Christmas Day 2007

This was our first Christmas in Ohio. It was strange not to get together with Family on Christmas Eve and Christmas day, but we did get to say Hi on the phone and chatted on Skype too.
We had a white Christmas although I don't think it actually snowed that day. There was still quite a bit on the ground from the days prior though. It seems that it will snow a lot, then just as the last bit is melting away and it's almost gone, it will snow and everything will be all white again.
The temperature is getting colder too. I think it got down into the teens during the day and single digits at night (Brrrrrrrrrrrr!!!).

Our Christmas Tree with our gifts

Bazzin after opening his present and ready to play.

Ice scrapers/Bladed boxing Gloves... SWEET!!!

Farewell to Oz

With all the snow that we've been getting, that thought that had only been in the back of our minds about needing to get a different car became more pressing.

Last Tuesday night through Wednesday morning we got about 5 inches of the evil white stuff and when I opened the front door to leave, there was a layer of snow from our front door all the way across the street to the neighbor's front door.

No grass
No sidewalks
and more importantly... no ROADS!!!

I took a chance and started off down the road trying to follow the tire tracks in the snow from other cars that had driven down the street. I made the first turn about a block down the road and started up the slight incline of the road and then lost all traction and began sliding sideways. Luckily the brakes worked and kept me from sliding off into the ditch on the side of the road, but hitting the gas did nothing. As luck would have it, there was a street that I had passed so I slowly coasted backwards and was able to turn around and coast back home.

Seeing as though people told me later that day at work that we hadn't seen anything yet and the real snowfall would start in January we decided that the time had come to seriously start looking for something for me that would work in the snow. Yesterday we went to the Fred Martin car dealership in Barberton and after the typical battle back and forth with the salesguy over the price and terms, I had a new vehicle... a 2006 Ford Explorer 4X4.

I'm really happy to have something now that will have no problem driving in the snow, but a little sad at the same time to have to have gotten rid of the 350Z ("Oz"). I guess at least now I'll be able to get to work when it snows. :-)

Oz right before we left for Fred Martin (notice the pouring rain)

Our new 2006 Ford Explorer 4X4

It's a blizzard!

Wow!! We thought we had gotten snow before. Bhahahahahahahaaaa!!! That was nothing. This week we got some REAL snowfall. So much that there was no more color... just white everywhere. It made driving really interesting too. Thank God for the snowplow guy. If it wasn't for him, we wouldn't be able to drive anywhere in all this silly snow.

Good Morning! See the road? Yeah, neither do we

Our walkway is in there somewhere

Our swing on the back deck. That layer on the top is just from overnight

Thanks for fixing the road, Mr. Snowplow guy!!

Oh! There's the walkway

Our first "Real" snow

Winter is finally here!

Well, it's been teasing us off and on for the past month or so, but last night winter finally hit us... hard. The snow began to fall off and on starting around 8:00 pm or so and along with it was some serious winds. by the time Juli and I went to bed, we weren't sure if we should go hang out in the basement or not in case it was a tornado. Luckily for us it wasn't and by the time the morning arrived, we had a nice thick layer of snow on everything.

Driving to work was interesting, but luckily the roads were just wet and didn't have any snow on them so they weren't slippery. I'm not sure if it's supposed to snow any more or not, but for now, it's sure pretty outside. :-)

View from our kitchen window of the front yard


Delores in the snow


View from our living Room of the backyard and balcony


The woods in our backyard

Happy Turkey Day!

This was our first Thanksgiving since moving to Ohio. Our friends Tony and Nicky (I work with Tony) invited us over to their house so that we wouldn't just be by ourselves at home.

We got there a little bit early so we drove around in their "Allotment" (which is Ohio's fancy name for Housing Developments) and looked at some of the houses that were for sale. We were a little shocked by the prices. They ranged from $499,000 up to one that was $599,000!!! In OHIO!!!! I will have to say that in California, the same house would probably be over a million, but still, I didn't know that there were actually houses here that cost that much. Wow!

After driving around for a bit to burn some time, we made our way over to their house. As we got out, it was starting to snow just a little bit. You could see it slightly if you looked at something dark, but it would melt as soon as it hit something. We went inside and met Nicky's Mom, Wanda. They had all the food pretty much ready and were just putting things on the plates.

A few minutes later, their friends Richard and Terry arrived. With everyone there, we sat down to eat. Everything was DELICIOUS!!!! Of course, being Thanksgiving, we all ate WAAAY too much and they practically had to roll us out to the car when we were leaving. :-)

Juli in the kitchen.

