All posts tagged Our backyard

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

MERRY CHRISTMAS! It was a chilly Christmas in Cincinnati…

And we woke up to a white Christmas…

We got the dogs a bunch of new dog toys and blankets for Christmas…

I took a little video of the dogs coming in from outside to discover all their new toys…

And now the dogs have a very full box of toys…

After the dogs got to play with their toys for a bit, we took them out on their walk…

Good morning from Northside…

Genifer made Magic Middles for breakfast this morning…

Magic Middles are delicious…

After breakfast, we opened our presents and exchanged our gifts. My parents sent us this hilarious 2020 ornament…

A huge thank you so much to my mom & dad for all our wonderful Christmas gifts…

There was a bit of debate over this advent calendar…

I thought we should start at one, count along with the days and end on twenty-five. Genifer thought we should start on twenty-five and countdown to one and end on the star. And you can see who won that debate…

This afternoon we headed up to West Chester to celebrate Christmas with Geri. We took some shrimps, a meat & cheese tray, a whole bunch of dippers and that was our Christmas dinner. We had a wonderful time spending the afternoon with her.

When we got home, we took the dogs around the block…

Good evening from Northside…

After the dog’s were done with the freezing cold walk, we watched a bunch of basketball and called it a day. We had a really wonderful Christmas day. We hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas as well. 😀🎄❤️

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by Thadd F. on December 25, 2020 • Permalink

Posted in #WINTERinCINCY, Northside, Odd & Ends

Posted by Thadd F. on December 25, 2020

https://tplusg.com/2020/12/25/merry-christmas-6/

Happy winter solstice.

Today was the Winter solstice. It’s the official start of winter and the shortest day of the year. I found this online and thought it was pretty funny…

Day 21 of my Lego City Advent Calendar…

It was a really beautiful evening…

We took the dogs around the block….

I took a little video of the sunset as well and then sped it up a bit in iMovie…

The little clouds were so pretty. It was really pretty from our backyard as well…

I think the bright star at the end of the branch just below the middle of the frame is the Great Conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn…

The two largest planets in our Solar System, Jupiter and Saturn, were so close to each other in the sky that they were both be visible through a telescope eyepiece at the same time. We don’t have a telescope. But such close passes are known as Great Conjunctions. The Great Conjunction of 2020 was the closest in almost 400 years.

I was just about to go grab my biggest telephoto lens but the clouds started quickly taking over the evening skies…

For dinner tonight, we had another one of the Kroger Prep+Pared Home Chef Express meals. This one was Sun-Dried Tomato Chicken Alfredo Penne with mozzarella…

And it was another really good dinner. We didn’t like this one as much as the Italian Sausage and Roasted Tomato Cream Cavatappi… with peas. It was good. We just wished it was something other than chicken. But it was still a really good meal. We like the Kroger Prep+Pared Home Chef Express meal kits a lot.

We headed upstairs and watched a couple more episodes of Mindhunter on Netflix.

And I also saw this one online today that I thought was pretty funny…

Just one more day of work for the year. 😀🌄🌤️🪐🍜📺❤️

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by Thadd F. on December 21, 2020 • Permalink

Posted in #WINTERinCINCY, Northside, Odd & Ends

Posted by Thadd F. on December 21, 2020

https://tplusg.com/2020/12/21/happy-winter-solstice/

Urban Artifact + Kitchen Factory.

Good morning from Northside…

Day 20 of my Lego City Advent Calendar…

Good evening from Northside…

Shannon ordered us some Urban Artifact beers for Christmas. This evening we ran over to UA to pick up our order. We were really excited to see what she got us…

And there’s our order…

On our way back home, we stopped to pick up dinner from The Kitchen Factory…

When we got home with our dinner, the sunset looked so pretty from our backyard…

And tben it was back to our dinner from Kitchen Factory…

Genifer ordered their Veggie Meatball Hoagie…

I ordered the Baked Chicken Pesto Hoagie…

We both ordered the pasta salad as our side. And it came in a condiment container…

It was less of a side and more of a mouthful of pasta salad. Still, it was really good. We just wished there was more of it. We also ordered a side of their Famous Vegan Mac & Cheese…

Our dinner was sooo good. The hoagies were amazing! We’ll definitely be ordering from Kitchen Factory again. We’ll have to order a couple of their pizzas sometime as well.

