Now THIS is Summer

We wanted to post a few additional pictures of some of our recent summer activities for your viewing pleasure. Despite busyness, we have had a few chances to enjoy some fun times the past few weeks.



We went to Findlay Market a couple of Saturdays ago. It is an old public market house from the 19th century that now has farmer's market-type produce, meat and fish, bakeries, arts and crafts, cafes, gelato(!), street performers...

This past weekend, we really lived it up since we had a rare Friday evening and all day Saturday free. Friday, we drove a half hour north to Hamilton to visit a drive-in movie theater. The movies were nothing to write home about, but the night was beautiful and a perfect evening to sit outside. We brought the Escape, popped the trunk, and folded down the back seat so we could stretch out. That combined with a blue raspberry icee from Speedway and you have yourself a perfect night. Baxter was even allowed in, which we thought would be fun for him, but turned out to be a not great choice.
 

Saturday, a few of the Tungseth clan stopped by during their World's Longest Yard Sale road trip. We met Cheryl, Judy, Sharon, Lyn, and Diva for lunch at Skyline on Ludlow and then walked over to Graeter's for a quick ice cream treat before they were on their way. It was so nice to see some familiar faces in this foreign land!

Eating chili at Skyline

We tried the mini scoops at Graeter's...

they made us feel like giants

From there, we ventured downtown for Blues Fest at Sawyer Point (a park by the river). Not being overly familiar with famous blues groups or subculture, this was a new experience for us. We saw some entertaining performers and enjoyed another gorgeously sunny day in Cincinnati.

We cut through a neat park downtown Cincinnati

Mmm, fresh lemonade

The performance we most wanted to see was Stephanie Trick.  And she did not disappoint!  Check her out, she's amazing: http://stephanietrick.com/videos.htm

One of the odder aspects of Cincinnati is their intense love affair with wine.  It's everywhere!  We find it humorous that it is available in plastic dixie cups at most public events.  Very classy :-)

 As we were leaving Blues Fest, we noticed another party going on across the river in Newport, KY. So instead of walking back to the motorcycle, we detoured across the Purple People Bridge into Kentucky to check it out. We discovered that it was Goettafest! Most importantly, we learned how to correctly pronounce goetta (get-uh) and found out what it actually is: "a German breakfast sausage that blends the textures and flavors of pork, beef, whole grain steel-cut oats, fresh onions, and spices." Yum? It reminds us of spam in that they make all kinds of seemingly disgusting things out of it including goetta balls, goetta pizza, and goetta fudge. They even had a Goetta vending machine where you could by a freshly chilled loaf of goetta. Weird.

Sunset over the city as we walked across the bridge

They had a map showing where Goettafest attendees were from, so we added Fergus Falls and Mauston to the pins.

A beautiful church that we passed on our walk back to the parking lot.

Yesterday, we celebrated Emily's birthday with another evening of fun. 

Free birthday dinner courtesy of Noodles and Company

Then, we dodged bugs, sprinklers, heat indices, and darkness in a round of birthday golf.