Columbus Footy

A few of my favorites pictures from the games in Chicago and Columbus. Ryan and John are superstar players!

The Big Apple!

Hey friends! Erin and I have been trying to find ways to fill the time that we used to spend with you!  Since we had nothing better to do over Labor Day weekend, we decided to jet to the Big Apple.  Ashley and Brent joined us at the last minute.  It was another incredible trip.  

We got a sweet deal on the Empire Hotel on the Upper West Side, just a few steps from Central Park.  Once we were checked in, we spent the morning walking around Central Park before heading to Blondies to catch the Buckeyes game.  Blondies is a great bar on the Upper East Side packed with OSU alums, so it almost felt like we were at home.  That night we went to the Village and our favorite comedy club, The Comedy Cellar.  

Sunday we explored the South Street Seaport for the first time.  Since it's a historic district, it's like a different world down there.  The buildings look out of place when compared to the skyline rising behind them, and there are old sailing ships anchored at the docks.  It was a beautiful day to be in the city!  We spent the evening in Midtown.

After a great Italian dinner, we saw the brand new musical [title of show].  Erin had been watching these guys' YouTube videos for months and knew the show would not disappoint. It was hilarious!  It is a musical about two guys writing a musical about two guys writing a musical.  We headed to the stage door afterwards, but Erin couldn't work up the nerve to talk to the stars, so we just stalked them from afar.  We ended the night with an entire New York cheesecake split between the four of us!

The highlight of the whole weekend was the Brooklyn Pizza Tour that we took on Monday. We hopped on the bus at Union Square Park and headed over the Manhattan Bridge into DUMBO. The picture at the top of the post was taken at our first stop, where we had great views of both the Brooklyn and Manhattan Bridges--not to mention the Manhattan skyline.  We headed straight to the first pizza place, Grimaldi's, for Brooklyn's best Neapolitan pizza and old-fashioned sodas.  From there we toured a few neighborhoods by bus, getting lots of info from our tour guide, Tony, about growing up in Brooklyn.  

  He also had the inside scoop about some of the infamous Mob hits in Brooklyn.  (Next time we go we are going to take his "Wise Guys" tour about the history of the Mob!)  Tony's favorite pizza is the Sicilian slice served at L& B Spumoni Gardens, so that was the next stop on the tour.  After we totally stuffed ourselves on pizza and spumoni, we walked it off on the boardwalk at Coney Island.  It was a sad day at Coney Island because it was the last day for Astroland; a greedy real estate developer came in the next day to start bulldozing the place.  After the tour we headed straight to the airport to get home to our girls.

Erin was already making a list of things to do next time on the plane!  This is going to get expensive...

Our First Blog Post!!!

Greetings from the best damn city in the world,

We wanted to take a little bit of time to update you guys on our amazingly interesting lives. Just give us a second to think of something worth writing about . . . . Okay. First we'll start with Natalie. Over the summer she went on a mission trip to Mexico and a Youth Convention in San Antonio. She had a really amazing time and somehow ended up committed to even more youth stuff than she was already. This will come in handy to kill all that free time that she had:)

When Nat returned from the SW she started up in private practice. Things started a little slow, but they have really picked up. The thing that she is most excited for in life, other than our vacation next month, is the start of 90210 tonight!

The thing that has been dominating John's life of late is Australian Rules Football with Ryan. With almost six hours of practice each week and a game every two weeks, Natalie has to look at pictures to remember what he looks like. As a side note, Ryan is really playing well. He has been named the best player in one of the games and people have been saying how great he has played.

Other than that, John has just started school again. His schedule is really light this year, and with an offer for a job next summer, the motivation scale is tilting towards zero.

Greta is doing fabulously. She is seven months old and about seventy pounds. She back-talks like a teenage girl sometimes, but overall is a great dog. She has developed her big dog bark and has all the bad guys in the neighborhood on notice.

We had a great weekend this last weekend. OSU rolled as expected in their game, and we really capitalized on our Monday. We took Greta to Antrim Park to wade in the lake. She thought about swimming at one point, but ended up just walking completely under-water and not really knowing what to do so she turned around. After that, Natalie and I had "Redneck Labor Day Weekend." We went swimming over at Alum Creek Beach. It was a treat for the nose over there. The aroma was some mixture of rotten garbage and gasoline. Even with that great review, it was still a really good time. After that, we went to Hoggy's for dinner and found a really great deal. They have $5 pitchers of beer and 40 cent wings any time any football game is on.

In any event, that was a really long update for you guys. If any of you can make it, we would love for you all to come to our house for the USC game. We will have food and drink and hopefully a great victory over the Trojans (Ohio State is 2-0 when we have had big parties at the house, so we need good attendance).

We miss you guys tons and hope to see you all soon!

Note - The picture at the top is after our first footy game in Cincinnati. Ryan and I are both in the top row in the left half. We won by twenty points.