Spiegels visit the Grames in NYC!

After the Spiegel's(a.k.a Justin, Crystal and Sophie) visited with Justin's and Crystal's family in upstate NY, they made their trip back down to Tampa, FL; but first stopped to see the McGrames' here in NYC for the 4th of July weekend.

They arrived Thursday evening and we went out for some real NY pizza...then walked around downtown Nyack and enjoyed the nice sunny weather...we went home to play with Sophie before it was her bedtime...

Friday we went into the city and met up with our friends Billy and Stacey who were on holiday in NYC for the 4th, had some lunch with them in Greenwich Village and then chauffered Sophie around the city while she napped. We enjoyed some shopping at Whole Foods and then jumped on the Staten Island ferry for a free tour of the NYC. We walked around Battery Park and bartered for some Dolce&Gabana purses for Sheila and Crystal.. The ladies did very well... 2 purses for $15 each. Not too shabby... especially when they started out at $45 each.

On Saturday we were so tired from walking around New York City the previous day that we pretty much hung around the apartment and relaxed. We took a mid-day nap and then the ladies went out to shop for some nice jewelry pieces for their jewelry making hobby. Justin and David babysat Sophie and played some video games... We meant to go swimming but the weather had other plans for us... so we just watched some TV, some fireworks and enjoyed some time together.

Later that night, or early next morning I should say came time for them to head out... 3 a.m. came around they pulled out to make their long voyage from NYC to Tampa. They arrived safely by 9:30pm... that's only 19 hours later... and I heard Justin drove practically the entire way. Amazing. We had a blast with them and we were REALLY REALLY sad to see the 3 of them go.

The Coke Can Fiasco

I have a tendency recently to forget about stuff... maybe i should start taking my ginko biloba pills already.... anyway, to give you a little background story... around Christmas time when we were visiting some friends in Florida, they put a drink in the freezer to cool it off for me... and Billy said, "I put this in here for you, so do forget about it!" Well the night went on and soon it was time to leave... halfway back to Justin and Crystal's house we get a phone call from Billy sarcastically asking if we forgot something... none of us thought we left anything there until he mentioned the Soda in the freezer... "ooops" I said. So Billy, being the nice guy he is, didn't make a big deal about it and cleaned it up. Now I just hear the occassional teasing every now and then.

Months later.... almost 6 months later to the day... we were up in Rochester for Sarah's Wedding (Sheila's longtime childhood friend) and also visiting Sheila's family and Justin/Crystal and Sophie who flew up for some quality family time... So it was getting pretty hot out and no cold drinks... so before I started getting ready for Sarah's wedding I put a Coke in the Freezer and figured I would have a nice cold drink to take with me right before I went to the wedding. So after an hour of sitting around and 10 min. of getting ready for the wedding.. I rushed out... Didn't even think about the Coke... never crossed my mind until that night when we pulled into the driveway and Justin came out to meet us and with a big smile asked: "did you forget something?"

Then a little red flashing Coke sign went off in my head... "oops!" (& to quote a classic tv character: "Did I do thaaaat?") So they left it for me to clean up and I decided to take pictures and blog about it....

Memorial Day "Camping" weekend.

Well we decided to go camping on Memorial Day weekend, our friend Rachel was born on May 25th and she is a big outdoorsy type person but by the time we got our act together and went to reserve a camp site, they were all booked... the only thing left was a cabin, in POOR condition. Literally said that on the website when we went to book the camp site. Here is Tina and her husband Joe and birthday girl Rachel, who happened to have a cold and fever that weekend. Nice way to spend your birthday, but it was a nice time. Despite still being a little cold and most of the entertainment being closed since the state park had just opened that weekend, no canoes, kayaks, innertubes or row boats available. I can't seem to find the majority of the pictures(which there weren't too many) but once I do, i'll add a bunch to the bottom..

Riding in Style...

One of our weekends we decided to get away, and head up to Sheila's home in Livonia,NY(up by Rochester). Sheila was part of one of her friend Sara's bridal Shower, and David got some time with the four wheelers and the backhoe. It was a fun weekend overall, playing games with the family, riding around on the wheelers and workin' in the field, pulling scrap metal, junk and cleaning out the property... We cleared a pathway at one end of the field, where we were cleaning all the scrap metal and made a tiny, tiny jump... maybe in the future Mr. McCaffrey will create a big jump that we can use. So above is the video of me riding through the path... One of the our favorite video games on the Nintendo Wii is Raving Rabbids, has a bunch of different mini games but our favorite is the dancing mini-game so here is Ashley, Andy and Sheila playing the game in the basement, late at night after everyone went to bed. That was fun short weekend upstate with the McCaffrey's.( it doesn't seem to work, so check back later this week and I'll have it fixed.)

Christmas 08!

For Christmas we decided to come to Florida to see our families since one side of the family lives in Tampa and the other side lives in Orlando...and they are only about an hour away it works out great...since Mom and Dad Grames are down here(while on furlough) and little baby Sophie is due any day now... We've spent most of our days driving around, doing a little shopping, some for us... but mostly Aunt Sheila for baby Sophie...and of course at David's demands we stopped at some of our favorite fast food that we don't have in NY (Sonic & Chic-fil-a) YUM!

But lets go back about a week, when we first got here we came to TAMPA and stayed with Justin and Crystal for Christmas. We went over to Billy and Muffins(Stacey) house(& Hunter) for Christmas Eve dinner which was awesome! Billy cooked up some nice juicy fillets in the green tank while Justin and David played Nintendo Wii all night.

Once we came home it was about 10 min. till Christmas so we decided to open up all our presents then so we could sleep-in in the morning. The First present I opened up was from Sheila(which we agreed to not get each other presents this year since we bought our tv, bought furniture,....paid for a wedding) but Sheila was able, maybe even for the first time ever, to surprise me. So I opened it up and it was a Nintendo WII!!!! HOW FUN!!!! after that I dont remember much else of the night.

On Christmas day we got up and had a yummy breakfast, pancakes, fresh fruits, eggs...all home made by the ladies. It was good, opened up some stocking presents with some very cool gifts. For lunch we went to the Speigels house(Justin's Parents) about half an hour away. Had some delicious turkey and opened some more presents...

We then drove to Orlando to see David's side of the family, had a little Christmas time there, We stayed there until new years ever visiting with family and doing some shopping and celebrating David's 27th Birthday. Later in January we went to the beach! It was warm and sunny, although the water was really cold.

all in all, it was an awesome Christmas, if only Sophie would just come out and play!

Thanksgiving at the McCaffreys!

This year we up to the McCaffrey's Cabin for Thanksgiving, Sheila Dropped David off for his first hunting season ever. He got to experience what it was like to eat a Peanut Butter, Onion and Venison sandwich(not as bad as it sounds actually) just watch out, those onions can be very HOT. Got to hold a shotgun, sit in a booth and watch the snow fall for a couple hours, but it was fun. Next time He'll have to get up a little earlier to catch some deer.

We did a little pre-black friday shopping on the way home... and then Sheila, David and Ashley all decided to brave the mobs and sub-zero Rochester weather and go shopping bright and early. Hitting stores as early as 4am, standing in line for 2 hours and then sprinting through Target, nabbing items off the shelf with no regard for others... NOW THAT'S WHAT I CALL SHOPPING!!! We continued to shop until about 11am, with a short McD's break around 8am with Sarah Witt. It was a good day of savings. If we had only held off on our HDTV a little longer...