~Amber's Benefit~

~i got 104.9 to announce on the radio!~

Amber, I love You, we all do! You mean the world to us. You are such a strong and amazing woman.

John, We miss you dearly and your legacy will live on though your wife and three beautiful boys.

You, I am honored to announce that we raised over $4,000 for Amber and her boys.

We had the Benefit at BOMA on E. Broad on Sunday from 2-5pm. We had over 120 people attend. There were over 60 baskets auctioned off, 7 items raffled off and three live auctions. I was so overwhelmed with all that volunteered. I had over 8 people there at noon to help set up and at least 10 people that stayed the whole time to make sure that everything was taken care of at any given moment. Our 5 raffle gals were great, my rents did a wonderful job, Vicki came into town to handle all the money, dad's bible study friends helped, Kevin played guitar and sang, Bethany helped with collecting money, Tommy was on the microphone with me, Hannah help collect baskets, Adam M.C.'d the Live Auction and I can not even begin to tell you who all helped before the 18th arrived! It was amazing. Wow! It was truly amazing. Also, many of us wore tie-dye in memory of John.

~location, BOMA (BAR OF MODERN ART)~

~sweets in honor of the boys, donated by spinelli's deli~

~marco and hugo~

~me and e~

~me and daddy~

~adam was great, "95, can i get 100? 100! 110?"~

~9 pints of jeni's ice cream on dry ice baby!~

~amber and her sweet baby, john~

~kevin on mic singing amber's wedding song, in memory of john~

~with the boys~

~norma and jim came!~

~the marland drive crew. old school.~

Thank you again to all that helped! You can still donate to Amber (Amber Marinello Family Fund) and we are thinking of doing a canned food drive in June/July for her and the boys. It was so nice to have Amber and the Boys honored on Sunday. It was worth the work.

~Summer in the City~

So I know it's Spring but I don't care. I was starting to blog about these events and that song popped into my head. I was singing it the whole time I was typing so I had to add the video. We had couple nights out this week, IN A ROW. See, we're not old and married, we go out! lol.

Arielle and her friends from work thew a Arielleapoluza Party for her because it's official, she's going away. She is moving next Sat to Cali. We are going to miss her so much. We did have a lot of fun while we were out though. We met up at Park Street Bar on Thursday night and sat out on the Patio and had some drinks. Lots of people came out to party and say goodbye. There were at least 15 when we got there and I think we ended up with over 30, including Charles Nagy by the time the night was over. Nagy bought us drinks too. That made my year! ;)

Emily, who sang as I walked down the aisle, had her birthday party last night. I was so sad that I missed her last two birthday parties because of my schedule. She decided to have a dinner night out at Martini. There were 19 of us there, at one table. It was so much fun to get all dressed up two nights in a row. The 5 of us (at one end of the table) had not all hung out together in years! I was so much fun to talk, eat, drink & be merry!





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~Tim & Ako's~

Tim and Ako took a vacation to Japan this past month. They were gone for three weeks. We missed them so much. Aila started talking while we were there. So sad we missed that milestone but we made up for it. We went to their house for dinner. Aila was cracking us up with her little words, including "Aila" and her NEW facial expressions. Ako made a traditional Japanese meal for us. We had such a great time sitting out on the patio having dinner together. Can't wait to see them again.

~aila in her new chair~

~looking at tommy~

~watching her movie~

~with tommy outside~

~walking!~

~my favorite of them all, she loved my necklace~

~the veggie pancake ako made. they were soooo good. i want the recipe~

~airplane in the sky~

~"what are you lookin' at?~

~ako brought me back a couple of little treats including these sweets and some stationary items. so kind and so thoughtful.~

~holding on to mommy~

~yummm. trying new foods and loving them.~

~me & ako~

~clap!~

~sitting with her blankie~

~us~

~naked baby running away!~

~oh no! tommy? what did you do?~

~sitting, yes sitting, on her toy blocks~

~ako also made us some bread to take home. the next morning i sliced some up and made toast for the both of us. tommy and i loved it. it smelled and of course tasted so good.~

