Church Festivals and Weeding ~ Life in the 'Nati

Yesterday Aunt Nikki came over to hang out with Addison while Andy and I attacked some long overdue weeding.

Addison and Nikki hung out in our new pool, compliments of our lovely neighbors, while Andy and I grunted and pulled and raked and edged. I think after the 4+ hours I did and 2+ hours Andy did of yard work we really started missing our tiny metal porch in Chicago with it's lovely parking lot...both of which required no manual labor from us.

I wish I had remembered to take a before picture of the areas we worked on. I am not exaggerating even a little bit when I tell you that I pulled up dandelion weeds that were at least a foot taller than me. I think the neighborhood was getting ready to vote us out because of our poorly manicured yard. I guess that's what happens when you buy a house that hasn't been occupied in a year. We have dubbed yesterday's work as Act I Scene I...and we're pretty sure this is a multiple part play. Oi vey.

To put in perspective how much weeding was done (or how pathetically out of shape I am) my hamstrings ache today.

While we're talking about the neighborhood, we all went to "our" parish festival Friday night. I put our in quotations, as we have yet to step foot into the actual church since moving here. Yes, we did attend a Christmas Eve mass there once or twice years ago, but by no means are parishioners. We intend to become good Catholics at some point...some point before we have to enroll Addie in their school.

Anyway, church festivals are quite the thing here in Cincinnati. All I know for sure is that they serve lots of fried food and cold beer and somehow are able to host gambling. There are the typical split-the-pots, but there is also black jack, poker and a few games that I've never heard of. One of the games is Bells and Bars, where you buy a 50 cent ticket and then pull the tabs looking for matches, kind of like a scratch off ticket. We bought quite a bit of them (when I say we, I mean Patty and Andy... they might have a problem with gambling that I didn't know about before). Bob, Patty and Andy kept winning a dollar here and 50 cents there and I kept be the big loser, that is until right before we left, when I won $35! I was pretty excited and more than happy to buy the family SnoBug for dessert.

Addison enjoyed the noise, her pulled pork sandwich and learning how to gamble...see the church is guiding her already!