Last days of summer

Before fall hit, Daphne enjoyed some time in her pool. She a lot more adventurous than in the past and will even put her head in the water now.

Huh? (Daphne's new favorite word)

Dividend Day

Before all the craziness of the storm, we had gone to King's Island. September 13th and 14th were my work's King's Island Days. Luckily, we went on the hot and sweltering 13th because the park was evacuated on the 14th.

I volunteered, giving away some of the freebies for 2 hours, and in exchange got some extra tickets and we were able to invite some of our friends. We went with other people with little kids and this was our first year taking Daphne. It's definitely a different kind of fun with little kids vs. just going on all the roller coasters and crazy rides. Not that I was upset, since I can't go on anything crazy without feeling sick - pretty much any roller coaster - or like my heart is going to leap out of my chest - Tower of Terror, or whatever the King's Island one is called. I can't believe I wanted to bungee jump in high school at the state fair?!?

Well, the kids had fun and, proudly, I can tell you that I beat Kevin on the Scooby Doo ride (which is an interactive ride where you shoot your laser gun at targets and get points). And if you ask Kevin about it, don't listen to any of his excuses, like the gun didn't work. I beat him fair and square - 1200 points to his piddly 600 (or something like that).

Hey Baby! Where do you want to go?

Marc and Carrick on the carousel.
Justin, Didn't you get the memo? We're all supposed to wear red.

Daphne met her namesake on ...The Mystery Machine.

Power Up

No lights and new pjs
Our power came back on last Friday afternoon and we were very happy :)

While the power was off Kevin was still off so he was able to clean up the yard from all the debris and our fence is already fixed too. Neither Kevin nor I was home when the power came back on, but, ironically, shortly before our whole street got it's power back, the electric company trimmed the tree in our front yard - the one that had a few branches laying on the wires and squishing three wires together.

And then....we got our fix of tv again and all other electronic addictions satisfied.

So this week has been a big one - Daphne went back to school on Monday and fits right back in besides not wanting to go to sleep at night and Kevin went back to school on Wednesday - only 2 more years!!!!!

During the storm, a lot of patio furniture was blown over, even our two person metal "couch". But look who's still standing - see him? St. Francis is standing by the wishing well. and he didn't budge.

A neighbor's basketball hoop got knocked over.

Our broken fence and the tree that landed on it.
More debris. And look who else is still standing - see her in white? This was after the storm - so, no, we didn't put Daphne out in the storm. Our yard was a wreck.

:(

Another day of no power. Are you keeping tabs? I am (but that's because I have nothing else to do). This is starting Day #6 without electricity.

Still in the Dark

Another Day, no power yet. The streets on either side of ours got power. But we are still in the dark.

Power Outage

Just in case anyone was wondering. It is Wednesday 8:00am and we are still without power at the McCabe home (since Sunday around 2:00pm). Lucky for me (Ha!Ha!) my work was not affected, so I have still made it into work everyday this week - even driving through many intersections without lights. The GREAT WINDSTORM of 2008, as the media calls it, caused a lot of damage around Cincinnati. The only damage we had was of a neighbor's tree that fell on our fence and lots of twigs and branches to pick up. All the houses on our street besides 2 or 3 do not have electricity. I don't know how those 2 or 3 lucky *!*?* ended up with power. Eastgate on the other side of Mockingbird looks like they mostly have their power. The missing power/electricity seemed to hit and miss houses. The top branches from the tree in our front yard also were affected. In fact, some of the branches are broken but still connected to the tree and are lying on the electrical wires in front of our house.
We are still fortunate enough to not have any damage to the house and to still have running water and hot water and a grill that functions well. And I still have my cool (old) plug-in-the-wall pink phone from when I was a kid so we are able to get phone calls without problems. Kevin is suffering from lack of communication with the outside world. But hopefully, we will be up and running soon. And we'll have pictures to follow.

The Wedding

The Engaged Couple. Scott Schwartz & Kim McCabe.
Kim & Janet

Luke & Daphne/ Ringbearer & Flowergirl.

Getting ready.

The cutest flower girl ever.

You'll know what this picture is, if you have you seen '27 Dresses'. (It's a great movie!)

Kevin & his Mom.

The married couple. Mr. Scott & Mrs. Kim Schwartz.

Some other old married farts & the cutest flowergirl ever.

So if you haven't figured out, last Saturday was Kim and Scott's wedding. In other words, Kevin's sister got married. This was a very big deal in our household. Kevin and I each only have one sibling and Kim McCabe is the last of our immediately family to get married... and Daphne was the flowergirl. We were hyping it up for Daphne all week and she walked down the aisle marvelously! With the help of the older ringbearer. The wedding was lots of fun, as weddings should be. Daphne danced and moved and boogied non-stop from 8:30-11:30 and then conked out for the night. Somehow, even our primo camera came out a little blurry on a lot of pictures from that night and we didn't end up with many clear pictures of the married couple on their wedding night but I'm sure we'll see some from all the other photographers.

Kim & Scott - To many happy years together!

Mom - Thanks for being the photographer!

