tailgate memories

Having our twins at the same college was just perfect.  Bob and I were able to enjoy Leah and Jenn and their college journey together.  They were only 75 minutes away.  We tailgated for football games and became THE tailgate to visit on a Saturday morning.  Our parking spot at the top of Slayter Hill was perfect for meeting other Purdue fans and providing delicious food for the friends of Leah and Jenn.

Now that the girls have graduated, many people have asked if we will still tailgate. Good question! Leah will be back at Purdue in the fall to get her masters in Chemical Engineering and Maria and Nick live close enough to campus to attend lots of games. We still have our season tickets and we will not give those up but I think tailgating will look a little different. There won’t be elaborate menus with themed foods and drinks although mine were great. And we won’t have our 2 tent, 10 chair, 3 table party zone although Bob had that set up mastered. Our tailgates will probably be scheduled around the weather and time of game. Noon games are a pain for tailgating because by the time everyone gets to the party it’s time to go to the game. So I envision us setting up a small spread of food and drinks on days when the game starts late in the day and the weather isn’t rainy or freezing.

The Biasi’s don’t do anything on a small scale but this is the start of a new tailgate era. We will arrive at the game without a car full of supplies and just go to the game. What a fun idea!  I could get used to a more relaxed football Saturday at Purdue! I sure hope we can still have a football season after the pandemic dies out.

Hear are a few photos of previous tailgates dating back to 2010!

Leah and Jenn

These Are just a few of the wonderful photos Bob took of the girls. After their final exams were over, Bob drove the girls up to campus and took over 400 photos. He did a great job! I will post individual pictures in the days ahead. Enjoy!

Yesterday we commemorated the graduation of Leah and Jenn. They are fantastic girls and our pride for them is huge!  No official commencement ceremony was held at Purdue but, like everyone else,  we figured out a way to make it special. We made a little stage on the deck and held graduation with my dad as the officiant. He even wore his Doctorate gown. Below is the exit of the ceremony.

To make our day sweeter, Purdue University even used a picture of Leah and Jenn to congratulate all recent grads! That social media post is below. 

Growing Up

Jenn and Leah are growing up.  Actually they are all grown up and finding their way in our big world.  Graduation from college should have been this weekend but of course things are not normal right now.  Purdue University puts on a really top notch graduation ceremony.  They don't do one huge ceremony but they break it up into division ceremonies by majors.  Leah's walk across the stage would have been on Friday and Jenn's would have been on Sunday. For practically all 4 years of their college education I worried their graduations were going to overlap or be at the same time.  I guess it could have even been harder if they had gone to different colleges in different parts of the country. But they didn't.  Our girls attended Purdue University and got a fantastic education at a very cheap price compared to many of the other schools they considered.  Their grad ceremonies will be online and we will be able to watch them on our giant tv from the comfort of our own family room.  Our party will be small with just my mom and dad, Bob's mom, Bob and me and the girls.  Maria and Nick can't come because she is exposed to sick people with Covid-19 and we don't want to contaminate everyone.  She is really upset that she cannot attend.

Bob took Leah and Jenn to the Purdue campus yesterday to take tons of graduation photos.  I will share more in the next few weeks but here are two of the new photos pared with a photo of each girl from 10 years ago.  Look how our girls have changed in these pictures. 

Jenn in 2010

Jenn in 2020

Leah in 2010

Leah in 2020

 My scarf collection is being put to use!! They make a great face mask.

I work at our church and right now I really don’t see many people. If by some odd chance we actually get a visitor, I will put on a mask. With my handy scarf around my neck I can just pull it up and I am covered.  Have a great day!

Random picture #2

When I just want to write on the blog but I don’t have anything to write about I will pick a random photo to post. I did this in April so I named this post as Random picture #2. I think that will help keep track of all the random photo posts in the future. I just scroll through photos on my phone (with my eyes closed) and land on a photo. I don’t cheat!  I post the actual picture I land on.

This random pic is the best!!! EPCOT is one of my favorite places. All of Disney World is one of my favorite places. And these are my favorite people. All of us, including Maria’s fiancé went to WDW in January. It was a magical trip with beautiful accommodations, scrumptious food and nonstop touring. This photo was taken above the Test Track ride in Epcot. We had no idea there was a super secret getaway lounge with free drinks, air conditioning and supreme views! Here is our path to the beautiful lounge... At the end of the ride is a Chevy Experience area where you can see the newest Chevy car models. Of course there is a corvette and Bob was checking it out. He told the Chevy Rep that he had a really beautiful corvette of his own and they chatted back and forth about the driving school Bob has attended and the general awesomeness of a corvette. The gentleman asked Bob if our family would enjoy seeing the best views in Epcot and Bob said yes of course. We were given directions to a small unmanned and unmarked door and off we went. Upon entrance we followed a hallway to an elevator where we pressed an intercom button and introduced ourselves. We were welcomed into the elevator and traveled up!  After checking in with an actual person we saw the awesome view you see in the picture above. We took all kinds of pictures, lounged on the futuristic furniture, used the cleanest bathroom in Epcot and drank gallons of free soda. Finally we realized it was time to come down from the sky and get back to our fun filled vacation. As we left the the attendant gave us passes to ride Test Track again without waiting in line. Even though our trips are perfectly planned, sometimes the unplanned things are truly the best!

