JD's wedding

Saturday, October 22nd was the wedding date for our buddy, JD and his bride, Quillen. JD and Wayne have been friends since first grade and Wayne was asked to be a groomsman in the wedding. JD is special to our family for many reasons, not the least of which is he is a Marine who served a tour of duty in Afghanistan. In addition, I will never, ever forget that Jordan, JD's dad, flew JD home from college when Dane died so that JD could be with Wayne and attend Dane's services. That meant so much to us all.
JD and Quillen met at Denison University in Granville, OH and so that was where they had the wedding. They were married in the church where JD became Catholic. Jack was super disappointed that he could not attend the wedding; he had a speaking engagement booked in Arizona on the morning of October 23rd and there was no way to do both. We missed him, but carried on. Boy did we carry on.

Here are a few pictures from the day. And this whole post started out with a video of  Wayne, the dancing machine; not because it's the most important part of the day...only because that's how it loaded on the blog and I can't seem to change that!

so thrilled to be celebrating with JD and Quillen

coming out of the church

me and my boy on a beautiful fall afternoon

me and my speechie, Kristin, in our traditional pic

 proud father and all of his kids

Matt, Scott and JD...thank you for your service!

Marmar's Apple Crisp

Here is an awesome fall recipe. My mom first made this apple crisp recipe in her home economics class when she was in 8th grade. That was about 75 years ago. The smell of it cooking brings back great childhood memories. My sisters and I were talking about it yesterday and that made me crave it, so I made a batch last night. Jack took a picture of it and posted it on facebook. I will try and get that picture to post on here.

Apple Crisp
4 cups of sliced apples
1 tsp cinnamon
1/4 cup of water
1/2 tsp salt
Mix these together in a bowl, then put in a 9x9 greased pan
Topping: 3/4 cup flour, 1 cup sugar, 1/3 cup butter; mix these together well so that you have a crumbly mixture. I use a fork. Sprinkle over the top of the apples and bake for 40 minutes at 350.
Serve warm with ice cream or fresh whipping cream.
Easy and delicious!

Sunday Morning Walk

It's a drizzly Sunday morning. Perfect fall weather for a walk with my honey. Jack and I walked to town and stopped at Starbucks for a cup of coffee. We sat in the shop, watched the trains go by and visited. We went to mass last night, so we have the rest of Sunday to get things done.
It was such a pleasant start to the day.

Chicago Marathon

This past Sunday was the Chicago marathon and what a beautiful (but hot for the marathoners!) day for it. Wayne invited Jack and me to come down to cheer on Julie during her first marathon. We were also happy to be able to cheer on Team Larry Boy. Mark and his son, Chris, and daughters-in-law, Kristin and Andi were all running to raise money for one of Mark's coworkers who is dealing with ALS. Wayne's new apartment was right between the four mile marker and the eleven mile marker (the course looped back around).  It was the perfect set up for us as supporters. Grabbing our cups of coffee (or whatever), we were able to walk out of Wayne's apartment, turn right, walk about 25 yards and watch the runners at the 4 mile mark, then go back into the apartment, get another cup of coffee, walk out of the apartment and turn to the left, walk 25 yards that way and watch the runners at the 11 mile mark.

the traffic light is the 4 mile marker. 7:15 am

the 11 mile area, at 7:15 am

Jack, Wayne and I went out to the 4 mile mark around 7:45 to wait for the elite runners. Also with us were Jocelyn (Julie's BFF who came from Ohio/Annapolis to support her), Tej (Wayne's roommate), and Adam (Mark's son and Kristin's husband). First the wheelchair participants went by, then the vehicles with the timers and TV cameras, then came the first runners. What a thrill it was to see the lead pack approaching. Amazing to see world class athletes doing their thing, up close and personal. I had goose bumps as those lean, fast running machines men flew by. At that time, there weren't many spectators out and it was a bit surreal. Check this out:

Jocelyn, Wayne, Jack and Tej are in the background

4 mile mark, around 8:30, getting more crowded

 Julie's parents, Gordon and Marie, came in from Cleveland to support Julie in the race and came into the city with Julie's sister and brother-in-law, Sarah and Tim. They were able to see Julie at the 4 mile mark; unfortunately, I missed her! Bummer. We went back to Wayne's place and regrouped and waited for our runners to get to the 11 mile mark. I did not miss Julie this time!

there's Julie! in the orange

Julie made a few adjustments and visited with her fans, then took off to finish the race. Wayne met her at mile 18 and ran with her til mile 23. Jocelyn was also a huge support to Julie and videotaped Julie crossing the finish line. Julie was disappointed to find out that her chip did not work and so she does not show up on the official list of finish times, but we all know that she did a fantastic job.

all of these people were there to support Julie! seriously

Over the course of the day, we also got to cheer for Mark and Kristin. Here they are

Adam is pointing us out to Mark, who is signing "I love you"

my speechie friend, Kristin

super fans, Wayne and Jocelyn

 I never knew it could be so fun to watch the marathon!