~someone was being extra cute and i had to take some video!~

~this photo is random, the reason it's at the bottom of this blog, but... i like it! i saw it on a cake blog last week and thought i have to add that somewhere. this seemed to be a good fit. this is a cake that was made for a party. it's mostly fondant and made into a sushi roll. i just love it.~

~So Much to do, So Little Time~

Tommy and I were by the old neighborhood on Sunday and we ended up running into Kelly and E. We talked for a sec and they said, "We're going to Brio at Polaris, you should come". So we met them there, then E ran into her boyfriend and his brother, so they joined.... THEN E ran into Sami and she stopped by with her friends for a few. It was the perfect kinda Sunday. We got a private table for 7 on the patio and spent over an hour just eating apps, soup and talking. It was a blast.
Tommy and I ran into a Thrift Store on the way home on Sunday to buy more baskets for the benefit for Amber and the boys. We ended up buying over 15 and while we were looking Tommy found a Cedar Point "Cup", for lack of a better word. He was so surprised to find it. This pic is too funny. I think he is glad not to be working there anymore. Especially not having to listen to the Johnny Rockers Singers on Repeat!!!
Whoever said that left overs had to be boring. I got all the appetizers out from Brio and we sat on the back patio over lunch and talked. Kelly was kind enough to send her share home with us. I have to admit, just looking at the picture I'm hungry for Brio again.
~What a Game~
God Blessed this country with the greatest sport on the planet, Baseball! Daddy has partial season tickets with the Clippers and offered a couple of tickets to me and Tommy! We were honored to take them! If you have not been to the new stadium yet, you must go. It's beautiful! This past winter was the longest winter of my entire life with everything going on the mounds of snow we accumulated. It was so nice to be out in the great weather and relax to nothing but the sound of the crack of the bat and crowds cheering, oh and the cutest 2 1/2 year old behind us. We played the Bats from Louisville! Ok, now lets talk about "Dorn"! Check out the video first!

So 1st baseman on the Bats team, last name is Dorn. There were six guys that started the heckling and by the 4th inning the entire 1st base line (and the sections that come with) were all all in on it. "Give me a D", "D" etc. "Come on Dorn, get infront of the damn ball." It didn't help Danny Dorn that he wasn't playing his best game. By the 9th inning it was 5-1 and we were good to go. We knew we had won the game. Dorn comes up to bat and we "make it up to him" by rooting him on. "Go Dorn", "Come on Dorn", "You can do it Down" and he hits a homer! Can you believe it. It was a great baseball game. So Fun. Even little Olivia behind us would yell, "Dorn"! We still WON 5-3 but man... :)

~GO BLUE~
So my Mom and Dad decided last year to decorate our door with Ohio State Crap!... DURING the OSU vs MI game. Tommy and I got a big laugh out of it when Tommy went down stairs to take out the dog and noticed it all. Right before Mom and Dad got home from Hawaii Tommy and I had a date night at 11pm over at their house to get it "READY"! HAHA! Check out the video too! It about sums it up! :)

~getting started~

~no more indians gear in the locker~

~so proud~

~with mom&dad, home from hawaii~

~Glee is Back Baby~

Tommy and I got hooked on the show Glee last year. Between the theatrical elements, Sue's Corner and the fact that it takes place in Lima, Ohio we're sold! We have been waiting for, what feels like forever, for it to start back up. We new that we were going to be watching the show live as apposed to DVRing it and watching it around 11 like usual so we figured we'd open our doors for friends to come over and watch it with us. A few of our friends came over to watch with us. Some had been hooked on the show like us and some had never seen it before. Alisha and Brian loved it and Sammy was there. I had not seen him in forever. Kyla was there too. She also had not see it before and jut might be hooked. I went ahead and DVR'd and episode of Oprah that review the first season and explained the characters. We watched that first and then started the show. I got Key Lime Bars and made them for desert, Tommy bought hot dogs for the night to grill and Kyla brought chips and dip and such. It was a good time just hanging out and pigging out a little. To date the pilot was one of my favorites but man oh man way to start season 2!

~Yeah! It's the Glee Looser Sign, What of it?~

~Cute Pic of Kyla and Muah~