Doggie Bowling

This past weekend, a few of us went bowling for a WONDERFUL charity that is so close to my heart. The charity raises money for people who are blind but cannot afford seeing eye dogs. It's amazing how long it takes for a dog to become a working seeing eye dog. They train for almost a year and a half, with six months of extensive training towards the end. These dogs cost $25,000! Worth every penny to be your set of eyes, but not affordable for many people.

They had some young dogs in training there that were sooooo cute! We all bowled pretty horribly, but we had a great time and then went out for wings and beers after. A perfect Sunday afternoon!

Cleveland Wine Club

Well, it certainly took me long enough (over a month) to finally do something with this wine group that I joined, but I finally went to an event with the Cleveland Wine Club this week.  I really didn't know what to expect. I had no idea what kind of people would be there and if going alone was normal or weird. So I just sucked it up and walked in the door of a place a half hour away from home that I had never been to before, called Brother's Lounge.

It was really fun! There was a little bit of everything. Most people had similar "stories" about why they had joined. They were single and their friends had families and kids, they were interested in going out more than their friends, they were recently divorced, just moved here, etc. I met some really nice people and learned about some other fun groups. I joined a hiking club based on some suggestions I got while I was there, and won a bottle of wine!

Sunday Family Fun Day

Last Sunday was a FULL fun day! I decided in January that the Kubach/Sawitke/Fuller/Fiscos needed to set a date to get together since there are not any holidays or birthdays coming up. Being the cruise director that I am we all found a Sunday and decided to go bowling, and then out to dinner. Then Ernie let us know that he had bought tickets for a church charity event the same day.

My brother decided to sit the church event out, but Alisa and I said we would go. We didn't want the tickets to be wasted. Like my brother, I assumed we were going to the party room of some church for sandwiches and coffee. We show up at this huge German party center with a Mardi Gras theme, raffles, tons of food, music and pitchers of beer. I was thrilled!

We raced off to the bowling alley to meet everyone else by 3:30. I noticed that the parking lot was really full when we got there and as it turned out, it was totally insane inside. There was a bowling league that we didn't know about going on so after we rushed to make it on time, we had to wait about 45 minutes for that to end before we could get lanes. This turned out to be fine because I'm on the phone with my brother and the conversation goes like this:

Matt- Where are you?
Me- I'm in the bar with Alisa, Ernie, Mom and Heidi. Where are you?
Matt- Well I'm in the bar with Susan, Heather, Jeff and the kids, and you're not here.
Me- Maybe you're at a different bar. I think there's two.
Matt- No, I think we're at a different bowling alley.

Apparently there are two bowling alleys in this suburb. Who knew? Not me. So after a little confusion, we all wound up at the same place and had a lot of fun bowling. Minus the birthday party next to us with 20 kids and four adults to pay attention to them. There was a kid with "sticky fingers" who kept coming over to our lane and stealing our balls!

After two games of almost everyone scoring under 100 we headed to Red Robin for dinner. Nothing fancy, but great for the kids. We called ahead because we had 12, which wound up doing us no good when the young hostess gave our table away to another party. Red Robin was a bigger zoo than the bowling alley. Suddenly we realized that the next day was Presidents Day and there was no school. Bad choice of Sundays to pick for kid-friendly activities!

The day was a lot longer than we thought it would be, but everyone had a great time!

Alisa and I celebrating Mardi Gras

This guy totally made me think of my grandfather- he loved this kind of music! Jeff getting ready to show us all up
Pretty sure Brooke might have had a higher score than me thanks to her ramp and bumpers

This is some serious stuff!

The little bowling clown!

Family photo opp

Brendan found the "biggest chip ever" at Red Robin

Christmas 2011

This was the first Christmas in a while that I didn't have to travel to get home, and it was SO nice! No red eyes, no cancelled flights and rental cars, no last minute shopping. However, it was still just as busy and crazy as recent years. In two days, I had about five places to be.

I had the Fuller family over on Christmas Eve. Last year we did a big sit-down dinner at my grandfather's house, but I honestly just don't have the space for it. Everyone brought something, and we just did a little buffet-like dinner with pizza, sloppy joes, salad, apps, and mac and cheese. Nothing fancy, but we were all happy with it! We do a White Elephant gift exchange, and I wound up with some really nice things from Williams Sonoma. After the Fuller clan left, Alisa and Pearson came over to hand out with me, Matt and BA, and we might have had a few too many drinks and stayed up a little too late. Oops.

Christmas Day we went to brunch with my Dad at McCormick and Schmicks, and then headed to my Mom's house to open an insane amount of gifts. I can't imagine what it will be like when we have kids around one day. Actually, the adults will probably just have less gifts.

After THAT, we all piled in cars and went over to my aunt and uncle's house for Christmas night with the Kubach's (and a few extras). More gifts, more food, more games.