Trivia Night

Last night, Jack and I met up with Kjell, Arne, Beth and Jenny to compete in a trivia contest at a restaurant in Kjell's neighborhood. It was so much fun! In the old days, we used to love to play the trivia games at places like TGIFridays when we would have our family vacations in Dallas with Tom and Ann. Back then, those games were more electronic, surprisingly enough. This trivia contest was live, with pencil and paper and answers couriered to the host. We ended up getting second place out of twenty teams. We missed first place by two points. Had Arne not been there, we would have been sunk. Arne is a music savant (meaning he is crazy smart about music). Seriously, he can hear two notes of a song and come up with the name of the song and the artist. At halftime during this trivia night, they play 10 songs, each for less than 30 seconds, and we had to come up with the title and artist. We would receive one point for the correct song title, one point for the correct artist and if we got both correct, we got a bonus point. Well, we got them all and that put us in first place after the first half of the game. At the bottom, I am going to post a video of Arne doing his thing.
 An example of a question during the regular portion of the game: Which Yankee holds the record of the best batting average (.393)? Lou Gehrig, Babe Ruth or Joe DiMaggio? No cheating.

Jack is thinking

Beth and I  wore our scarves. Shouldn't that be enough?

Arne and Jenny wait for the results

our team captain and courier, Kjell

Here is Arne, being a music savant

Hillsdale County Fair 2011

On Saturday, October 1st, Jack attended his 39th consecutive Hillsdale County Fair. It was my 28th, though not consecutive, Fair. Wayne and Sally could not go this year. Wayne was cheering at Homecoming at Illinois and Sally had a swim meet to coach. They missed all the fun.
We left late Friday afternoon, right after work. We were on the road for about 30 minutes when the low tire pressure warning light went on. Jack decided to stop at an oasis to check it out. Good thing we did because the back right tire was almost flat. Jack put some air in it and I went into the gas station to ask if they provided any tire repair services. Of course not. However, they suggested we drive to the next exit where we could find an NTB or something similar. Luckily, we made it there and found a Firestone that was open and could help us. They said it would take an hour or so to get to our car. Having no other choice, we decided to wait and got ourselves comfortable in the waiting area. About half way into our wait, a huge hail storm blew in and it was horrible for about twenty minutes. Jack and I were reminded how God protects us. We were fortunate to have had that warning light and to have heeded it. Otherwise we probably would have had a blow out and it might have been in the midst of a bad storm. As it turned out, there was something wrong with the valve on the tire and it only cost $28 to fix. Soon enough we were on our way.
We went straight to our very favorite restaurant, Schuler's. We arrived about an hour before they closed and pretty much had the place to ourselves. The meal did not disappoint. Mmmmmm, love those meatballs and barcheeze and peppermint ribbon pie.

a little glass of Chandon to celebrate Fair weekend

The next morning, we checked out of the Hampton Inn by 11 and headed to the Fair. We had to meet up with a guy named Brian Watkins. Brian is producing a documentary about the Fair and interviewed Jack last year. Brian  decided he needed more footage and contacted Jack to see if he could follow Jack around the Fair and interview both of us this year. Of course we said yes!

Brian puts a wireless mic on Jack

Brian shared with us the sad news that there was no photo button booth at the Fair this year. First time in at least 39 years!!!! We were mature about it. Brian took a picture of us and we are going to have our own photo button made (he gave us a great place to do it...mpix.com). Brian was THE nicest guy. He is earnest and passionate about Hillsdale and filmmaking. There is a link to a site that has info about the documentary :here it is

imagine this on metal with a pin on the back

We did our usual things...corn dog, Fiske fries (the best!) and elephant ear. We played the water gun game, Jack did the Funhouse. We went to the birthing tent and saw newborn pygmy goats, then headed over to the Barnyard Babies tent. There were twin foals that were born several months ago. Did you know that twin foal births are highly unusual and pretty much never successful? The family whose mare had the twins had an informative display with all the details. They had no idea there were two babies in there!

checking out antique farm equipment

After we left the Fair, we stopped in at the college. We found our brick and sat in the deluxe student center and used their lightning fast wireless.

Jack with our brick and Central Hall in the background

Jack in front of Koon Hall, the dorm where he was an RA

We closed out the day with a return trip to Schuler's. Nothing better than a double Schuler's Fair weekend!