Dec 04 2012

November and December

So for Thanksgiving this year, we did something that Emily has never done in her whole life – we went to her dad and Colleen’s house in NY. Normally we bounce between St. Louis at my Mom’s and staying in Cinci with family coming into town. It was a long long trip, but quite fun! The weather held out until the very last day. We took a few pics, although we should have taken more (Emily’s dad took some so we will get a copy of those):

We left the Tuesday night before Thanksgiving and stayed in a hotel north of Erie, PA. It was Lillian’s first time staying in a hotel and she was NOT interested in going to sleep..at 1145pm. I rocked her until around 130am and she finally went to sleep.

We did the usual camp stuff – walked in the woods, road the four wheelers, etc. We got to visit with Emily’s Uncle Bob (a car enthusiast – Audi TT RS, so I got some car talk in) and Aunt Sue. Thanksgiving was delicious – stuffing with sausage in it? YUM! While we were up there, My good friend from college, Adam B. and his wife Kim drove up to visit friday – saturday. Haven’t seem him in years and it was our first time meeting Kim.

I also tried a local vodka made in Lake Placid, NY by Lake Placid Spirits called P3. This is bar-none the smoothest vodka I have ever had. So much so that when I poured it in a glass over ice, Emily actually asked me if I had watered it down! The final filtration process uses garnet! they have another vodka called 46 peaks that is filtered over diamonds. Only problem – its ONLY sold in New York!

Big thanks to my mom for lending us the Orange Honda Element for the trip!!

I flew to Minneapolis/St. Paul for my birthday this year to spend with Sean. Again, didn’t take many photos, but there will be other opportunities. We hung around his apartment a lot (because I had to work 🙁 )but we got out to the Mall of America, Best Buy Corp offices, I at a Juicy Lucy called Spanish Fly (Yum!), went to the mill district and took some photos, and we had our Birthday dinner at Manny’s Chophouse (where the maitre’d called Sean … my …”partner”. what? business partner right? hmmm). I made a small album of the photos taken. Most are from the mill district that has some “ruins” from the original mill infrastructure from the late 1800’s/ early 1900’s. Photos are not in any order because we took some with my cell phone using both normal and HDR mode; and others with my camera (well, Sean took most of those). Gallery:

We are doing Christmas in Cinci this year and I think My mom, Megan (and matt?), and Sean are coming down for that. I don’t think I have seen Megan and Matt since Christmas last year! Crazy! Will get pics up when that rolls around.


Aug 13 2009

So what has Paul been up to?

I’ve been really busy lately with work, travel, being a dad, husband, etc and haven’t really posted anything significant in a while. So what have I been up to?
Last month, I took a long weekend trip and flew to Seattle to visit Sean and Tim and Bridgette’s family, and go to a Mighty Mighty Bosstone’s concert (YAH!). While in Seattle, Sean and I visited one of my co-workers, Debbie, at her parent’s cafe – Chelan Cafe. Its a great place with AWESOME food. On our way out to the cafe, we drove by an import dealership and saw this parked on the street:

Its a VERY rare BMW M1 and it was in awesome shape. In the sun, you could see the carbon fiber reflecting back under the pearlescent paint.
So after our brunch at Chelan Cafe, Sean and I got on the road for our drive to Portland, OR, to visit Corey, Aija, and their newborn daughter Zora. I haven’t seen Corey and Aija since Stephen’s wedding, and have never been to Portland. on the way up, we passed this weird sculpture:

Its a very pretty city. We had some good meals there (especially lunch the next day!) and hanging out with old friends made the weekend worthwhile.

While in Seattle, I got to hang out with Tim, Bridgette, Rylee and Tyler. Turns out Rylee and Brig are big fans of So You Think You Can Dance, which is my anti-masculine guilty pleasure TV Show that Emily got me addicted to. Rylee LOVES the show. She knows every name, dance style, choreographer, etc of every person on the show. The three of us watch the show while Sean and Tim played some PS3 game 🙂
I got to swim in the Snohomish (?) river. The river was VERY high and the curretn was so strong that sean and I couldn’t get more than 10 or 15 feet from the bank without getting a chance of us getting swept away. A great public park..things you just don’t see in this area. Another thing that was great? I actually got to see the sun shine in the Pac NW. The three or four times I’ve been up there, its always rained (surprise!).
So the last night there, Sean, Tim, and I went to see my all time favorite band, The Might Mighty Bosstones. They got back together and this was the main purpose of my trip – to see them again. Of all the concerts I have been to, I”ve seen them the most. I think this was my 5th or 6th time seeing them. This show did not let me down. I’ll post some video and photos (ala cell phone so not great…) at a later time.

