Action-Packed Weekend Fun

This weekend was non-stop fun. We drove up to Bear Mountain on Saturday morning, visited the new Sonic in Totowa, went shopping in Wayne, stopped by the batting cages (where I actually got several hits), watched the Falcons game, had a wonderful Thai dinner and went bowling. We woke up on Sunday and went to Horizon Diner for breakfast, which is actually pretty good (not sure why it took so long to discover it). This weekend we are headed to Newcomb, NY for a relaxing getaway.

American Idol Weekend

What a great weekend! Lyle and I saw "Slipping" on Friday night, a very interesting New York play. On Saturday we played some tennis and attended the American Idol concert in Newark. Adam Lambert stole the show, of course. We even discoverd that Sonic has moved into our area. Miracles do happen!

The Festival of Balloons

On Sunday we spent the day in Readington, New Jersey (where?), at the 27th Annual Festival of Balloons. It was a lot of fun. It was sort of a combination of county fair, street festival and a balloon convention. Michael McDonald performed in concert, we got to shoot some paintball and, of course, we ate a lot of junk food. We even got Henna tattoos reminiscent of our Seaport adventure in 2003. It was one of the more perfect days in a long time. And we stopped by Cracker Barrel for dinner on the way home!

Hallway & Bathroom Done, More to Come

This picture is after the first coat of paint went on the hallway. In the past two days I have painted my bathroom, started the trim in the master bedroom and the entire hallway. The rest of the bedroom trim needs to be done along with the dining room and living room.

Painting

We spent much of Monday painting and fixing the leak downstairs. The downstairs bathroom was a complete disaster at some point, but Lyle sawzalled his way out of it. The master bedroom is now a very neutral light tan/yellow non-descript color. It needed it. We're actually going to paint the living room and hallway the same color. I'll also be giving the master bath a new coat of white tomorrow.

Goodbye, Farrah!

Farrah Fawcett-Majors (she later dropped the Majors) was my first celebrity crush. I lover her and I loved CHARLIE'S ANGELS. She never starred on a soap, but I thought she would have been fantastic on one. Her performance in The Burning Bed was riveting and she was a terrific actress in additional to being an international sex symbol.

I still have my Farrah Fawcett coffee mug from 1977 sitting on a shelf in my house. And, of course, I had the infamous poster (which reportedly sold over 12 million copies). "Angels in Chains" is one of my favorite TV episodes ever.

She had a long and stormy relationship with former PEYTON PLACE star Ryan O'Neal, but the two of them shared much love and were reunited in recent times.

Her long battle with cancer has been well documented and it has been incredibly sad to witness. She died about 9:30 a.m. at St. John's Health Center in Santa Monica, per Paul Bloch, her publicist. I'm very sad to see her go but glad she doesn't have to suffer anymore.

Father's Day

It's Father's Day and for the past decade I've been calling my step-father Earl to wish him a happy day. This year I'm a bit sad knowing he's not around to call. My father (pictured on the left) died in 1986 when I was 16. My mother remarried 14 years later and I'm sure these losses are on her mind as well.

My uncle David is in the hospital and not doing that well so keep him in your thoughts.

Manhattanites Celebration Dinner

We went to our favorite Mexican restaurant last night, Tequila Sal y Limon, to celebrate finally shipping out the first batch of orders for the Manhattanites DVD. It truly is an amazing accomplishment and what better way to celebrate than with chicken enchiladas! :) There is still a lot of promotion to do to spread the word, but for a night we just wanted to reflect on getting to this point, a real dream come true.

Flashback: Lyle

I met Lyle while on a trip to New York City. We instantly hit it off and called and emailed constantly once I went back to California. This is the first picture he ever emailed me. It's of him as a kid at the beach.

Flashback: I Used To Be Cute

Here are pictures from 1st, 4th, 5th and 7th grades. I went from the bowl cut to no cut to the comb over.

The Front Yard Shrubs

This is mostly Lyle's doing but I did have a hand in picking out some of the trees (like the tall, skinny one) and the bird fountain. Here's a picture from yesterday of Lyle watering his latest addition.

New Flower Garden

Working on finishing the video I posted earlier made me fondly remember my flower garden from a few years ago (the one friends were taking bets on to see how fast the flowers would die!). So I went to the nursery near our house and bought some new flowers. We'll see how long these last. :)

I guess this isn't much of a "garden" but the dirt under my nails would indicate otherwise.

Roger Newcomb and Lyle Kamenir

I was working on this for a surprise in April but didn't finish on time. I finally wrapped it up today. Hope you enjoy.

TN Family Reunion & Dara's 50th

I went down to Tennessee on May 23rd for a family reunion. Lyle stayed here so he could attend Dara's 50th birthday party. I made a special video for the occasion which apparently went over well.

The reunion was fun and saw cousins on both sides of the family. Around 120 attended, some of which I haven't seen since I was a kid.

AIDS Walk and Grossinger's

While I was doing the AIDS Walk today, Lyle went back to Grossinger's to explore. He loves this stuff.


