Day 298

Ma and Pa Regusci did, in fact, get away at 5am along with Fina, Jonny, and Lexi on their way to Idaho Falls. And they did, in fact, get to Idaho Falls around dinner time. Meanwhile, back at the ranch, there was a lot of electronics and legos and practice "zoom" meetings (Jamie) in between cleaners scurrying about. After all these activities, the gang headed over to the Club for lunch to re-initiate in-door dining. Had a great time. And since the plan was to have dump cake for dinner, that meant dessert could come now, and it did, in fact! AJ had been talking a few days now about making a dump cake, and today he and Matteo did it, in fact, in time for dinner - just as planned. The evening movie for Jamie and Lynn was Passenger 57.

Somewhere in Wyoming

Also somewhere in Wyoming.

Day 297

The Manhattan/Fort Riley crew did not get to breakfast at The Chef Cafe until after 10:30am. We really like this place for breakfast (first 3 pics below). We dropped Sam at Fort Riley just before noon and then we were headed west. Our only significant stop was for dinner at Oscar's in Limon, CO for dinner (which we also like a lot) so we were home before 7pm.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch...

Day 296

Matt, Jamie, Sam, Matteo, AJ, and David headed out at 7:30am on a quick trip to Manhattan, KS to take Sam back to Fort Riley. And they hit some of their favorite spots: I-70 Diner in Flagler, CO; Martinelli's Little Italy in Salina, KS; and finally coming to rest at the Marriott Four Points in Manhattan. Hot tubbing and swimming at the latter to complete the day. And the bar is open! And Matt got a chance to exercise his new status with Marriott.

Interesting building across the street from Martinelli's

Day 295

Sorry, no pics today. Not sure why/how that happened. No earthshaking events, either. Matt and Sam did get some range time in. Matt made some great enchiladas and Lynn made a corn/chili soup, also quite good, from her new O'Keeffe cookbook. It was also her day to play with house plans. Still snow on the ground. The older males watched Midway, very good movie. Oh, wait, here's a photo obviously taken a while ago, but I used it today on the home page of the SLO Railroad Museum's website. And speaking of websites, January 1st is the day I go through and update the copyright notices for the new year on all the websites I do.

Day 294

Tracy picked up a friend for Sven, Olaf, at an after Christmas sale. Matt whipped up some pancakes for the crew. Lynn and Jamie ran down to The Button, the Needle, and the Wardrobe to pick up a patch that Heidi produced for folks in It's a Wonderful Life: A Live Radio Play. On the way back they stopped for lunch at P.F. Chang's wonderfully heated outdoor eating area (smoked old fashioned). Sam got to request our New Year's Eve menu, so we had chicken piccata, wine lover's rice, and asparagus with a very good mustard drizzle that Lynn made. Matt found some books in his office for Jamie to peruse as part of his Torah study and for planning a trip to Israel (in the dreaming-about stage). After dinner the adults enjoyed some different shows that were on Fox in the 5-8pm time frame. At 9pm, the AdAmAn club shot off the first round of fireworks for the night from the top of Pikes Peak which we were able to see and then did it again at midnight which is the normal time (Lynn got up to see the midnight round). A group known as the Frozen Five started the tradition in December 1922 by hiking up the cog railroad route and picking up abandoned railroad flares along the way to add to their arsenal. Read the History section of their website (link above). There are a couple good videos on their Home page, too.

WVAR: Village Arts Radio (jingle and all)

Reminded me of Lot's wife...

Day 293

More post-Christmas fun. Legos were a huge deal today. Lexi went to another tennis lesson for this week. While Matt and Jamie were at a CHP class, Tracy messed with plans. A puzzle got completed. And we all enjoyed Matt's carnitas tacos for dinner (except the couple kids that wanted cereal).

Mandalorian Razor Crest

Day 292

We got our first "heavy" snow of the season over night, 2-3 inches. So, first thing this morning was our first serious driveway shoveling of the year. As you might imagine, this was another post-Christmas day with much attention to playing with, building, or otherwise interacting with gifts from Christmas. This included the late arrival (today) of the battery carrying case as seen on Fox News; three of them, and we darn near filled all three.

Matteo's Lego piano. Very cool.

Part of the piano already operable via bluetooth.