Genifer made some incredible seven-layer bars for dessert…

Now that our bellies are full, let’s take a look to see what Shannon got us…

Wow! Those sound like some delicious beers! We placed them under our Christmas tree. And we can’t wait to try them! Thanks, Shannon!

We’ve been watching Mindhunter on Netflix. It’s about the origins of the FBI’s Behavioral Sciences Unit in the late ’70s. It’s been a really good show so far.

And we had a really good Sunday. 😀🌄🐾🍺🥪📺❤️

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by Thadd F. on December 20, 2020 • Permalink

Posted in #FALLinCINCY, Northside, Odd & Ends

Posted by Thadd F. on December 20, 2020

https://tplusg.com/2020/12/20/41718/

A great start to a three-day weekend.

We both had the day off work today. I could really get used to four-day work weeks. Genifer doesn’t work on Fridays and I used my very last vacation day of 2020…

Good morning from Northside…

Time for day 18 of my Lego City Advent Calendar…

The lead of the eCommerce group at work dropped off a Christmas gift…

It was pretty amazing that she did this. It’s very appreciated. And the roll of toilet paper is hilarious.

Later, we walked down to Blue Jay for lunch. As we were walking down Hamilton Avenue, we noticed a new hair salon has already gone into the location where Helltown Bazaar Workshop used to be…

Surprisingly, Django Western Taco just closed up shop and no longer has a presence in Northside…

And that’s a bummer. We really liked Django a lot. But whatever, it was time for lunch…

Genifer ordered a grilled cheeses with tomatoes…

I ordered my favorite chicken tender sammich…

Blue Jay is always so good. It’s nothing super fancy. It’s always just solid. We never had anything but terrific meals at Blue Jay. Afterward, we stopped at Shake It Records…

It’s really hard for me to find new and interesting music that I like. I really like reggae. And I like usually music. I was thumbing through the global music vinyl. And found some interesting stuff to check out…

I’m going to check these out on iTunes or Amazon Music and then come back for the ones I like. At some point, I’d like to upgrade our turntable and get some little speakers in our living room as well…

Hi Oscar…

We took the dogs around the block…

Good evening from Northside…

I had a leftover taco for a dinner snack…

Genifer made this sugar cookie mix..

I thought the cookies were pretty good but Genifer didn’t care for them. They could definitely use some icing. The dogs always go outside one last time before we go upstairs…

Tonight was the final episode of season two of The Mandalorian,..

Now that all the episodes are avialable, we could finally binge-watch the season. And it was amazing! That show is just wow. I wish we could binge watch it every single day. I wish they would make an infinite amount of Star Wars series with all sorts of storylines from around the Star Wars universe. That would be amazing.

In my Timehop today, we ate at Django when they were still in Northside…

And Oscar is a very handsome little guy…

It was a great start to our three-day weekend. 😀🌄❤️

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by Thadd F. on December 18, 2020 • Permalink

Posted in #FALLinCINCY, Northside, Odd & Ends

Posted by Thadd F. on December 18, 2020

https://tplusg.com/2020/12/18/a-good-start-to-a-three-day-weekend/

A very pretty Thursday.

It’s Thursday. We’ve almost made it through another week…

Good morning from Northside…

Fast forward through the work day to the sunset this evening in our backyard…

Genifer made these turkey mushroom stuffed acorn squash for dinner…

And they were delicious! She always finds the best recipes to make.

After dinner, we went back out in our backyard to check on the sunset…

And then we took the dogs around the block. There was a big X is the sky…

Good evening from Northside…

Tonight, I was trying a different camera app. I was looking for an app that made it easier to control the contrast because I thought some of my photos have looked washed out lately. Now, these feel a little too dark. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Later, we watched the Thursday night football game. While we were watching the game, I remembered something I heard one of the announcers say during last week’s Thursday night football game…

Last time I checked, points aid in one’s pursuit of a win when playing a game that a score is kept.