Thanks to everyone who contributed to my walk. I walked with the CBS/ATWT team and we had fun.

Mother's Day/Dara's Birthday

This picture should tell you all you need to know about our Mother's Day this year. We all took turns posing with Nikki's hair! It was pretty hysterical.

Cold/Cough/Bronchitis

Turns out I have bronchitis. Yuck! I hope this cough goes away soon. I'm taking antibiotics.

Birthday Surprise!

Yay! Lyle took me to see the new Broadway show, "9 to 5," as an early birthday present last night. It wasn't the best show or musical we've ever seen but had plenty of laughs and it's hard to go wrong with Dolly music! Thank you, Jona!

Trixie The Wonder Dog

We had a wonderful time dogsitting Trixie for the past week. Trixie is the best dog EVER. I am not a big dog lover, but she makes me want to have one. She was also right beside one of us at all times. When I would work she would be sitting at my feet. She is SO well-behaved. I'm sad to see her go but her parents are returning from Italy and want her back.

I Love You Man

We saw the movie I Love You Man last night. It was pretty funny.

Soap Stock and Grossinger's

We had fun this weekend at "Soap Stock Weekend," a soap event in Callicoon, New York. We even got to play bocce ball (Lyle won)!

On the way home we stopped at Grossinger's Resort, which is now abandoned. Lyle loves urban exploration and we hope to do more of this in the future.

Devils vs Hurricanes

For Lyle's birthday, I gave him tickets to a Devil's game. We had talked about going to a soccer game with the family so that gave me the idea. Plus, we wanted to see the new arena in Newark and check out a local restaurant there. We had a lot of fun, even though the Devils lost.

My First BAT Mitzvah - What a Weekend

We had a blast seeing family and friends at Nikki's Bat Mitzvah. I'm becoming a Mitzvah pro at this point. I actually had a role in the ceremony - closing the ark doors! I was nervous and Lyle was amused by that.

Scott was up from Asheville and relatives flew in from CA and IL.

Here are a couple of my favorite pictures from the weekend.

Happy Birthday, Jona!

Lyle (aka Jona to me) turns 41 today. HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!!!!!! It seems like the past year has flown by when we celebrated his 40th with Kayla, Kevin, Todd and Evelyn.

Del McCoury and the 'Rents

Lyle and I took Mel and Charlotte to see The Del McCoury Band at the Allen Room. I knew they would love it and they did. Mel even said it may have been his best concert ever.

Tonight we are going to see Slumdog Millionaire.

Earl Dorris March 21, 1931 - January 16, 2009

We arrived in Tennessee around 2pm, jumped in our rental car and sped to the Veteran's Hospital as fast as we could get there. Earl has been deteriorating all week and we didn't know if we were going to make it in time to see him. My mama said that he prayed yesterday for one more day to see Lyle and me.

We got there around 3pm and sat by his bedside. I think he knew we were there. By 6pm he was gone.

Earl was a good man who served in the US Navy in Korea. R.I.P.

Patty at the Allen Room

The Allen Room at Lincoln Center is an amazing venue, maybe my favorite. We saw Patty Loveless there tonight and she was flawless. It was such a surreal experience as our flight for TN leaves tomorrow morning and we don't know what to expect when we get there.

Christmas Trip to TN and GA

We had a blast on our trip down to Tennessee for Christmas. We got to see everyone we wanted to see, had some great family time and got to see the Falcons.

We saw Bubba, Karen and the kids (they are growing up fast) when we went to Clarksville for an Austin Peay game. We had fun at the game despite losing and hung out with Rico and Judy afterward.

We had to buy all our presents last minute but cranked it out on a trip to Opry Mills.

The Christmas Eve gift giving bonanza and lunch was the same as always, lots of crazed kids. :)

In our annual tradition, we saw a movie on Christmas day. This time it was The Curious Case of Benjamin Button which we both loved.

We had another cut throat game night with the Ballingers which is so much fun.

We met up with Scott and Frank in Atlanta and had a fun time at dinner and drinks. Angela, who we had seen a week before when she was in NYC, took us to the Falcons game, which was very exciting. Unfortunately they came up just short of winning their division but we had a ball.

All in all a wonderful vacation.

Just a bit of bad/weird news, before we left on our trip I was looking outside admiring the wonderful driveway pillars and fence. A few minutes later we looked out and realized someone had run into our driveway, crashed into our big tree, knocked down some of the fence then sped away. How lame!

DDR and Milk

We went to opening night of Van's play, "Dance Dance Revolution," and it was a trip. He sang and danced like never before. It was fun. We also finally saw Milk over the weekend and then met up with some out of town friends at Monster.

Showtime

We've seen a couple of plays and a movie in the past week, none of which blew us away. "Boys' Life" was the story of three screwed up twenty-somethings. "The Last Days of Judas Iscariot" starred Karl Girolamo and was probably the most enjoyable for me, although not great. We also saw the movie Zack and Miri Make a Porno which I thought would be funnier, but it was mostly gross. As always, you can check out grades on the website.