So fast forward to a week or so ago. For Father’s day, Emily got me a gift cert for Boi na Braza (sp?), a Brazillian steakhouse in Cincinnati. For those not familiar, these places charge a flat rate and you get a pretty decent salad bar. Also, they have waiters walking around with 15 different cuts of meat – sirloin, lamb chops, chicken breasts, filet mignon, and plenty of others. It was amazing. While NOT cheap, one of the things Emily and I enjoyed the most was the personal time. The wait staff doesn’t bother you. Because you let them know when you want more food, they basically stay away from your table unless you need a refill on your beverage. We had a great time talking all night without some person interrupting us to see if we wanted to buy something else. And MANY thanks to Aunt SheShe for watching Sean so we could have some time out. Oh..and the deserts are freaking great too! I love a perfectly cooked flan. Their wine list is pretty decent also. We had a nice pinot grigio.

Coming soon – my twin brother Sean is flying in from Seattle for a visit over Labor Day weekend. When he is here, my mom, Megan, and Megan’s boyfriend Matt, plan on coming down and we are hoping to see Stephen and Amy as well. (Little) Sean is going to have a BLAST!

Tonight, I gave Sean one of my die-cast cars. Its a Porsche that I got when I was in the 8th or 9th grade as a Christmas present from (I think) my grandmother’s brother, my Uncle Jack McNaughton (the Scottish side!). Sean LOVED it. Its bright orange. When Emily picked him up to take him to bed he cried. He wanted his car! So she gave it to him and carried him upstairs. Up in his room, she tried to get him to put it down on his dresser so they could get ready for bed. He wanted nothing to do with that. He was hugging and snuggling her…while hugging and snuggling his new car!! I knew I loved this kid for a reason!!

Can’t wait to see what happens when he finds out I have 20 or 30 diecast cars in storage 😉 He likes that orange Porsche 959 so much he may go into overdrive if sees the others! 🙂

Last night Uncle Phillip and Gramma got back from their trip to the Cabin and NYC and Phillip brought Sean back a present! Sean is now the proud owner of some Air Jordans!

He thought they were so cool. He is wearing them to “school” today. Phillip has a matching pair so we’ll have to get a photo of them wearing them together. He is in size sixes now, and when he gets to size sevens he gets to wear his Chucks that Megan and Matt got him 🙂

Links for the various galleries related to the posts above:


Seattle Trip:

Sean’s new car:


Jul 07 2009

Adirondack Boy

Tag: Emily,Family,Fun,SeanAndrew,VacationEmily @ 7:00 pm

Sean and I have been in New York visiting my family since Thursday. We are having a really good time, despite the rainy weather that never seems to take a break. Colleen and Cate picked us up at the airport on Thursday and we headed out to Great Sacandaga Lake, where we have a camp. We spent Thurs – Monday there, hanging out, boating, fishing, making smores, hanging out with neighbors and family. Sean, who hates to walk in the grass, and heaven forbid, touch it with his hands, was running around in the woods barefoot by Monday. He loves pine needles, pine cones, little sticks and all the trees! He got to swim in the lake and throw rocks, and take lots of long walks up and down the camp road. We headed back home on Monday, getting ice cream on the way.

Dad, Colleen and Cate spent a lot of time redoing the playhouse that Dad built for Brian and me when we were younger. They put nice walls on the inside (it was always just 2x4s and plywood) and fixed it up so cute with a table and chair set, and Cate’s old Little Tykes kitchen set. Sean has a blast playing in there, cooking us meals and microwaving the fake food in the little microwave.

We are planning on heading back to the camp for this weekend, and then Sean and I return home to KY on Tuesday. It’s been a lot of fun so far and we have some great pictures! Click on the picture below to see.

Also, Sean sat in the little chair outside of the playhouse, where he sat when he came last fall. Look how much he’s grown up!