Family Reunion

To anyone besides my husband who reads this, again, I am just reminding you that I am at least a week behind. After getting back from our vacation and then working the early shift (egads! having to be at work by 7:00am), my schedule has been a little off. I don't know how I did it in the hospital for a few years - and then I worked from 7:00am - 7:00pm). Anyhow this past weekend was Kim's (Kevin's sister's) wedding. And it was a blast, but I'll get to that later this week when I get a chance to download some more pictures.

So, last Sunday was the annual Sensel (actually Runser) Family Reunion. We had a Memorial for my Grandpa who passed away on July 9th in Florida and then the usual grill out and now the second annual cornhole tournament. It's usually the only time each year when I get to see all of my cousins, who have moved all across the country, and all the extended family on my Dad's side. I think most years since it has started, we've had a new addition to the family and this year it was no different. My second cousin, Quinn, and his wife Tina had a new baby girl, Kathryn. All the other young kids had a blast, as did the old folks. Lots of good food - and, yes, Kevin, that's how I think the dessert selection should be at all parties, lots and lots of variety - everything from chocolate chip cookies, to pizelles, to 2 different cakes, pie, jello, brownies - you name the dessert and we at least had something similar to it. It was a beautiful day to mark the end of a great week for Kevin, Daphne and I.

A visit to my Grandma Brousil.Daphne and Kera. Rachelle and I didn't plan the outfits. It just turned out that they both wore orange.
Uncle Tom and Dad at Grandpa's Memorial.

Playing cornhole.

The winners of the Cornhole Tournament - Dad and Lisa. Lots of family.
More family.
Kera and Ken.

Boston

Whew!!! So, I am a little behind. We were 10 days gone - 4 to Brunswick and 6 to Boston. Of course I would like to share my pictures from Boston - but before I go there, let me just tell you that we took 171 pictures (and that was after editing/deleting pictures) and 3 videos from Boston - enough to fill up a 1 GB memory card. Guess how many of those pictures actually had people in them? Less than half of them and only one with the three of us. We did see lots of old and historic things. Our hotel was in Beacon Hill - which is a very expensive neighborhood (in fact, John Kerry lives there). We estimated that it would cost us over $1 million to have our same house (by square feet) in this neighborhood (and it's not near that in reality - thank goodness!). Lots of cool brownstones/townhomes and brick sidewalks and cobblestone streets. It was also the home to the Bull & Finch, which is now named after the sitcom that used the bar's entrance for its opening credits, Cheers. We took the Freedom Trail, which is a red line (either brick or painted) on the sidewalks throughout the downtown of Boston that connects all the old, important sites - from a few cemeteries where a lot of important people (like Mother Goose .. . and some other big names, you might have heard of - John Hancock, Sam Adams - there was a keg at his gravesite) are buried to Paul Revere's house to Bunker Hill. And guess where Daphne had the most fun? At the playgrounds, and luckily, there were a few along the way. I don't think she got much from all the history lessons.

Let's see, we also saw Harvard, Longfellow's (the author's) house, the USS Constitution - the oldest war boat still floating, Chinatown, Fenway Park, and we went to a St. Anthony's Feast - kind of like a Taste of Cincinnati - except it was all Italian and no alcohol. It reminded us more of a scene from the Godfather. A whole bunch of Italian men were carrying a statue of St. Anthony on their soldiers and several bands played. And we got to sample a Quahog dish. I went to Cape Cod several years ago and had Quahog chowder - of which, nobody has heard. It does exist and it tastes great. The list goes on - we like to cram as much as possible into our vacations. If you do decide to go to Boston with a stroller, just be advised that the Freedom Trail and some subway stations are not ADA compliant - meaning no elevator. Because we are tightwads, we decided to only use a subway around Boston. Getting off the airplane at 9:00am (after being awake from 4:30am to get to the airport and take the plane), we looked for the subway to take us to our hotel. Kevin had written down the station we needed to get to and we knew the hotel was 0.25 miles from the subway station. What we didn't know and anybody failed to tell us was that this subway station did not have an elevator. Picture this - 2 weary adults with 2 backpacks (one on each back) and another carry on stuffed in the stroller, 2 suitcases and a heavy duffle bag and a stroller with a 2 year old - carting all their crap up several flights of stairs to the middle of downtown Boston!!! What a sight we were. Good thing it was Sunday morning - I can't imagine what it would have been like during rush hour. Daphne in her throne/stroller was carried up and down too many stairs to count. Needless to say, we got some exercise on this trip. Hey! For all those people who recommended the DUKW tour - it was great! Thanks!

All right, have a good night! And if you really want to see all the Boston pictures - drop me a comment and I'll gladly send them all to you. And for those who are really lucky, I'll send Kevin's narration of the Freedom Trail too.

Cheers.

Make Way for the Ducklings - a famous book (Has anybody heard of it?)

A well-liked mayor of Boston.

Longfellow's house.

This was intended to be a picture in front of a Paul Revere statue - but isn't she just too cute!

John Harvard - who actually didn't start Harvard, just gave them a lot of money. You are supposed to rub his foot for luck. But Kevin said that people pee on the foot. Either way, we didn't touch it.

Frog Pond in the middle of Boston Common right before getting yelled at by some 12 year old with braces because Daphne wasn't allowed to be in it without a Swimmer diaper.

Ted Williams in front of Fenway Park.

Our DUKW boat. (And it is spelled that way - look it up!)

Mother Goose's gravesite.