Happy Mother’s Day 2020

Happy Mother’s Day to my wonderful mom. She is the very best and most supportive mom you could ever want.

Happy Mother’s Day to my mother in law, Mary. She lives so close we get to celebrate today together!

Happy Mother’s Day too to my Aunt Ruth. She is my biggest fan and reads my blog everyday. She even read by blog when I wasn’t writing anything!

And finally I want to wish a Happy Mother’s Day to the nameless person who reads my blog in Mountain View, California. I have no idea who you are. But if you click the map to the right you can see where all the people come from who read the blog. The person in Mountain View has read my blog over 200 times in one month.

Dinner and emails

Thursday night we had beef stew and rhubarb crisp. Everything was so good!!! Both recipes we from Foodandwine.com

I did a quick search for the recipes and found what I wanted pretty quickly. When looking for recipes on the internet, I sometimes get so sidetracked and all of a sudden I’m looking at adds for patio furniture and dreaming about redecorating the backyard. The internet is somewhat of a rabbit hole that sends me far off track. On this search I kept my eyes on target and got the recipes I needed. With detailed recipes like the two I had chosen, I really needed to print out the directions for quick reference instead of constantly going back to read my little phone screen. I pressed the link that read “email recipe” and sent both recipes to myself so I could print them out. Great. I made the stew and the crisp, enjoyed it all, visited with the family after dinner and cleaned up the mess. By the time that was complete I had received 8 more emails from Foodandwine.com. 😖 I deleted the emails. They were just advertisements and I unsubscribed from the website. By the next morning at 5:30 am I had 4 more emails. I deleted them and unsubscribed again. I haven’t gotten anymore emails from them yet today but it’s still early.

I’m tired of unnecessary emails in my inbox!

Grads

Today I am working on grad announcements for these two lovely ladies. It’s truly an honor to celebrate them. If you read this blog you are probably someone we know very well. You will receive your grad announcement next week with details about their future and plans. 

We had a cold spell yesterday and today so I broke out a scarf again. Actually scarf season is over. I have a big scarf collection and I’m always a little sad to put them away.

Jenn (in the top pic on the right) has lots of food allergies. On Monday I offered to make her anything she wanted to eat. She chose fried potatoes!  That little video should make you hungry. We call these Grandma’s potatoes because my grandmother was a master at making them and taught me how to make them perfectly. She never actually made them for my girls but they still love them and know that they bring great memories for me. They were delicious!!

A good hair day

It’s kind of boring here in Indiana. There isn’t much going on so I have very little to report. Our governor has put a 5 step plan into place to get things moving toward opening up and hopefully leaving coronavirus behind us. My 90 yr old mother in law will still have to wait awhile to go to church and grocery shop but at least things are opening up for people under 65. If the plan stays intact, our state will be back to “normal” on July 4. 

I really really really really need a haircut. Everyone does! I finally had a good hair day yesterday. I’m not accustomed to doing much styling so getting my hair to look somewhat normal took way more time than I like spend on my hair. I have highlighted  my hair for at least 10 years so I was a little anxious to see how much grey was hiding in my roots. Well my grey hair isn’t anything like I thought it would be. The grey is definitely there but there is also a lot of light brown. My mom would call it mousey brown. I’m ready for a haircut and a nice new color!

As a thank you for all the hostas I have given away, my very creative neighbor made the cookies below. She is very talented!  The cookies look just like hosta leaves. She added the intricate horse cookies because I jokingly told one of my nosiest neighbors that we were doing so much yard work because we are getting ready to stable horses and raise chickens! We aren’t really doing that but my nosy neighbor sure looked shocked!

Poor Bob

Poor Bob. He is back at work and this is how he has to dress to go into the factory. The hairnet, safety glasses and ear plugs were always part of the costume but now he has added a face mask. He also has on safety shoes.  I can’t imagine wearing all that stuff all day!

The picture is a little blurry because it’s a screenshot of a FaceTime conversation on my phone. Sorry!

The tree outside my kitchen window is superb. I planted it 10 years ago when we added the addition onto our house. (Ok it’s not really an addition but we just enclosed our screen porch. ) from the outside the tree is gorgeous. People walk by and stop to admire its beauty in the spring when it’s in full bloom. Little do they know it’s true purpose was to hide a slight difference in brick color between the old and new parts of the house. From the inside of the house I can see the tree outside the window above my kitchen sink. We have a sitting area where the longer windows are and I have a great view of the entire tree and the very busy bird feeder. For an entire month we get to enjoy this great tree. There is another tree just like it planted at the exact same time in the backyard but it isn’t quite as majestic. 

Look carefully and you can see all the bees the tree attracts!