Dec 26 2008

10 Months!

Tag: Emily,Family,Fun,Holidays,Paul,SeanAndrew,VacationEmily @ 10:43 pm

We can’t believe that 10 months ago today we met our little boy for the first time! He’s growing up so fast and is looking more and more like a little boy every day, instead of a baby. He’s really close to walking; he actually took 2 steps the other day toward the cat. He’ll do 1 step and then fall forward going from person to person as well. He’s also really into doing “so big,” waving, saying “bye bye” clapping his hands, and playing with his toys. Santa was really wonderful to him this year, he got some awesome toys and very cute clothes 🙂

Sean is having a great time with his Oma, Opa and Aunt Cate here in New York. It’s funny, he slept really horribly the first few nights that we were here, and my Dad and Colleen offered to take him in his room for the night to let us get some sleep. He ended up sleeping perfectly. He slept in their room again last night and slept perfectly again. I guess he’s just tired of his mommy and daddy and wants to be with Oma and Opa! They just love it 🙂

Here are some pictures of Sean from our vacation so far, along with Christmas pictures. Notice his Christmas outfit with his name embroidered on it from Stephen and Ally (Thank you!). What a cute gift. We got it for a baby shower gift and it fit him absolutly perfectly on Christmas morning. He wore it all day 🙂

Here are some more pictures of our time here, mostly of the birds and snow. We havae about 3 feet right now, although it’s packed down on itself some over the past few days. Still…a lot more than we get in KY and it made for a wonderful white Christmas.


Apr 06 2008

Surprise!

Tag: Emily,Family,General,SeanAndrew,VacationEmily @ 3:41 am

Little Sean and I got back last night from New York for a surprise visit to Oma and Opa’s house (my dad and Colleen) in New York.  They are due to come visit in a week or so for their spring break, but I couldn’t pass up an opportunity to surprise them!  I surprised Colleen at her work and Dad at home when he got home from work.  They were just thrilled to meet Little Sean for the first time and spent all four days with him in their arms!  They are definitely in love!  I snapped a lot of pictures, including some of my mom tapping her maple trees at the cabin to make maple syrup.  All in all, it was a great visit and we look forward to having my Dad and Colleen visit us in a little over a week!


Nov 30 2007

Better late than never…

Tag: Emily,Family,food,Friends,Fun,General,Holidays,Paul,VacationPaul C. @ 1:30 pm

I know I know, I should have posted this a few days ago, but I’ve been sick! 🙂
Like I mentioned earlier, Emily and I made the trek to St. Louis to visit my parents for Thanksgiving. Sean was also in town from Seattle. Wednesday night, my sister Megan and I stayed up sharing a bottle of Chateau Ste. Michelle cabernet and talking until 3:30am (430 my time!). We rarely get to do that, so it was very cool. Thursday was Turkey Day! Man I love thanksgiving…I think we should have it at least twice a year! Although, I’m sure there are a number of turkeys out there who disagree with me. Mom cooked and awesome meal for us and Emily made the famous Marshall Rolls. Aunt Karen, Uncle Ted, and Scott made it down from west St. Louis as well and it was really nice seeing them.
Sean, Manders (friend of ours and Megan’s from high school), and myself then made our trip to the movie theatre to catch our annual bad-movie-on-turkey-day which started back in the day with my selection of “Paycheck” starring Matt Damon. Sean’s selection this year was Hitman. HOO BOY was it rotten. We got to the theatre about 15 or 20 minutes late so we missed the beginning of the movie ( **cue Office Space “I wouldn’t say I was missing it, Bob…” ***). The acting was lousy, the female character in the movie probably only got the role cause she showed her boobs. What can you expect from a movie produced by Vin Diesel? But I digress…
The rest of the week was pretty uneventful – we went out to an irish pub in Belleville, IL that was nice, hung out at a local bar in O’Fallon, had an awesome hamburger at Denny’s (eggs and hashbrowns on a burger! YUM!), and hung around the house. Saturday we did a family trip to Pierre Marquette State Park to lunch on their lodge’s famous fried chicken and take some family photos.
While we were home for thanksgiving Mom and Dad presented us with some new gifts for Little Sean. As we’ve mentioned before, my dad is *very* handy in wood working. When Sean and I were born, he made us a cradle that was also used for my sister when she was born. Well, now we have a cradle of our own:

Paul’s mom has also recently dusted off her knitting needles and made a fun little hat for Little Sean:

Can’t wait to have him try them both out (only three more months to go!!). Here are some highlight photos from the trip:
me showing my approval of the baby bump:

My parents – dad looks great! (mom too!)
mom and dad

I’ll post some more from my dad’s set of photos after I process the huge DSLR snapshots from his Nikon D80 🙂


Nov 27 2007

Busy Busy…*cough*

Tag: Family,food,Friends,Fun,General,Paul,VacationPaul C. @ 10:27 pm

Emily and I took a trip to St. Louis for Thanksgiving this year.  My sister and brother were both in town as well.  I didn’t bring a heavy enough jacket with me and now I’m fighting a nasty cold….so now I am going to bed and I will post photos and a run-down of turkey day at a time in the very near future.


