ALTCON 2015!

We attended this year's ALTCON science fiction "conference" on March 14th, just a week after the Jewish Food Festival. Unfortunately, the decisions to move the date to March (it has been in April the last few years), to move to a different location (fairgrounds instead of civic center), and to not advertise as extensively as in previous years all caused it to be much smaller than it had previously been. This means that the Creamers enjoyed it more! Not only that, but they had my favorite food truck (Valhalla Grill) selling lunch!

We had a nice time walking around looking at the booths and seeing all of Megan's friends dressed in their cosplay outfits. The highlight? Artists were available to commission to draw any superhero you like. This time, Megan asked to be drawn as Wonder Woman.

I think he did an excellent job, don't you?

Matzo Ball Soup is yummy!

After all of the birthday activity, we had about a two-week period where we were feeling lost, bored and didn't know what to do with ourselves. What better way to resolve those issues than by attending a festival, right? Temple Israel held the Jewish Food Festival on March 8th, and we had an awesome time listening to music and eating great Jewish food like corned beef, potato knisches, hummus and pitas, and my favorite, Matzo Ball soup. I loved it so much that we stocked up on some frozen containers that they were selling too. Unfortunately, they had no latkes, but since our cousin Matt makes the best ones anyway (or so he says, but I'm inclined to believe him), we'll just have to wait for next summer for those. 

A very Happy Birthday to my loves

February 19th was George's birthday, and for lunch I took him to Ted's Montana Grill for his favorite of all meals, steak. While we were there, we saw Atu Hand,

a former Olympic Judo fighter and son of Fred Hand, a pretty famous Judo fighter in his own right. George and Atu fought in Judo matches and practiced together back in the day, and it's always good to see him.

On Saturday the 21st (also known as Paw Paw Gilbert's Birthday - Happy Birthday, Dad!), we did some fun local stuff to celebrate George's 45th birthday and Megan's 15th birthday (on the 24th). We always love visiting Bradley's Country Store, and we get great pictures out there. This day was no exception.

Later on, we celebrated with our friends, the Mazeracs (Kim's birthday was on the 18th) who brought Smallcakes for the occasion.  We had a lot of fun, but we were so busy having fun that I unfortunately did not get many pictures of the birthday boy and girl opening presents, etc. I will do better next time!

Happy Birthday to all of my February folks. I love you all!

MLK Birthday Weekend

On the Saturday before Martin Luther King Jr.'s Birthday holiday, we traveled to Jacksonville to see Granny.
 

I got to spend some time with her talking about the old days, how much she missed my Pee Paw, and about how much we loved each other. It was very special for me and the kids, and I'm so glad we made the day trip. On the way out of town, we stopped by Arby's where, as usual with my kids, silliness endued.

I love those kids!

Happy New Year!

After all of the Christmas festivities were over, we spent our week cleaning up and getting ready for our new year to start. We spent New Year's Eve with our friends, the Mazeracs, and lit fireworks to celebrate the start of 2015. We hope everyone had a happy new year!