All in all, a successful Christmas here in Cleveland!

My tiny fake tree and all of my gifts (to give).

Matt, my mom, Bethanne and I at a family Eve of Christmas Eve dinner.
Too many Christmas Ales and Whiskey?!

My mom opted out of the tree tradition and went with a Santa this year.

Fat Guy In A Little Coat! (JK, he's not a fatty, but it was a little coat).

Getting ready for our big gift exchange on Christmas at Susan and Denny's.

Brooke, all dressed up in her butterfly gear!

Brendan, AKA Ralphie.

Vegas Photos!

No, I didn't go to Vegas. Still here in Cleveland. But here are a few fun pictures from the photo booth that we had at our work party for the holidays!

A Night Out Downtown

Why is it that fun things always overlap? You're invited to a few things on the same night, and then nothing for two weeks.

That is exactly what happened a few weeks ago, but I made two things work! My step-sister Alisa, and her husband Eric (but we call him Pearson) both turned 30 around the same time. They decided to have a joint party here in Cleveland, and rented out a room at The Velvet Dog, a bar downtown. Their friends came in from out of town, and everyone was going to be there. I then get a phone call that I have been given tickets to an amazing party at Playhouse Square to unveil their new theatres. Since that is right up my alley, I couldn't miss it.

I invited my dad to be my hot date at Playhouse Square. We went down and checked out their new theatres, mingled with some people we knew, and had a great sit down dinner right in The Palace theatre. My plan was to leave very early and go to Alisa and Pearson's party, but there was a show after dinner so we stuck around for a little of that, and then my dad dropped me off at the party. Just like when I was 15.

Like usual, Alisa and Pearson threw a great party. They had food from some of the local restaurants, and a little room that was blocked off for us with a great atmosphere. After their bar closed, a lot of us headed out to party the night away downtown. Needless to say, my brother and I took a cabs home, and I didn't feel so hot the next day. But it was a FUN night!

My dad and I at Playhouse Square

With the fam- Ernie, Pearson, Matt, Alisa and I

My cousin Heather and her husband Jeff

Sara and I love Pearson!

Welcome to Majestic Las Vegas!

Today was the Majestic Holiday Party! I haven't had too much to write about lately- I'm finding that life in one place is not as blog worthy as "old life", but this was AWESOME!!!

For the last week at work, all 200ish employees have received a daily wrapped poker chip. 12 of them were gold, and that meant that you were in the special holiday extravaganza game at the party today. I didn't get one, but was so excited for people who did!

We were kept outside of the party space until 2pm. We knew because of the poker chips all week that is was a Vegas theme. Elvis, Elton John, Blue Man Group and tons of Vegas girls greeted us as we walked through the door. About four minutes later, I dumped an entire glass of water on my lap and my bosses coat. That was fun.

Every little touch was was so well thought out. Our tables were cards instead of numbers, which turned out to be a key point later in the day. The buffet was totally Vegas style with excellent food like scallops, Asian salads, beef tenderloin, crab cakes and gourmet pizza. They had mocktini bars set up with Majestic cocktails, cider and soda. A magician entertained us, fun photo booths were set up, and slot machines were giving out prizes. Let the games begin!

Me, Brandi, Jackie and Sarah- just a few of the Majestic Girls!

The winners of the golden chips were called up to play a version of "Deal Or No Deal" with Viva Las Vegas making out the letters of the boxes. Can I even tell you how excited I was for these 12 people!? I would say that the average time of employment of the players was about 15 years (some were 20+ and some were 2), and they were mixed between the service center and the corporate office. We didn't know what was behind the boxes, but the "banker" offered all of them cash deals before they decided to open the box. A few people took amazing cash deals of $500+. For every box that was not opened because a cash deal was taken, another employee name was pulled out of a box to open it, which was totally unexpected. SEVEN people won trips to Las Vegas!!!! Some others won blue suede shoes and fuzzy dice, as well as gift cards and Bose products.

As is this wasn't enough, Elvis then unveils the Wheel of Fortune. There were 29 tables at the party, and each table picked a representative to go up and spin the wheel. Our table "card numbers" were randomly pulled to spin the wheel. Whatever you landed on, your entire table of eight got as their holiday gift. You probably can't see it in the picture, but there is an iPad2, $1,000, LED 47' TV, Xbox, gift cards to stores and a MacBook pro on that wheel. Yup. Katie was our rep, and she scored us all $500 gift cards to Best Buy! I later traded that gift card for a $500 Nordstrom gift card at the bar with one of our IT guys. I'm THRILLED and THANKFUL!!!

I just can't get over how I feel right now about my day. It was so fun to see people win cash and prizes to enjoy and share with their families. The event also brings people together outside of the workplace, which I think is so important. I spent time talking to people who I never work with directly, yet work in the same building with.

Yay for the start of the holiday weekend!!!!