Sep 05 2007

Cathedral Domain

Tag: Emily,Fun,General,Paul,Religion,VacationEmily @ 8:04 pm

For the Labor Day weekend, Paul and I went with our church to Cathedral Domain. The Episcopal Diocese of Lexington have over 800 acres of land near Irvine, KY that has a camp and conference center on it. Each church gets ‘a weekend’ at the Domain, and Labor Day is our church’s weekend. It’s a great time to meet members of the church. It’s not a retreat type weekend, it’s more of a ‘come and hang out and meet some people that you see every week’ type thing. It was great.
We could have stayed in a camp with 12 bunk beds on either side and share a restroom, but since it was our first year going, and we didn’t know that many people, we opted for what people referred to as the “Hilton,” which was more of a dorm-type setup, with a double occupancy room with it’s own bathroom. Quite spiffy for a camp!

We got to the Domain Friday night about 915pm, unloaded, then took a walk around to see what the place was like. We met a few people then headed off to bed. We spent the weekend hanging out with new friends, getting to know people, playing games, eating (a lot), sitting by the pool, having a few drinks (well…Paul anyway) and a lot of laughs. We did some hiking, and caving as well. We are really glad we went. We finally got to put names, and life stories to about 50 people that we’ve seen in church for years but never have gotten to know.

We’re really glad for the experience. We want to feel more a part of the church, especially because we’re bringing our little one into it. Everyone was very excited to hear that we are expecting. There were actually 2 other women that were pregnant at the Domain; one due in February, and one in April, so our little one will have instant friends!

Check out pictures by clicking below:


Aug 07 2007

NY Pictures Up

Tag: General,VacationEmily @ 8:52 am

We have all the pictures from New York online now.

We had a really great time in NY.  We got there Thursday night and stayed at Diana’s cabin, since Cate was getting her wisdom teeth out the next morning.  On Friday, Cate and her boyfriend Brian came over to the cabin.  We hung out awhile, went for some ice cream, and then had dinner with Heinz, Colleen, and Diana.  Cate was doing amazingly well for just having 4 wisdom teeth out; she even had a hamburger for dinner!

Saturday, we took the boat to the Schroon Lake marina/beach and went into town and had a bite to eat.  We also got some maple syrup to bring back to friends.  We went fishing that night off the beach and caught a ton of fish.  Emily caught a 17.5 inch Northern Pike! 

Sunday we headed over to Heinz & Colleen’s cabin on Sacadaga Lake.  We ate some lunch, and hung out on the beach with Eddie & Wendy (Colleen’s brother and sister-in-law).  The dogs, Bailey and Sherman had a blast chasing sticks in the water and eachother!

We had a great time, even though it was a short visit. 

Check out pictures by clicking here.


Jul 26 2007

Changes….and a bit of a weekly recap.

Getting restless with the website. Its been online in this format since at least December 2005. Those that know me well, know that I get restless after 2 or 3 years of the same old same old 🙂 Maybe that explains my car “habit” (time for a change about now isn’t it?). I guess it goes back to my military childhood of moving every two to three years.
Anyway, I’m thinking its about time for a theme change on the old blog. Of course I haven’t mentioned it to Emily yet 🙂 This all came about after doing some work on Heather and Ashley‘s blogs. I think I am still using an older version of the blog software, so it would have to be upgraded to the 2.x version to work with many new formats and layouts. So keep your eyes peeled, there may be some new changes afoot.
On an unrelated note, my Dad is doing really well. His recent trip to the oncologist brought back some very positive feedback on his treatment. At 42% reduction in the tumor size and a significant reduction in the [stuff] they measure for cancer in the blood. As Mom says, he is a poster boy for his current treatment plan 🙂 Their website is listed on the links to the right of the website.
Emily and I will be going to New York for the first weekend in August. We’ll be visiting her dad and stepmom and spending some time at Diana’s cabin. Maybe I can finally watch a movie in the home theater room that I designed and installed? (and never got to have fun with!)
My brother is taking the Motorcycle Safety Course up in Seattle this weekend. I think everyone should take this class.  Heck, even if you don’t plan on getting your two wheel note on your ID, I encourage anyone to take it. Could save the lives of many of us on two wheels. Plus you will learn the thrill of riding a motorcycle. Its truly a freeing feeling.
Guess I should go to bed now as work draws near.

-pc


Next Page »