We went over to Genifer’s brother’s on the Westside for their annual Fourth of July blowout.

‘Murica!


Mumford…



Sparklers…



Fireworks…


Lots of fireworks…

Dusk…

BBQ ribs…

Sides…


The Main Event…
























Other than the nonstop rain that fell all day long, it was a pretty great Fourth of July. 🙂

We stopped into a Biggs-Remke grocery store of the Westside of Cincinnati this rainy
Fourth of July afternoon, and look what we found…

A whole display rack of nothing but Little Golden Books. We had to buy some…

We ended up buying five books including The Pokey Little Puppy, The Shy Little Kitten,
The Little Red Hen and Scuffy the Tugboat. Awesome find! Makes me feel like a kid again.
🙂

Remember when the Main branch of the Cincinnati Public Library had that amazing exhibit
of original Little Golden Books artwork? That was pretty incredible too! 🙂

As it started to get dark, we walked over to the Square to check out their Fourth of July
fireworks display. And it appears that all of downtown Cincinnati had the same idea as us.


We got there about fifteen minutes before the fireworks started. We waited in line for a
beer for every one of those fifteen minutes. But with beer in hand, the fireworks started.
And that’s what I like to call… perfect timing.










And that was it. Pretty decent display of fireworks. But it only lasted a whopping ten minutes.
It literally took us longer to get a beer. But still, ‘Murica! Happy Third of July everyone! 🙂

Tonight, we went to see the Reds take on the San Francisco Giants…


Shin-Soo Choo led off the game with a home run…

Off of Tim Lincecum, who was on the hill for the Giants…



The Panda, Pablo Sandoval is one big dude…

It was the Mayor, Sean Casey’s birthday…


Thom and the Cowboy…



Joey Votto…


Rosie…



Umm… That’s a lot of zeroes up there for the Giants…

BP went yard to put the Reds up 3-0…





Homer Bailey…


Flirting with a no-hitter through seven innings…

And through eight…

This is actually happening! There was a good crowd for a Tuesday night…

Thankfully, they stopped giving away free buffets at the casino. Ninth inning. Here we go…



And one out. Two more to go…


TWO OUTS!

Come on, Homer! Just one more out…



NO HITTER FOR HOMER BAILEY!!!








Only 16 no-hitters in the history of oldest professional baseball team.




And we were there!



What a night! 🙂

We were still kind of hungry after 50 West. So we stopped into Lavomatic and shared
this incredible Bourbon BBQ Bacon burger…



Delicious, delicious stuff! And they had Old Style in cans…

As well as one of Cincinnati’s newest breweries, Mad Tree on tap…

🙂

After stuffing our faces full of burgery goodness, we went back to Rhinehaus to watch
the final of the Confederations Cup. It turned out to be an extremely one-sided match.
Who knew that in the last three meetings Brazil thumped Spain 3-0 each time? Just nutty.

We got up early this morning and decided to actually drive somewhere for lunch. After
a little head scratching, we decided it would be fun to head out to check out the new-ish
50 West Brewing Company out on the east side of Cincinnati along a stretch of US-50.













On Sunday’s, you can do a six-beer taster for $5!

Yes, please!



Some really tasty beers! We like the Wheat Eater the best of the ones we tried. And we
ordered a couple of bites to eat off of their food pairings menu. Genifer ordered this Banh
Mi Chicken Salad Sammich…

Roasted chicken mixed with peanuts, cilantro, and green onions tossed in a sriracha aioli
served on a baguette with pickled vegetables. The bread was a bit crunchy but the chicken
salad was outstanding! And I ordered The C.A.B…

White cheddar, Granny Smith apples and house bacon with an herbed mayo. Not at all
what I expected but absolutely delicious. They also had a whole bunch of old vinyl…

‘Murica…

And hidden in the back was a shuffle board table!







Awesome, fun place! We’ll definitely be back. Hopefully, very soon! 🙂

On her travels, my sister got me this South American drink mix called GuanabanaYa.

Today, I finally bit the bullet and decided to try it. And you know, it was really good!
Very tropical and tasty. I might just have to track down some more! 🙂

After lunch at Bakersfield, we went over to Rhinehaus…

We got to see our buddy, Greg…

And while we were there, we ran into our friends Gretchen and Martin…





Saturdays are fun! 🙂

Tonight, we picked up our sixth free pizza of the season thanks to last Thursday’s Reds
afternoon loss to the Pirates! We decided just to get our pizzas to-go to this evening…
Yeah, that’s right… Carry-out order for Thedd.

Genifer got just a plain cheese pizza, and I got sausage and spicy sausage…

Free pizza is delicious. 🙂

We decided to give The Spread Buffet one last shot. I met Genifer and we walked up to
the Casino for lunch. Because we thought, “There’s no way there could be any sort of
line for the buffet at lunchtime, right? Especially on a Wednesday?” Wrong…

12:45pm on a Tuesday. You gotta be flippin’ kidding me. So we went to Margaritaville.
We split their Teriyaki Chicken with coconut rice, pineapple salsa and green beans.

Delicious. We’d absolutely dish order this again to share!

Sorry Spread Buffet. You had your chance. And you disappointed us. Once. And twice.
And now three times. You’re out.