Tony and Nicky's dog, Buster. He's half German Shepard, half Doberman.

This is a shot of half of their backyard. It's kinda snowing, but you can't really see it in this shot.

The Bird. It's actually a full bird, and the breast of another one on the back.

(From left to right) Tony, Richard, Juli, Nicky, Chris, Terry, Wanda (Nicky's Mom)

First SNOW!!!!

It's been getting pretty cold over the past few weeks and a couple of times as it was raining, there would be what the locals here call "freezing rain" which was a little bit like hail, but only lasted for a minute or two. For the most part it was still regular old rain.

But not today!!!

This morning when I went outside to go to work there was finally some real snow on the ground!! There wasn't a lot, just a light dusting, but it was still really cool to finally get our first snowfall since moving here.

Within a few hours of taking this picture it had all melted and you wouldn't know that it had ever been there.

I hope it snows some more soon.

View from my office window at work this morning

Delores with her first Ohio snow

Finally walked to the lake

Well, after living here for more than 3 months, we finally decided to hike through the trees, weeds, and bushes behind our house to check out the lake that's behind it. With the weather getting cold (mid 30's to low 40's) most of the leaves have fallen off the trees and bushes so it made it a little easier to get through. Plus we didn't want to get poison ivy again. Well... I didn't want to get it again.

Once we came out the other side, we could finally see the lake. It wasn't really as big as we were expecting it to be, but it was still pretty neat. Way on the other side there was a house with a big backyard that backed right down to the lake. I bet that cost a little bit.

Left side of the lake

Right side of the lake

Juli by the lake

Happy Anniversary to us!

On this day, 5 years ago, I married my best friend, Juli. I have been the happiest guy in the world every minute of every day since then. :-D

The Gathering of the Mustangs

We went to the Gathering of the Mustangs show this weekend. It was in Columbus which only took us about 2 hours to drive to. It was pretty cool to see Dr. P again and there were a lot of planes there flying around doing all kinds of silly things that planes should not do. Some of those pilots are just crazy! Near the end of the show, they had a bunch of the planes all flying at once and some did some simulated bombing runs, but they had explosions going off all over the ground so it was really neat. The sky got filled with all kinds of black smoke and I bet that people who didn't know what was going on probably thought that a plane crashed!

"That pilot is NUTS!!!"


Aerobatics team doing a bunch of silly things


Formation of Mustang, Raptor, Tomcat, and Eagle (I think)


This man used to fly a P-38 in WWII. The book that Mark is looking at has a bunch of photos and magazine articles the man collected during the war. It was really cool.


Me, Sheryl, Juli and Dr. P

Ohio sunset

Great shot of the sunset on my way home from work.

HALO 3 is FINALLY here!!

Here I am all happy because I got HALO 3 on Monday night... or was it Tuesday morning? When I opened the case both the game and bonus content disks were floating around inside and so they got all scratched due to Bungie's crappy packaging. I haven't had the chance to play it yet. Hopefully later today or tomorrow.

Mom and Dad come to visit '07

My folks came out to visit us after we moved here to Ohio. It was great to see them and we got to show them around the city and take them to the Football Hall of Fame. We also took them to the ranch to see Snickers, and by our works.

One place that my Mom really wanted to see was "Berlin" which is the largest Amish populated towns in Ohio. It's still so weird to see a horse ad buggy among the all cars.

We hope that they get to come back soon!

Mom and Juli in front of our Townhouse

Dad at the Football Hall of Fame

Mom, Snickers, and Juli at the ranch

Mom and Dad waiting for a buggy ride in Berlin

Look who's Amish

Mom and Dad with a buggy going down the street

Last picture of all of us before they left to go to Alabama

Snickers... 1 week later

Wow!!! It's only been a week, but Snickers sure has packed on some weight and looks A LOT more relaxed and happy now.

Snickers moves to Ohio

Today Juli's horse, Snickers got delivered to the Randazzo Stables ranch where he will be boarded. It took 4 days to get him here and boy did he look tired! He was a skinny little thing too. Vince said not to worry though because a month of his feeding and Snickers would be a fatty! ;-)

Home sweet home

While we were on our trip to Ohio last month after we decided that we were definitely moving here we started the fun task of trying to find a place to live. We looked at several places, but the best place we found was the last place we l0oked at. It's amazing how different things cost here. So we put down the deposit and filled out the paperwork and so when we got here after the long drive, we were all set. We're hoping to only rent here for a year and then actually BUY A HOUSE!!! :-D

View of our backyard from the deck

View of our backyard looking east

Back our our house

Juli by the front door