brother and sister

This is my eldest brother; Steven. He is a single Dad and last year became a grandpa. He is supposed to be doing the"c" in YMCA, but as a lifelong dyslexic it is difficult to spell in air. Plus I think he also might think "s" is for Steve.
We stopped in Wilmington to pick up Pat. Here is Omar the pig.
Atalayah in Myrtle Beach, SC(State Park)
Brookgreen Gardens, MB,SC
different approaches
oops some poses are very similar....
same stride
Got him to be silly
we got some BOGO's for Medieval Times...Angela and Vinny went with us.

I haven't spent a week with my brother in a long time. Sometimes, I wonder how much we really retain of our patterns and lifestyle from youth. I find that although life has taken us down some very different roads, we aren't much different 50 and 47 years later. Of course he and I have quite a bit of history together...it is comforting to know that our sibling bonds are still very secure. I had a really good time. Next post will be with brother #2.

Happy Easter!

A little SonRise service in the park started our Easter off! We all shared in a great breakfast after our Celebration of Christ's Resurrection!

We made babka. I don't like this recipe. ( and it appears to have eyes)

Michelle rolled out some pierogie dough and we made some potato-cheese ones! Yum.

My family helps me celebrate my birthday while we are all together!

Traditional egg cracking contest. Here are the youngest and oldest pitted against each other.

Molly hasn't a clue, but she will learn quickly.

Every year our household hosts the Easter dinner for my family. We have about 20 of us.

This year I decided to go against our tradtional meal of turkey/ham, etc...

I decided to be a little more ethnic. Polish side doesn't have a traditonal Easter meal, aside from getting the food blessed on Sat. (we didn't do that) So, we just had traditional polish food; all homemade except the sausage; kielbasi, pierogi, babka, galumpky(cabbage rolls). For the Italian side, they have a big multi course meal which included a lot of fish; so we nixed that and added lasagna, pasta salad, field green salad, and an anti pasta called "benedetto" or blessing. This is strictly a Battista (Vin's mom's side) dish. Layered orange slices, egg slices, genoa salami, lemon slices and ricotta salata. I didn't remember this dish. I asked Vin's aunt about it, and searched high and low for the ricotta salata (a hard ricotta that you can slice), found it at Whole Foods. Vin was super excited and I am so glad I can bring a favorite taste bud tickler to him. That was fun to see.

What traditions do you all have and do you ever switch it up?

2008 NC State Fair

This year 5 of us went to the fair. So, $30 for admission/$40 rides/$10 food
not bad...but free is always good-we each started with one (1) free hushpuppy.
stopped by to see Martha and Elizabeth's entries...

All of us girls rode the roller coaster...















Michelle took Vince on in bumper cars...



Elizabeth and Angela did this ride....they were "surprised" by the Enterprise...
they didn't watch it to see how it went...

Stopped at John the Greek's for a gyro.
Since some of the poultry was for sale, Elizabeth pondered on whether she could afford these...
They spotted the babies...
and washed their hands thoroughly!
Elizabeth liked this one, until she saw the belties...

As we were rushing out of one building, I saw this. This pig has been on Oprah! I like the lady moving so fast while she tells of how smart her pig is and it just stands there like a statue.

I think we should get our cats to paint...

We enjoyed our day. Vince only had to hold my hand once, when I lost him and he didn't want that to happen again. I have a tendency to wander... I told them I was going this way...he says that I wasn't talking to any of them...;-)

a day/evening this week

Why can't they guess
"Binoculars"? It is so obvious. Look at the attention Jordan gives to it!
(He thought I was a little too fresh, that perhaps I had caffeinated Earl Grey instead of my Peppermint after dinner tea!)



Here Michelle goes off. But really, no one really knows who BO is, do they?
( I think the hagan one is after this, followed by perdue,.....)





Our security system, always at face level on walkways, doors!
Perhaps we should use spider webs for our trip wires...


Early morning, Elizabeth working hard on her school.

Since Katie ended with a cat in the box, I will too.
Of course yesterday, no box...so kitties played with fish food and ripped open a bag of bread...beasts!





PS check out this link on Creation Museum

http://www.ldnews.com/national/ci_10686795

weekends....

Weekends are when we try to do some family activity...with the intent of all being involved-but that may or may not happen.

This past Friday, Vince, Michelle and I went to the "movies in the park" and viewed the Alvin and the Chipmunks movie....



Last weekend was Bowling for no dollars....


and the weekend before was tennis time....

"Cruise in"

Fuquay had an event last Friday. Here is a car that Vin could work on.
Who knows what she is thinking, but it is not proper at a car show to look at hedges, E!
This is one of Vin's favorite activities; takes me about 5-10min to look at cars. (he takes hours...!)
Here we entertain ourselves in the "shiny-ness"
A distraction for me....got Angela a shirt for about $5.
And dinner at El D's to top it off.

strawberry fields forever....?

Last friday was a teacher's workday, so we headed for the strawberry patch. I wish they had been a little sweeter( the berries, not the girls) but we had a fun time!