 credit......I was not happy, but kept my cool. I felt so bad because they had about a half dozen soldiers returning from Iraq. One soldier's wife had given birth yesterday to their first child. They were flying stand-by. THe airlines wouldn't let me give the guy my seat..........he deserved it!

Over the river and through Ohio.....

.....to Grandma and Grandpa's house last weekend! We hadn't been to NE Ohio since before the holidays, so we decided "hit the road"! We spent Thursday night with Grandma and Grandpa, then headed off Friday to check out the "Steel City". Since M&M had never been there Mark and I thought they'd enjoy a mini tour. We loved the Renaissance Hotel. The inside was very elegant looking and the rooms were HUGE! It is situated on the Allegheny River and had a amazing view of PNC Park and the Roberto Clemente Bridge.

After checking into our hotel, we caught a cab over to Station Square. This is a "touristy" area of shops and restaurants at the foot of Mount Washington. There we had dinner at the Hard Rock Cafe then headed to catch the Monogahelia Incline to the top of Mt. Washington.

The kids were amazed at the great view from on top of the mountain!

It really is an amazing view.............

Wow! They act like they like each other! How weird is that?

After walking across the top of Mt. Washington we stopped in at the "Grandview Inn". We had visited this place before and loved it! It restaurant has an amazing view as well. The photo above was actually taken from the patio. From there, we cabbed it down to PNC Park. Although we were early for the game I wanted to look around a bit.

Having read about Honus Wagner, I couldn't resist getting a glimpse of the statue of him outside the park. The Honus Wagner baseball card is the most valuable baseball card of all. There were so few made because in his time cards were put in chewing tobacco. Because he was so against chewing tobacco he forbid them putting his image inside a chewing tobacco pouch. Hence, the rarity of the card.

So, you ask, what happens during a rain delay? It's usually BORING, but how can you top this spectacular event?? Unfortunately for the Reds, there was no pot of gold at then end of this rainbow! I wish there were had been a pot of hits. Maybe we would have won!

So, you are thinking.....look at M&M with the Pirates' mascot, right? No, this dude actually was a guy in the stand watching the game! He had the whole gear on from head to toe! My husband typically wears a Reds golf shirt and a pair of shorts! He's got the look down!

An awesome day ends as we cross the Roberto Clemente bridge back to our hotel.

We returned to Grandma and Grandpa's house on Saturday. The kids had a great time hanging out and playing board games with Grandma. We also went to see Grandma's friend Karen. She allowed Marshall to "borrow" her piano. Marshall put on a concert for everyone. He did a fantastic job, as usual!

Weekend in the city....

Well, the Reds and the Phillies are at 1-1 for the series with the rubber match tomorrow at 1:15 p.m.

It was too cold last night and given I had a sinus infection, I left in the 5th. The kids were greatful for my decision. Hot chocolate and a warm bath made them very happy! I figured staying was a bad decision on my part and might just make my sitation worse.

Today it was cold again, but I opted for the Riverfront Club ALONE!!! The kids and I took in a little Johnny Rockets after the game. Now it's pool time!

Next weekend it's off to Mark's parents for a little visit and a trip to PNC Park in Pittsburgh. Funny thing..........the Reds are playing there!!! Isn't that weird how that happens????

OPENING DAY FINALLY ARRIVES!!!

Despite an hour rain delay, the first baseball game of the year began with the Reds and the Diamondbacks. Unfortunately, the Reds lost, but we enjoyed the weekend!

It was a surprise when the Reds came out onto the field during introductions all wearing a "Nuxhall #41" jersey. This was a tribute to the late Joe Nuxhall who was with the Reds organization for some 60 years. He began his major league career as the youngest player ever to make the majors. He pitched for the Reds when he was 15 years old! Most recently Joe was the other half of the famous Marty and Joe Reds on Radio team. We'll miss the "old lefthander" and his signature closing "round third and heading for home".

Spring Break ~ March 208

John, Mashall & Mallory meet up with "Chip"!

A trip to WDW isn't complete in our family without a visit to "Chef Mickey's"!

Here is an updated photo of the new construction at The Contemporary"that is replacing the east garden wing. There is still no confirmation of its true plan. We rode in the front of the monrail at one point on the trip and the pilot told us that she tells everyone it's gong to be a Super Wal-Mart!

While visiting "Storytime with Belle", Mallory couldn't resist getting her picture with Belle. We had to practically drag Marshall into storytime because he was once selected to be Gaston and was mortified by the whole experience! We told him he'd be fine and wouldn't you know, they tried to drag him on stage AGAIN!! He was not happy, but we "got him out of it"!!

Our trip started our rough, waking up to 17" of snow in Dayton, OH. We checked into the airport at 10 a.m. with our flight still "on time" for 12:00 p.m.. Yeah, right! Fifteen minutes before the flight we get the word that we are CANCELLED!! I RAN down to the desk to start the rebooking process. We were in a pickle because the hotel was already booked solid, so it was get out of the airport that day or sleep there that night. Because we were starting out in Orlando, but had booked round trip into Tampa, that broadened our options. We finally got a flight booked out at around 7 p.m. to Atlanta to connect to Orlando.

Long day in the airport, but we finally got out at about 8 p.m. Our connection in Atlanta was delayed (heck yeah, the storm was heading east and our plane was out east!). However at 2:45 a.m. we left Atlanta and touched down in Orlando at 4:30 a.m. We skipped the grocery run and went straight to the BWV, checked in and went to bed at 6 a.m.

Mallory's "sweet voice" woke me up at noon saying "Mommy, the pool is open!" So, we got up and did some pool time. We took a little spin to the MK before taking M&M to the Sandcastle Club while Mark, John and I had dinner at LeCellier...my favorite! Not to be disappointed! I took M&M back to Epcot after dinner for Illuminations. Mallory didn't want to stay and even announced to us that "surely this is on You Tube!!"

On Monday we spent time at MGM, on Tuesday we went to Animal Kingdom and back to MK.

On Wed. we checked out and headed down to Sarasota. John, Marshall and Mallory went to the beach while Mark and I met some of our "Reds Friends" at the Daquari Deck on Siesta Key.

Thursday we went to the beach in the morning. Mark got us a couple of lounge chairs and we had such a nice time napping on the beach while the kids played. That night we went to see the Reds and Phillies. On Friday we saw the Reds and Yankees in the afternoon, then hung out at the pool in the evening.

Sat. we flew back home to discover every bit of the snow was gone! Unbelievable!

The Ultimate Snow Day!

After receiving a call at 8 p.m. last night for a two hour delay today, we ended up with school being cancelled all together. So, the kids decided to take advantage of the icy conditions on our very steep driveway!

Getting ready for the action!

Mallory aka "The Princess" appears to have raided her brothers' closets for warmer clothing. Without that pink Bengals hat and Tinkerbell boots, she looks like "one of the boys"!!

Marshall takes the "back way" down the hill!

John's newest sport invention......BODY BOARDING!

There were some crash landings as well!

Later in the day, John headed to the "High School Hill" to do some snowboarding with his friends. I wish I had a picture of when he wiped out a few feet after this picture! That would have been a good one too!