BrainFreeze Laboratory

Here's more fun with my Dad's picture.

Here he is at Slurpee's BrainFreeze Laboratory. Enjoy.

Happy 5th Birthday, Vito Jr.

Happy birthday to my big boy, Vito Jr. He had many birthday celebrations this year - three in fact. It started with chocolate cupcakes (with blue frosting by request) at school. Sorry no pictures - I guess he is getting too big for that.

Then we celebrated with the family at home.

Here he is showing us how old he is

Blowing out the candles

Posing with his presents

I can tell he is getting older, because I recognize less and less of his presents. This year was all Transformers and Bakugans (balls that transform into stuff when they are on the magnetic cards)
OK, can you tell this is Anna writing and not Vito? - He knows all this crap!

Good thing is he is still not too old to feel weird about giving Mommy a kiss. And he closed his mouth by the time the kiss was given!

Then on Friday, he was called up to celebrate at the morning assembly. Here he is:

Then we had a party at our house with some friends. He was so excited, but let Mommy get a picture in:


But then, being a BIG boy, he had to take a picture of Mommy:

We had lots of good food - pizza, veggies and dip and fruit:


And made-to-order brownie sundaes (which was a great idea from our friend Monica) and a huge hit with the kids!


And here is the whole crew of kids - Lars, Andrew, Vito Jr and Holden in the front row, Katie, Brianne and Flynn in the back row.

Of course, now he thinks he has moved into the BIG boy category - which brings with it a whole new set of things he is able to do - such as using a knife and being allowed to put DVDs into the player. Well, they have to start somewhere.

Happy St. Patrick's Day

I saw my friend Chris this morning when we were dropping our kids off at school. Chris is from Australia but is of Polish descent. That got me thinking...what if there was a guy from Australia but he was of Irish descent. And what if he looked like my Dad.

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Speaking of Egypt

Prior to our recent cruise my experience with Egypt was limited to the 17th hole at the Around the World minigolf course in Lake George. There are three pyramids and a camel (just like the real thing!) that you had to get past. Hit your ball wrong and you could hit a pyramid and get shunted off to the side.

17th Hole at Around the World Minigolf Course, Lake George, NY.
Thank you internet for having pictures of everything.

This was especially tragic if you and your friend were tied at 47 strokes going into the 17th hole and you get a hole-in-one but it takes her 5 strokes to complete what one person said is "the hardest hole on any minigolf course they had seen" (I might be that person).

That reminds me of the time when Annette, Dan, Bill, Bill's GF & I played the course.

Having trouble reading it? Well you can either click on the card to see a bigger picture or I can just tell you that I kicked Annette's ass. And yes, I did save the card for lo these many years.

By Popular Demand

Here's some more pictures from our cruise.

It was a little windy on deck as we passed the Italian island of Stromboli. I'll always remember Stromboli as the cool volcano island on the placemat/map of Italy at Testo's.

The kids and I in front of the Parthenon.

The kids really enjoyed walking on the beach and throwing rocks in the surf in Rhodes.

Also in Rhodes, Katie thought this tiny pink truck was too cool.

If you stand just right you can make goofy pictures like this in Egypt.

I just like to say "We rode camels in Egypt." I may have to get a t-shirt made.
Did you know that camels aren't even native to Egypt? Not that it matters because: We rode camels...in Egypt!

Just so you don't think I only post goofy pictures of my Dad.

We had a long wait between when we got dropped off at the airport (11am) and when our flight actually left (10pm) so we found an open plug and camped out for the day. This sadly is also the last picture that shows our 160 GB ipod working as it was dropped shortly after this was taken. It currently is doing it's impression of a very expensive paperweight.