Somehow I didn't get any pictures of Tamara and Bernie, with whom I stayed for the first two nights in Cleveland. They have a great house just south of Lakewood in a great area, and have a house with 6 affectionate, happy kitties so I was in heaven. Tamara has her own Pilates/yoga studio in Lakewood, and she treated me to a class on Wednesday night which was blissful after the drive. She even gave me some brand new black Old Navy yoga pants to keep! The class was so wonderful that I am now motivated to find a good yoga studio and class here in Milwaukee. A google search revealed that there are scads of yoga studios in the Milwaukee area, so I'm psyched!!
While I was in NE Ohio, I had the good fortune of getting to spend half a day with my parents-in-law. Mimi and I hit several Wooster establishments, such as the College of Wooster bookstore where I bought David's COW sweatshirt and t-shirt, and Moorefield Pottery where I bought some pottery for myself. We had a grand time. We met David's dad, Dick, at the diner that is part of Buehler's Grocery Store where Mimi and Dick love to shop. Here's a picture of us in the diner after lunch:
Somehow I didn't take any pictures again until I went to Buffalo later in the week. (Clearly, I did not inherit the "Every moment is a Kodak moment" gene that seems to run on my mother's side of the family.)
Buffalo is a great town, and I always love visiting it: mostly because my Grandma Jean (my dad's mom), Uncle Al & Aunt Wende, and cousins Jeff, Todd, and Chris live there. It's always so much fun to see them.
On Saturday 4/1, Uncle Al drove Aunt Wende, Grandma and me out to see my cousin Todd's new home! They built, so the house is not even a few years old and is just gorgeous in its sparkling newness.
A big highlight of this trip, for me, was meeting my 1st cousin once removed for the first time!! Sean William is Todd and Emily's first child. Emily is expecting their 2nd child, a boy to be named Colin, in May. What a lovely family they have!
Here's Sean, playing with his Fischer Price (I think?) barn. It comes with all kinds of animals and a slew of other farm-related characters.
Todd and Emily have two cats, named Statler and Waldorf (yes, after the two old codgers that cracked jokes from the box seat of the Muppet Show). But we didn't see much of them because Annie, their new dog, has the run of the house now. Literally. Annie is an English Springer Spaniel/Cocker Spaniel mix, and she entertained us by tearing through the house like a tasmanian devil a la Looney Toons.
I did, however, manage to capture this more sedate picture of her:
Here is (left to right) my Aunt Wende, Uncle Al, and Grandma Jean sitting in Todd & Emily's lovely cathedral ceiling-ed living room. (Ceiling-ed? Man, I'll make a word out of anything...)
Here's a picture of the radiantly expecting Emily, adorable Sean, and proud daddy Todd. Well, Colin's in there too somewhere, but you can't see him all that well yet. Give him another month or so.... ;)
After several attempts to get a head shot of Annie (and deleting lots of blurred dog-butt pictures when she hurriedly retreated from the delayed digital camera flash), I finally got this one. I think it's priceless. There's nothing like a dog nose for your computer desktop wallpaper, is there? ;)
Proud, beaming grandparents Aunt Wende & Uncle Al playing with their grandson Sean:
Next is my cousin Jeff and his fiancee, Deb Cohen. Deb is a peach of a girl overflowing with personality, and I just adored getting to know her. I immediately got the sense that I could become great friends with if we both lived in the same city. (Hey Jeff, send me her her email address, will you? I'd love to put her on the Darcegram email list!)
She's a former horn player, so of course we had tons to talk about (much to the chagrin of the non-horn-geek family members in the room during much of our conversation). I can't wait to get to know her better. I always have so much fun visiting Buffalo, and I plan to go back there this summer, hopefully with David on a "heading east" road trip.
Aren't they just the most adorable couple? Mazeltov, you two!!
This is one of the 3 cats that live at 243 Royal Parkway (my Grandma Jean & Aunt Wende & Uncle Al's home). His name is Thurman, who I believe was named after one of the Buffalo Bills. He is an absolute moose. He likes you to rub him with your feet.
This is my wacky cousin Chris, who is a 2nd/3rd year student (he transferred, so he's sort of in between credit-wise) at the University of Buffalo. He's studying computers.
I also got to see my good friend from CIM Christine Bailey Davis, Principal Flute of the Buffalo Philharmonic. We hadn't seen eachother in over a decade, and it was great to catch up with her. Christine is a new mom and has a lovely 6 month old daughter Lucy.
I will post more pictures and travel tales from the last day of my trip, which was in Cleveland. Right now I have to go get ready for church! I'm glad my church has an 11:15 service; David's church has one at 10 so he's already gone.
Love to all of you!
XO Darcy
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