March Madness!

Sorry if that just manipulated you into looking at this post!  It's not so much about basketball as it is some of our meanderings during Reading Week where we were able to visit some of the folks in Chi-town.  We were bummed not to get to see all of you but we hope to be able to visit again soon and to pick up with some of you whom we were unable to see!  We miss the area where we spent so much of our lives.  But I'm glad that we are still going back and we pray we will continue to get to do so.

Maybe you don't all want see photos of yourselves but it is our pensieve (please see Harry Potter references if you are looking at this dumbfoundedly or just take our nerdy words for it) as well and we cherish these memories and want to be able to withdraw the watery, ethereal substance of anamnesis into the forefronts of our reflections, so here we go:

anticipating a good SAGA run!

Best College Salad Bar in the U.S. 8 years and counting!

nothing reminds me of the good ol' days in SAGA like their abundant gourmet mayonnaise section.
yes, it made all of those days in the ugly BGC worth it (not that I disliked the job, just the building!)

SAGA group date!

Amigos Locos, more like it...

The LOVE!!!!!

Worst...and yet best celebration of Pi Day ever

Dinner with our hospitable hosts!  We miss you all dearly.  Except Scott, we see him all the time.

Because there must always be a goofy portrait to accompany a serious one.
It is pointed out that Noel's presence is represented here by the Guinness bottle.

Movember

This is how Greg looked for all of November.  Oddly enough, he had very few questions as to why he was sporting a fu manchu.  Well, it's all related to one particular Aussie that we know.  He's a cancer survivor and Greg decided to support the cause.

Here's some info about it:

The Mo, slang for moustache, and November come together each year for Movember. 

Movember challenges men to change their appearance and the face of men’s health by growing a moustache. The rules are simple, start Movember 1st  clean-shaven and then grow a moustache for the entire month.  The moustache becomes the ribbon for men’s health, the means by which awareness and funds are raised for cancers that affect men.  Much like the commitment to run or walk for charity, the men of Movember commit to growing a moustache for 30 days. 

The idea for Movember was sparked in 2003 over a few beers in Melbourne, Australia.  The plan was simple – to bring the moustache back as a bit of a joke and do something for men’s health. No money was raised in 2003, but the guys behind the Mo realized the potential a moustache had in generating conversations about men’s health.  Inspired by the women around them and all they had done for breast cancer, the Mo Bros set themselves on a course to create a global men’s health movement.  

Greg had opportunity to speak with a couple of guy about the movement and encourage them to remember to look into their health.

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 You know us, we're always ready for a chance to dress up in crazy outfits.  The company we had was awesome, the movie was good, not great but didn't expect it to me.  We're now reading Book VII so that Noel can prove to Greg that the book was nowhere near as boring as the movie made it seem...but familiar with Noel's book-to-movie-inherent-issues rantings, he never doubted it but is patient with Noel and likes it when she reads to him.

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We were able to take a couple days off to go to San Antonio for Thanksgiving.  In addition, we celebrated Ethan's 3rd birthday!

Good aunts give lots of piggy back rides

Habañero's burritos...yummm

Lewis the scary snapping turtle dog

breakfast courtesy of Hope n Joe!

Ethan's new Ice Cream playdoh machine...what kind of cruelty is it that they make an "ice cream machine" and then the whole time you have to tell the 3 yr old ice cream maker that it's not actually edible

hate to hold hands? no problem, just put your hands in your pockets!

sweet potato and apples maker!

Thanksgiving TV and football...evidently, the Rocky marathon currently

Dinner!

"just act natural", i said.

Annual Thanksgiving walk and park playing

playing Connect on Al & Mike's xbox360...it's pretty sweet, not gonna lie--hope n joe are playing ping pong

unfortunately, it records your moves and plays them back for you

dad killin' it at bowling

Collins ladies!

"dance" connect

Ethan's bday party!

giant presents are the best

start 'em early, start 'em right

power tool ethan, but safety goggles first

 It was a good month.  We did lots of homework in there, too...I know we did....

And now for the rest of the story...

And now...the moment you've all been waiting for!

The view from our front porch to our street...that truck is a staple of Melrose Avenue

it belongs to our neighbors across the street, I totally could have sworn that it had a "charleton heston is my president" sticker on it, but I checked again the other day but nope, wasn't there.

maybe i'll get Denny (our neighbor who owns it) one...i guess my imagination thinks it would fit!

