Gaufest - Day 3

Friday was another day we spent with Maureen and the girls.  We met up with them early and went to the Boerner Botanical Gardens. Beautiful! Afterwards, Maureen took us a quick drive-by tour of the VA Center where she works. Lunch at Louise's Italian Restaurant, delish! And finally, frozen custard for dessert.  It was fabulous.

Then back to the hotel for more of Gaufest.  We went to a night of dancing and fun.

Gaufest - Day 2

On Thursday, we had breakfast and went shopping in the Gaufest stores. Met up with Maureen L and two of her daughters. She told a little about the place she lived. It's been in her family for over 100 years. Then we went to the fair where Cora was showing some horses. Cora and Chris went off to ride the rides. We had a corn dog and tried deep fried cheese curds. Then Maureen treated us to cream puffs, which were delicious! Finally, we watched a small family circus act. It was pretty good, and the balancing boy was great.

Then we had to leave to head back to the opening of the Gaufest.

Gaufest - Day 1

The Backseat Boys

Jean-Luc is driving!

I got home on Monday afternoon. Was home long enough to do a single load of laundry and pack for both Gaufest and another week on Long Island. We started the drive up to Milwaukee. We stopped for the night in Nashville to stay with Bill's parents. Had a very nice time, we saw Aunt Joan and Uncle Ed and Maura. And dinner. Got up early the next morning and pushed on in to Milwaukee.

Bill and his dad, Al

Family Time

We're staying at the Hilton City Center. The first night, we donned the German clothing and set out to the German Town Hall for dinner and half price beer.

Afterwards, we went to the park where a small Octoberfest was happening. Had a nice time hanging out with Bela, Karen, and Isabel. Afterwards, we players Catan with them and a new guy, Ethan. Anton ended up winning.

Wedding

Bill and I went to Bill H and Catherine's wedding this weekend.  It was very beautiful!  It was in Fairfax, VA.  Also, Kimberly and Ben were there, and I also talked with Cherrie from the DBIZ project.  Catherine is Justice Scalia's daughter, so I also got a glimpse of him.  He seemed like a nice, happy dad.  Anyways, we had a great time, and I'm so glad that we went.  Bill H looked very happy, and so did Catherine.

Movies

Kimberly K and I went to see Inside Out last night.  Cute, fun movie!  With several laugh out loud scenes.  Pixar did a great job on this one.

Afterwards, we went to Joe's Crab Shack for dinner.  It was delicious.

Company Retreat

We spent the last part of last week through the weekend at the Omni Homestead Resort for a Mythics company retreat.  My family (Bill, Anton, and Chris) drove up from Florida while I flew over from Long Island.  We had a great time!
We all got there during the day on Thursday, the family getting in from the drive around 8:30 or so.  We had a company dinner that night.

On Friday, there was a company breakfast with a briefing about the cloud.  We played mini-golf in the morning and did skeet shooting in the afternoon.  Anton hit 1 out of 10 skeets, and Chris hit 7 out of 10.  I told him I wanted to be with him during the Zombie Apocalypse.  He won a $25 gift card for the resort.  We went to the company pool party, the boys went around the lazy river about 20 times.  The band was so loud that no one could talk.  And we had dinner that night at the Casino (sports clubhouse) on the property.

On Saturday, we had a business breakfast.  We did the marshmallow challenge.  My team came in second place with 24 inches.  Then we went on a Nature Conservancy hike in the morning.  It was up, up, up to the top of a mountain.  The view was beautiful!  Had lunch at Subway in the local town.  Then off for kayaking.  Bill and I had a canoe, while the boys each had a kayak.  The river water level was low, so the canoe bottomed out in about 5 places.  Bill had to get out and push it over the rocks.  At one point he had to let go because he slipped on the rocks.  Then, near the end, we went pretty fast over the rapids right towards a half submerged tree trunk which flipped us over!  I ended up under the canoe, but I got out easily.  We made it over to the side where we were able to get situated.  Four other kayaks also got overturned, including Anton.  Fun times!  We had dinner at Sam Snead's  in the village.

Throughout our time there, we played a lot of games of Catan.  The family left early on Sunday morning for the long drive back home.  And Kimberly, Ben, and I left for Washington DC.  We went to the Nationals vs Dodgers game that afternoon.  The Dodgers won, 5-0.  Sad.

Early Monday morning, Kim and I came back to Long Island.

More Watts Wedding Photos

Photos from the day.

Watts Wedding!

David Watts, my nephew, and Kellie Northup were officially married on this day in Cocoa, FL.  Yay!!

Jean-Luc almost had to marry them...

I Do BBQ

The pre-wedding I Do BBQ.  Tons of fun!

Memorial Services

My brother Jon came in for the Memorial Services for Buddy, my Mother, and Monica.  It was a very sad time for all of us.

We spread Buddy and my Mother under a huge oak tree at St. Mary's church.  Jon, Julie, and I took turns spreading my Mother's ashes.

Later that evening, we met on the beach for Monica's Memorial Service.  Frank was there as well.  We said some words, then Frank, Jon, Julie, and I walked down to the water.  What Frank did was very upsetting.  I said I'd like to spread some of the ashes, and so did Julie.  Frank started and kept on going.  Julie put her hand out to stop him, then he upended the bag and dumped them all.

Very sad indeed.

Monica - Sep 1963 - May 2015

Blue Man Group

Arun R, Joe T, Jeevan Y, me, Udaya P,
Shawn G, Sudhakar R, Neelima S,
Kimberly K, and Hana S

Went with my co-workers to see Blue Man Group.  We had dinner before at a Moroccan restaurant, then good-natured arguing over which subway lines to take.  Dinner was delicious!  The show was only ok.

Apparently we were in the 'splash' zone

Shawn G, Blue Man, Hana S, me

Random Photos

Lunch with Julie-ana

Jean-Luc gets ordained

Dinner with my Cousin

Alan and Isabella Kagan visited from Brasil (Goiania).  She is Elder's daughter, who is Clarissy's son, who was a sister to my mother.  So she is my first cousin once removed.  I had dinner with them on Monday evening in New York City at Kilo restaurant.  We had a great time talking about the family.  Her husband is an oncologist, and she is a homemaker who occasionally helps in her husband's office.  She spoke English very well, him not so much.  But they both were wonderful!  They are going to Miami for a few days, then back home.

Movies

Saw Terminator Genisys with the Mills.  I liked it!  The story line was a little confusing with all the time travel, but Ah-nold was fabulous!  And I also liked Emilia Clarke (Daenerys Targaryen from Game of Thrones).  The guy who played Kyle Reese was ok, and John Conner was the twist.  Good movie!

North Florida Storm Baseball

They played in Vero Beach over the Independence Day holiday.  Anton's team won two and lost 3, so they weren't in the playoffs.  Anton pitched in one game on the Fourth of July.  He did pretty good.  He pitched two innings, and then the game was forfeited by the other team because apparently their batter made a questionable gesture and the umpire threw him out of the game, then their coach forfeited.  Weird.

One of the games they won was the game Anton pitched in.  He also got to bat in both games on July 3rd.  In the first game, he hit a single to right center and a hit by the pitch with an RBI. The coach brought in all the pitchers to bat, and they scored 4 out of 6 runs!  In the second game, Anton gets on with a chopper to third error and a hit to short error.