Stephen's 80's Birthday Party

Heidi truly out-did herself this time. To celebrate my 40th birthday last weekend, she threw an awesome 80's birthday party. 10 couples were invited from Church and dressed up in their best 80's gear including mullets, bangle bracelets, super tight Izods with collars flipped, scrunchies, catheads, laced gloves, teased hair, and more! Fake mullets simply don't look as good as the real ones. Take these two below for example! My buddy Pat wears that mullet oh too well!

We asked to bring at least one picture to the party. The kitchen table was covered with annuals, prom pictures, senior pictures (you will see in the pictures below). Heidi did a fantastic job decorating - finding old albums, disco balls, lava lamps and making a ton of food.

My close friend Adam was in charge of music and games which turned out to be a great hit! Take a look below and you can see me doing best to "moon walk."

And, to top off the night, we had Karaoke with songs from the 80's. You really find out how bad of a singer you are with karaoke, but hey, you have to at least try it, especially among friends.

Heidi and Juliet singing something from Madonna.

Erin and Greg singing to eachother. Greg is doing his ritual mating dance.

Adam and me singing "Ebony and Ivory." Not sure which one was which.

People absolutely loved it! They were all talking about it at Church on Sunday - so many people came up to us and said, "we heard about that 80's party you had on Friday night!" Heidi has gotten several calls from people saying, "I just can't stop thinking about the 80's party...we had so much fun!" The party brought back so many great memories for everyone! To top it off, Adam surprised us all by creating a DVD with a bunch of pictures of me over the past 40 years that Heidi smuggled to him. It was a great gift! In addition, my mom and Heidi collected a bunch of t-shirts and made him a blanket with the t-shirts that included pieces spanning most of his life. It is truly a work of art.

Group shots of the guys and girls!

Mark Church's Visit To "The Ohio"

Yes, I am WAY behind on keeping this blog updated. The following photos are from a visit by Mark, Alex and Christopher on their way back to Connecticut from a family renunion back in July. They were able to stay with us a couple of days. It has a been a LONG time since we have seen them, so it was great to reconnect.

Here are some random shots of our visit to the pool. Please notice all the mermaids I was able to catch!

Some other random shots of from their visit.

NYC Trip - August 15

I had a business trip to NYC last week and decided to grab my camera on the way out the door to take a few pictures while there. I also had the opportunity to visit with Rick and his friend Adolfo. They met me at my hotel and we walked to dinner. Along the way, he showed us the East River walk where you could see across the river into Manhattan. Beautiful!

It was great seeing Rick again. It has been a year since he came out to "The Ohio" to visit with us. We were joking around at dinner and I told him that he was a true "New Yorker." He said the rule of thumb is 10 years in New York to be considered a true New Yorker. He has been there 7 - I think that is close enough!

After dinner, Rick and Adolfo picked up their subway trains and I headed out to take a few night shots along the river and also of the Brooklyn Bridge.

The next morning, I woke up early and decided to walk to my meeting in Manhattan. I wanted the chance to walk over the Brooklyn Bridge and see NYC in the early morning. It was only 2.5 miles to my meeting, but my dogs were barking from all the walking the night before. It was worth it though - it's not everyday you have the chance to walk over to Manhattan from Brooklyn...so I did. During lunch, I had some downtime so I headed back out and explored a little more and tried to find some fun shots to take.

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Paris and the Chocolate Chip Cabinet

Heidi has a lower level cabinet where she keeps all of her baking essentials: flour, sugar, oil and....Costco-sized chocolate chips. She accidentally left the door open one day and Paris discovered the semi-sweet treats in the yellow bag.

To keep her at bay, Heidi usually puts a few chips in a small snack bag and let's Paris sit on the floor to eat them. Heidi says she can remember being very small and having Ann (her mom) put Nestle morsels in pots and pans to keep the kids entertained while cooking, etc.

Being the smart 21 month old that she is, Paris waits for the cabinet door to open (since they have child locks on them) and conveniently sits inside the cabinet to have her treat.

Sometimes she has her snack bag...sometimes she figures out a way to open the much larger Nestle bag and sneaks them. The funniest part is that she will look straight at you while feeling and digging for a chip - acting like she is doing nothing wrong. Hopefully the series of pictures give you a fun look at her enjoying the Nestle experience.

Visiting Grandpa Ed In North Carolina

This is our first official entry into our blog. By mistake, I created "The Prince Family" blog when trying to create my login for the Lee and Ann Church Family blog. I am sure this will be a great way to share pictures and other fun things about the family.

We spent a couple of days in Wilmington at the end of June with Grandpa Ed. As usual, we spent the majority of our time on the beach swimming, fishing, playing football eating ice cream from the 4x4 Ice Cream Man and digging in the sand.

Paris learned very quickly that a handful of sand doesn't taste all that great. It only takes once to know that it belongs between the toes and not between your teeth!

Jackson had fun showing off his catching, throwing and running abilities on the beach. He also took good care of his sister when swimming.

Tyler had fun playing in the surf and walking on the sand bars looks for shells with me. She was very helpful with Paris, making sure she was safe. And, of course, Heidi took care of us all, making sure we all had enough sun screen.

It was great seeing Grandpa Ed again and he enjoyed seeing the kids. As always, he was a great host, cooking enough to feed an army.

Jackson's pride and joy - his #7 jersey...former Ohio State wide receiver Ted Ginn Jr. or, as Jackson says, Teddy Ginn.