This was out first real meal in Ambridge.

Lemon dill salmon and salad...yum!

FYI, our camping chairs are still in the front and seem to have become permanent lawn fixtures.

Our quaint little porch and awning area.  To the left you can see St. Vladimir's Ukrainian Orthodox church.

They're our landlords and currently, our pirohy dealers of choice. 

Lesson #1 in Ambridge:  Fridays are Pirohy Fridays at the churches...pretty much ALL the churches.  That means on Friday, you can go over to the basement at St. Vlad's and find several folks ready to serve you hot, cold or frozen potato or sauerkraut pirohies with or without butter and onions.  Fr. Michael says that people don't understand the concept of tithing and they expect a little extra, so they do the pirohies :) 

If you come visit, you're sure to find us with some of these on hand or we'll take you over to St. Vlad's for some pirohy goodness.

Woo hoo!  One of the first things we noticed in Ambridge is how much they like to party...not in the classical sense but rather churches like to hold festivals and our first week in town, Good Samaritan Parish, one of five churches on our street, was having their annual festival.  As you can see below, it was an event sponsored by Miller Lite...okay, we're not actually sure that's true but it was really funny that they had a beer tent with different cover bands and lots of two-steppin'.  

Our particular vice took the form of BINGO!!!!

  We figured the house always wins but in this case, we didn't feel too bad givin' to the house :)

And then....Noel won!  We had played a couple of different nights, it was 7 cards for $1.00 so we really only spent about 5 bucks, but check out this card...single winner, baby!  14 bucks in our pocket, awesome.

Here's the tell all sign...it was great.  The priests of Good Samaritan live down the street from us and they're really really kind.  Maybe cuz of the Miller Lite? ;)  We tried our first pierogies here...yum-my!

Another Pittsburgh favorite that we experienced: 8 dollar tickets for an enjoyable night at the ball game ain't too shabby.  Ah, it's nice to be in a town where the team sucks and the price reflects it.

It was a really fun outing with a bunch of Trinity peeps.

So, for Pirates games, they literally shut down the bridge to cars and people just walk on by...can you imagine the rioting if they tried to close down a bridge in Chi-town?

So, you can't play ball?  Well, kill 'em with aesthetics!

PNC has an AWESOME view of the city and the river which runs right by it.

Look! Isengard!

Same ol' us

This is Gabe, he likes to make funny faces and yelling for the Pirates,

he's our friend Geoff's kid (and Erin's too...gotta give credit where credit is due)

I love this photo, I caught every person off guard, awesome.

All these people are Trinity folks...Geoff is on the far left with the orthodox priest beard, Chimela is from Africa and he's sitting below him, Karen (and her husband, John, who wore matching Canada sweatshirts to the game) and Meg are down in the seats by Greg and they're awesome, Trevor's the Yankees fan from South Carolina, Paul was clearly caught in the flash light...he's from San Diego so he pretty much looks awesome no matter what.  Brian is over there in the Cubs outfit, but get this, he's also from San Diego.  Weird, eh?  Mike, Scott and Bartholomew are in the back row and they all rock.  The first two are our neighbors and we like to hang out with them.  Bartholomew's from Tanzania and has two sets of twins!  The Africans enjoyed the game though I think it was mostly because they got kettlecorn. :)

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 There's a better shot of our friend, Brian...the security guard stopped him, looking quite concerned and partly perturbed, to inform him that the Cubs were not in fact playing in PNC that night.  Brian was like, "oh yeah, I know, I just wear this to all baseball games."  Hilarious.  Pittsburghians definitely take their sports waaaaay too seriously...especially the ones that really suck. 

And here's the real reason that everyone goes to Pirate games: Pierogy races!

Oh yes, you read that correctly...those are pierogies on the field.

In case you're wondering, the purple one named "Oliver" won

Pierogy butts!

 And then, the Pirates actually won...astounding us all!!!  Obviously, Geoff and Ben were just a little excited.  They probably won because Mike was in the back praying that it wouldn't go into extra innings...I said, AMEN and AMEN!

So, as you can see, God's put us in another great city with more great people...and thankfully, a waaay shorter commute to get to urbania.