Number 74

On June 30, Ben and I celebrated our 4th wedding anniversary - I can't believe that it has already been 4 years!! 

In February there was a Groupon for a horse-drawn carriage ride, so I suggested that Ben buy it and save it to use on our anniversary.  We went downtown and met the horse and driver, and took a ride through the city.  The horse's name was Pride, and our driver was full of interesting facts about St. Louis...

Here are some of the photos that we snapped during the ride :)

Number 46

Ben and I obviously enjoy music, and specifically we love good choral music.  The May Festival has been a Cincinnati tradition for over 100 years.  It is a series of concerts that are presented each year (in May) mostly by the May Festival Chorus and the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra.  I participated in this great tradition as a high school student in the May Festival Youth Chorus, and my mom has been in the May Festival Chorus for many years too.

We decided to go to the concert on the closing night of this year's festival, because they were presenting "Elijah," one of my favorite choral works.  My mom got tickets for Maureen, Ben and me, and we came to Cincinnati for the weekend to go to the concert. 

The concert was wonderful (I sang along with most of it), and we got to go to the "Amen" party with my mom afterward.  We had a really great time, and we were so glad that we were able to share this experience with my mom and sister :)

Number 7

This post is long overdue, but here it goes!!

We weren't planning on staying with Sam for the weekend when Leah decided to make her grand entrance about 3 weeks before her due date :)  It was a Thursday evening when we heard that Abby was having some pain and going to the hospital to check things out.  We immediately told Andrew and Abby that we could pack our things and drive to Chicago at once if they needed someone to stay with Sam while they were in the hospital.  We heard a couple of hours later that it was the real thing, and we got things together and got on the highway at about 10 p.m. to go to Chicago.

We drove through terrible rain and heavy traffic, and we were thrilled when we heard (about half-way through our drive) that Leah May had been born at around midnight.  We arrived at the hospital a few minutes after Andrew and Abby got settled into their room - it was about 3 a.m.  We took keys from Andrew, went to their apartment, and got to bed at a few minutes before 4 a.m.

Sam had been spending the night with some friends of Andrew and Abby's from church, and he came home at about 8 a.m.  It was so fun when Sam saw us at his house - he started jumping up and down and didn't stop for about 30 minutes :)  We were glad to see him too!!

We stayed with Sam for the weekend, and had a wonderful time taking care of him while Andrew, Abby, and Leah were at the hospital.  We loved the weekend, and would love to stay with our nieces and nephews more!!

Number 70

I have been very hesitant to post this one, because I have been sure that by posting about our herbs I would jinx them and they would die...  However, the basil and parsley that I planted last summer are still alive and growing!!  So I figure that even if they kick the bucket now, they have more than qualified for meeting this goal :)

I started these guys out as seeds!!  I couldn't (and kind of still can't!) believe that they sprouted and grew so well :)  Our kitchen window is nice and sunny, and I have been carefully watering them every couple of days for the past year.  I have really enjoyed having fresh herbs to sprinkle in dishes from time to time, and it is also nice to have something green and growing in our kitchen :)

The first meal that we enhanced with our basil was home-made pizza.  So delicious!!

Number 55

Ben and I had been hearing for years how great of a show Arrested Development was, but we hadn't ever seen the show.   We decided that we needed to be in on all of the inside jokes that came from the show, and find out if it was really as good as everyone said it was...

The whole series is available to watch instantly on Netflix, so we began watching at the pilot episode.  It took us a couple of months to get through the 3 seasons that were filmed of the show, and we enjoyed watching many of the episodes with friends.

By the time we finished watching the last episode Ben and I were totally convinced that the show was as great as everyone had told us.  I'm really glad that we watched it, and would highly recommend that anyone else watch it too!!