Random picture

I’m tired of posting about food, coronavirus and landscaping. Today I scrolled through my photos randomly and landed on the video above. Christmas Day 2019! Maria gave Jenn (on the left) and Leah (on the right) an exploding box with their gift inside. Have a great day!

Yesterday morning Bob and I went for an early drive. We needed gas, we wanted to see our house without trees from a different angle and we were also bored. We shop mostly at Kroger and earn fuel points so we headed there to fill up. Gas was just $1.09 per gallon and I had a $1 off of every gallon to that made our gas just 9 cents!!!!!

All of these hosta were in our front yard. I had so many all around the house. All day long friends, neighbors and strangers came by to get the free plants. They are almost too heavy to lift. Most people cut them up to take them away but some actually lifted them whole. One big hosta can easily be cut down to make 6 smaller ones. Eventually they will get this big no matter how small they start. It makes me happy to know all those plants will be spread all over our neighborhood and they all got their start from 3 plants at my first home 32 years ago. 

First and last

As promised yesterday, this is our first house. Isn’t it lovely? I remember shopping for a house and how exciting the entire process was. We had found another home we loved but the owners turned down our offer and we had to start the search all over again. We toured so many houses. I can’t remember my high school prom but I can still remember some of those houses we only saw once! That is crazy. Bob and I still laugh about the house with a parrot sanctuary in the dining room and the one straight out of the 70’s with shag carpet and a bathtub sunk into the floor. The house we picked was so normal in comparison with the others. It had 3 bedrooms and 2 and a half baths and the only weird thing about it was that it had a beauty shop in the basement. For the entire 7 years we lived there people used to stop by and ask, “Do you still do hair?”  I would always tell the strangers that the other home owner had moved. Bob used to say we should start up her business again to make a little money. Of course neither one of us had any talent related to cutting hair!

It did not look exactly like this 32 years ago. Bob and I had the opportunity to take a drive by our old house in 2017 on our way back from a wedding and took the present day picture. Parking in front of the house brought back so many memories and we were surprised at how well kept it was.  Most of the landscaping had been upgraded and the trees were huge!  The hosta that were the start of all my current plants were on the left side of the house under the birch tree.  We always had hanging baskets and the flag just like they do in the picture. The family had a really cool play set under the oak trees on the right. We swept up buckets and buckets of acorns each year and I can imagine the kids in that house must have a fantastic time playing under the trees. The roof was a light grey when we lived there but I really like the black roof much better! We wrote the owners a note and let them know how beautiful their home looked and they actually wrote us back!

Yesterday I posted a picture of my house in its naked form void of all landscape. It looked really pretty before but I can’t wait to share the finished product. I know it will be better than it ever was. We have lived here for 20 years and could easily live here for 20 more!

Happy Earth Day Landscaping Changes

It’s Earth Day so we are moving earth all over!  Actually we are totally redoing our landscaping because...We had a problem with all our fir trees so they had to come out. Last year we had a leaky pool and had to dig up parts of our current landscape plan. Our decorative wall in the front yard was falling over. All of these reasons and many others have brought us to a big remodel. If you know us, you know we love to remodel so this should not be a surprise!

This beautiful tulip tree is falling over. It’s coming down which makes me very sad. I love this tree it has the prettiest pink tulip like flowers. Unfortunately it is a very massy tree, is the last to drop its leaves in the fall, is fighting for sun with our other trees and is leaning toward the street. 

We cleaned up the garden to get ready for planting. I found these spring onions! They have already been added to yummy fried rice!

My videos are not working (I’ll work on that!) but the picture above was from last year when we painted the house. Those trees are all gone. The hostas are still there but will be replanted on the side of the house.  Here is what the house looks like today. 

This is my house right now. It looks naked. On the right side of the house is a giant pile of hosta. I’ve told all my friends they are welcome to take as many as they want. I have way too many. 94 to be exact! They are being dug out with a back hoe and it’s a good thing because they are huge.  I brought 5 hosta to this house in 1997. Those 5 were offshoots of plants at my house in Knoxville whose plants were offshoots of plants at my house in Morristown which were offshoots of hosta at my first home in Crystal Lake. When we moved into that house in 1987 it already had hosta growing in the beds. My mother in law took some so she had them in her yard too in Chicago. I guess you can say that the hosta in my yard are descendants of the plants at our first house. I loved our first house. I think I’ll write about that house tomorrow. Happy Earth Day!

McD’s

I’m a big fan of McDonald’s. BIG FAN. I don’t get tired of it and their soda tastes better than any other drive thru. Maybe it’s the ice? Whatever the reason, I go there often. My friends and I walk together 3 times per week. (Not during Quarantine Lockdown) We gather at McDonald’s after walking, have a drink and finish our conversations. Sometimes we have all 12 of us but other times there are 3 of us.  Tomorrow my friends and I are getting together. We miss each other!  We won’t walk in our pack around the neighborhood nor will we go to McDonald’s. Instead we are bringing lawn chairs and setting up, 6 ft apart, in a friend’s backyard. Maybe I’ll bring a McDonald’s soda to sip while we all chat!