the other day, as we were getting ready to leave for work, i found our little guy sittin' pretty atop a pile of pillows while quietly watching the morning shadows move around the room. morning shadows certainly can keep him entertained for a while! silly kitten.
yesterday, we spent the day celebrating ryan's birthday. leko woke ryan up and gave him some sweet kitten loving to start his day off right. we had bagels for breakfast, then leko and i gave ryan his birthday cards before work. i made chocolate cupcakes with peanut butter frosting for ryan to take into work. later on after work, we went out for dinner and ice cream, and when we came home ryan opened his present. it was a good day. we plan on continuing the birthday celebrations this weekend with our parents with a birthday party at our house. birthdays should be celebrated for at least a week, don't you think? :-)
^i made 24 cupcakes, and by the end of the day there were only 2 left. chocolate and peanut butter is always a popular combination!^
^we went to dinner at ragnacci's and we both ordered the special which was the parm trio (eggplant parm, chicken parm, and veal parm). oh my goodness, there was so much food! our dinners came with the salad bar, a cup of soup, a ton of bread, and a huge side dish of pasta. needless to say, we brought a bunch of leftovers home with us.^
^after dinner, we got ice cream at bitty bill's (just like last year). believe it or not, ryan's ice cream is considered to be the "kiddie" size which is supposed to be 2 scoops, and my ice cream is considered to be the "baby" size which is supposed to be 1 scoop. good grief, they are generous with their ice cream portions, and their prices are really reasonable too.^
a few weeks ago, i mentioned in this post that ryan and i have been wanting a vintage tandem bike for a long time. when we were in honesdale, we walked into a bike shop that had a vintage schwinn twinn tandem bike from the 1970 for sale. it was charming, and we wanted to take it home with us, but it was crazy expensive and it needed a lot of work. plus, there was absolutely no way that it would have fit into my tiny little car.
a few days later, i received an email from a reader named darlene, who happens to be a neighbor of ryan's aunt and uncle. she said that she had a tandem bike that she wanted to sell. she saw the post on the blog and was wondering if we would be interested in purchasing her bike! it's funny how things work out sometimes.
darlene sent us a picture of the bike, and after emailing back and forth a few times, we decided to buy it! the only problem was that darlene and her husband ken live 3 1/2 hours away. so, we decided to make a little road trip out of it. on saturday, we made the 7 hour round trip out to the middle of nowhere pennsylvania to pick up the bike, armed with a plate of homemade chocolate chip cookies. (you know, my mother taught me to never go to someone's house empty handed.)
darlene and her husband ken were so sweet. they welcomed us with open arms and treated us like family. darlene made us lunch, complete with homemade syrian bread. we sat on their gorgeous screened-in porch and enjoyed the peace and quiet of the middle of nowhere pennsylvaia.
after figuring out how to make the bike fit in the back of our suv, we headed out and made the trip home. (that husband of mine sure is skilled with bungee cords!)
the bike is in great shape! it is a red kent tandem 5-speed bike, and it is about 22 years old. it may not be the vintage schwinn twinn bike that we originally had in mind, but it's cute and it has tons of character. when we got home, ryan put a little elbow grease into it and gave it a little tlc. (i can't believe how nice it shines now!) it did need a little work since the back drum break was jammed, but ryan was able to fix that in no time.
since the weather was so beautiful on sunday, we took our new bike out for a spin on a local bike trail.
neither one of us had ever been on a tandem bike before, but we got the hang of it right away. (we really do make a great team!) it rides great, and it is a lot of fun. we have already taken it out for several rides. it's amazing how many heads turn when we ride it! you don't see many tandem bikes in our area i guess. we absolutely love our new bike! we're going to have a ton of great adventures together on this bike, i can tell.
here is a little video that we made of our bike ride on sunday . . .
{music: "lucky" - chord overstreet and dianna agron}
we had such a good time at the county fair last year, so we were really excited to go again this year. yesterday after work, we took a look at the forecast and it said that there was a 0% chance of rain. z-e-r-o. we drove up to the fair and got something to eat for dinner. then we spent some time walking around looking at all of the animals.
as soon as we got in line for one of the rides, the skies opened up and it started pouring. downpouring. we ran for cover and waited until the rain passed. after a few minutes, it was clear and we got in line again for one of the rides. low and behold, as soon as we got in line the skies opened up and it started downpouring again. even harder this time. needless to say, we were totally soaked. we were dripping water. we both looked like someone had just thrown us into a pool fully clothed. (of course we didn't have our umbrellas with us because the forecast said it wasn't supposed to rain.)
let me tell you, there are interesting sights and smells at fairgrounds on a normal day . . . but, once it rains and the fair-goers get wet, there are really interesting sights and smells.
eventually the rain stopped. since we were there and already soaking wet, we figured that we might as well make the best of it. so, we road a bunch of rides. i wish i could have captured a video of the two of us looking like drowned rats and laughing uncontrollably like little kids on the rides. i'm sure it was a sight to behold. oh, we won't forget our soggy trip to the fair this year, that's for sure!
here are a few pictures we took before the rain started . . .
^that gyro was good, but it sure was messy!^
^i loved this guy's hair do! he was such a character.^
^the fluffy bunnies were called "lionhead" rabbits. how cute!^
^how sweet is this little girl giving her cow a bath^
^i just love how pigs' tails curl^
^this is exactly how leko stands when he wants something!^
^sheep!^
^this was the last picture i took before it started downpouring^
