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!