Cincinnati wedding

We spent the first week of March in Cincinnati at our niece's wedding - spending most of the time at our nephew's house - where their daughters give us the best welcome!!

And Bill gets to have some male bonding time - playing RC model flight simulator games...

 

Of course the happy couple

and a brush with fame when we met Soulja Boy (ok, I admit I had never heard of him, he's a rapper)

and his manager and bodyguard.... picture of 2 of my nieces with Soulja boy and the bride wearing the manager's $50,000 bling!  Some of us waited around talking to these guys (at 1AM) long enough for them to bring down Soulja Boy himself to go to a late night private party gig. Ok, so not your usual wedding photos but this wedding was more fun than the usual wedding!

 Congratulations Kiernan and Joe!! 

 

Fiddler on the Roof - with Topol - go see it!!

I think I enjoyed this musical with Topol playing Tevye more than any in recent memory! As soon as he took the stage, the audience cheered - even though probably many if not most of them were not alive or were babies when he first played the part in London in 1967 or made the movie in 1971. The first sound of his voice transported me back to teenage years listening to the album, which was a favorite of mine, as well as the movie.

There is no denying he's an older man now, although his voice has not changed too significantly and while he was a young man (35) when he did the movie playing a man probably a bit older, he is now 73 and has done the role over 2500 times. But no way did he look 73 up on stage singing and dancing.... made me feel like I'm the old one :)

  

This is his farewell tour - ending this summer - if he's in your city - GO SEE HIM! I say go see "him", because although I love Fiddler on the Roof anyway, he is the only real standout, but the other cast was good and did a wonderful supporting role to this wonderful actor. The standing ovation at the end was awesome.

Minneapolis TICA show - Feb 21-22, 2009

For this show at least there was no traveling! It was held in Minneapolis at the convention center as part of the Pet Expo.

We showed Amadeus again - with very good results.... he got 9 finals out of 12 rings and was 4th best kitten in the show.  Some cat show pictures ....

 

Altoona IA CFA Show Feb 14-15, 2009

 Our grooming station

Bill working in the corner

 Mary Auth judging Amadeus

  His first final in the show - 4th best longhair kitten

 Brian Moser giving a final

 And Walter Hutzler giving him a final

 Our boy sitting and playing - he loved being on display! And we loved showing him....

Cat Show Number 2 - getting there....

We had thought about a trip to Maumee Ohio for a show but 11 hours of driving was just not sounding good so when my friend Theresa mentioned a show in Iowa, we opted for that...

Driving down to Altoona IA (next to Des Moines), we passed Clear Lake, IA - where "the music died" just over 50 years ago when Buddy Holly, The Big Bopper, and Rudy Valens died in a plane crash in Feb 1959.  Just after that the snow started....


It took two hours to go the last 20 miles.... here the GPS shows 7 miles traveled in almost an hour....

 

But finally we did arrive and ventured out later to look for a restaurant and what a find! We happened on Alba Restaurant in Des Moines and went in - they told us we were in luck because they had been booked solid with reservations but a lot of people cancelled. It was just wonderful food!!

So after all that, we had the show on Saturday and Sunday - see next entry....