It totally sounds like something Joe Buck would say.

Today was also my 888th Timehop in a row…

And in my 888th Timehop in a row was one of my favorite gifts we ever received, our Cincinnati Reds All-Star Legacy Brick…

We had another pretty good Thursday. 😀🌄🐾🍽️🦕🧱❤️

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by Thadd F. on November 19, 2020 • Permalink

Posted in #FALLinCINCY, Northside, Odd & Ends

Posted by Thadd F. on November 19, 2020

https://tplusg.com/2020/11/19/a-very-pretty-thursday/

It’s nice to be home.

Our first day back home and of course, it was a cold and rainy morning…

Welcome back to Ohio and good morning from Northside…

We ran over to the grocery because we didn’t have any food in our house…

It’s the middle of November and there were Christmas display all over the store. I chose to ignore all that nonsense. I could ignore this giant lion…

Kroger had the panda bear and the train back on the shelf again today…

I forgot to look at the balloons. I bet there were some great Thanskgiving balloons. Hopefully, I’ll remember to look if we go to the grocery store next weekend.

After the grocery, we stopped at Mad Llama for Sunday morning coffee…

One of my favorite sayings is, Comparison is the thief of joy. On our way home, we had a discussion about which was better: the Espresso Shake from Sunset Ice Cream in Duck OR the Caramel Java Whip from Mad Llama. They are both really good. I think I like the Java Whip from Mad Llama better because it’s soft serve, coffee AND caramel, which is a good thing because we can get to Mad Llama a lot easier than we can get to Sunset Ice Cream. But why compare? Why not just enjoy both?

We have some leaves to rake in our backyard…

But it was so rainy this morning that we’re not going to be able to rake them today. The leaves were so wet. That’s fine because we just wanted to be lazy today. And the sky still looked pretty ominous…

I think Mack was really happy to be back home again…

Later, we took the dog’s around the block and the sky was so pretty…

And good evening from our backyard…

I took all the photos this evening with my little DJI Osmo Pocket. And they turned out really nice, even in low light. The contrast was much better than my mobile’s camera. I think I need to find a different Android camera app to try. However, the DJI Osmo Pocket struggled with these night clouds that we saw from our backyard…

It was really nice to be back home. We pretty much laid around all day and watched football. I worked on my photos and videos a bit. We did laundry and got ready to get back to work tomorrow. Later, we finally finished The Queen’s Gambit on Netflix. For a show about chess, it was really very good.

It’s fun to go place but it’s also nice to be back home. 😀🌄🦁☕️📺♟️❤️

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by Thadd F. on November 15, 2020 • Permalink

Posted in #FALLinCINCY, Northside, Odd & Ends

Posted by Thadd F. on November 15, 2020

https://tplusg.com/2020/11/15/its-nice-to-be-home/

Our Election Day.

We got up extra early this morning to walk over to North Presbyterian Church on Hamilton Avenue in Northside so Genifer could vote…

I dropped off my absentee ballot at the Board of Elections last week.

The polls opened at 6:30am this morning. We got there just a little before 6:00am and Genifer was second in line…

As we stood waiting for the polls to open, the line steadily grew behind us…

Genifer got to cast her vote. And we were over at Sidewinder to get coffee by 6:45am…

Sidewinder had cinnamon rolls this morning too…

My office was closed today for the election so everyone could vote. And Genifer had a pretty light day with her work. So later, we walked back down Hamilton Avenue to Blue Jay for lunch…

Genifer had a five-way and fries for lunch…

And I had Blue Jay’s chicken tender sammich with cheese…

I love that dang sammich. Blue Jay is so good. We don’t eat there enough.

We enjoyed the rest of our Election Day by not doing much of anything. We played in our backyard for a bit…

And we went on our evening walk around the block…

Good evening from Northside…

For dinner, I ate a carry out five-way and a cheese coney I got from Blue Jay…

This evening we went out of our way to avoid any news about the Election. I don’t think we’re going to know the final results any time soon. I just hope everything turns out for the best and that competent adults start running the country again. 😀🌄🗳️☕️🍝🌭❤️

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by Thadd F. on November 3, 2020 • Permalink

Posted in #FALLinCINCY, Northside, Odd & Ends

Posted by Thadd F. on November 3, 2020

https://tplusg.com/2020/11/03/election-day/

An extra hour of Sunday.

It’s hard to believe that today is November 1st…

It was pretty nice getting an extra hour of sleep this morning…

Good morning from Northside with an extra hour later…

This morning we made these pillsbury Chocolate Chip Sweet Biscuits for breakfast…

They’d become somewhat of a running joke. Every time we were at the grocery, I’d point them out to Genfiier and ask if she wanted to get them. She’s always say no. And I just kept asking every trip for months. Finally the last time we were at the grocery, they were on sale. I put them in our cart and here we are…

They were pretty good. They were remarkably similar to the Pillbury cinnamon rolls. Since the oven was already warm, Genifer made some Snoopy cookies too…

Of course, I focus on the one cookie that’s upside-down. And we learned how to draw Snoopy heads…

And then we just hung out for the rest of the afternoon…

Good evening from Northside…

We had spaghetti and meatballs for dinner. Before dust cheese…

After dust cheese…

After dust cheese with garlic bread…

Gosh. I love spaghetti and meatballs with dust cheese and garlic bread.

We went back out in the backyard to play some more…

After we eat dinner and go outside, we give the dogs their evening treat of a couple of hot dogs chunks so Mack can get his allergy medicine…

Hot dogs might just be the favorite part of Mack’s day.

And I captured this horrible photo of tonight’s full moon…

Any time you can get an extra hour of Sunday, it’s a good thing.

Having just watched Maleficent on Friday night, we watched Maleficent 2 tonight. It was another pretty good movie. 😀🌄⏰🍪🍝📺❤️

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by Thadd F. on November 1, 2020 • Permalink

Posted in #FALLinCINCY, Northside, Odd & Ends

Posted by Thadd F. on November 1, 2020

https://tplusg.com/2020/11/01/an-extra-hour-of-sunday/

Happy Halloween Eve.

Tomorrow is Halloween. There will still be trick-or-treating but still, it just won’t be the same with the COVID raging, will it? Who would have thought that all the way back in the middle of March that the number of pandemic cases would be still be accerlating eight months later at Halloween?

But at least it’s Friday…

And guess what, it’s also still grey and overcast. So, yeah.

Good morning from Northside…

Genifer made some delicious cookies…

The blue skies were trying to peek through the clouds…

Good evening from Northside…

We ate oven pizzas for dinner…

The skies were starting to clear…

Maybe it’ll actually be nice for Halloween tomorrow…

Tonight, we watched Maleficent on Disney+. It’s hard to believe that we’d never seen it before. But it was really good. It was great way to wind down our Halloween Eve.

Happy Halloween Eve! 😀🌄☁️🍪🍕🐾📺❤️

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by Thadd F. on October 30, 2020 • Permalink

Posted in #FALLinCINCY, Northside, Odd & Ends

Posted by Thadd F. on October 30, 2020

https://tplusg.com/2020/10/30/happy-halloween-eve/

Oscar says, “Hello from Northside.”

Looking at the sunrise this morning, I thought the sun might actually break through the clouds. And maybe it would be a pretty nice day…

But it’s still grey this morning…

Good morning from Northside…

Oscar came into the studio to visit me while I was working this afternoon…

Hi Oscar! And guess what? It was still grey this evening…

Good evening from Northside…

And good evening from our backyard…

It’s supposed to be rainy again tomorrow morning. Our plan is to try to be in line over at the Hamilton County Board of Elections before it opens at 8am so Genifer can vote early and I can drop off my absentee ballot.

Fingers crossed. 😀🌄☁️🤞❤️

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by Thadd F. on October 28, 2020 • Permalink

Posted in #FALLinCINCY, Northside, Odd & Ends