Thankful for Family...and Bowling

This year we spent Thanksgiving in Pittsburgh with my (Brandi's) family.

After eating a lot of turkey and drinking many glasses of wine, our family tradition is to go bowling! Brady has fully embraced this tradition as it gets you up and moving after eating a lot of food! The whole family - from under 7 to over 70 heads to the bowling alley once it's open.

This year, we headed to a brand, spankin new place that is part bowling alley, part arcade, part bar, part nightclub. While the under 7 crowd really wanted to party, we called it a night around 10.

Here are some photos from the day!

Sydney, Brady, Jaxon, & Peyton

 

 

Part of the bowling crew

 

Cousins!

 

 

 

Sisters!

 



Local Celebrity

Regardless if you are a Steelers fan or not, watch this little video for a cameo by one of us (hint, he's in the photo below) AND maybe enter your "Francoing" photo.

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Halloweenas Beunas!

Ole! Ole!

Happy Halloween from the Smithkowski's!

 

 

Oh Where, Oh Where Have My Brady/Brandi Been?

Hello, Hello? I this thing still on?

Where have we been? Well I'll tell you where we have been. We've been attending the weddings of some of our bestest friends! This year we had an odd wedding season. We attended one wedding in June and then five weddings in an eight week span in August and September (Brandi threw in a trip to Portland for work during one of the "off" wedding weekends).

With one wedding down in October and one more left to go in November, we will have wrapped our 2012 wedding season! Our travels have taken us near (Pittsburgh) and far (Chicago, Charleston, WV and Aruba!) as you can see from the map below.

I (Brandi) put together this fun little collage from our wedding tour. As you will see, Brady has a favorite tie and Brandi has a favorite color!

Family Vacation!

The Smith's joined the Bonkowski's at the shores of Outer Banks leading into Memorial Day. Here are a few highlights from our trip!

Brandi flew kites

We visited the Wright Brothers Memorial

Our rental

Annual balcony shot



Well there are the highlight! If only there was a video footage of Brandi's solo dance party at a local bar - let's just say that the moves were very "Toddlers & Tiaras."

We are very excited for our summer ahead! A trip to New Jersey for the 4th of July and then our wedding season will take us to Charleston (West Virginia), Chicago and Aruba! We can't wait to celebrate with some of our bestest friends!!

Holiday Hangover

B and I have begun our annual winter hibernation, but before we go totally off the grid, here are a few shots of our holiday celebrations!

Our tree - sorry it's a little blurry

Oh look - a new ornament!

Brandi*'s annual friend gift exchange

Brandi's cousin goes to Clemson, so it was a bit of a family rivraly at Christmas.

But we all know how this game went down ; )

Brady showing Brandi's cousin Sydney how to jam on her new guitar. Brady now wants one in pink too.

Sue's Steelers' Tree

Bi-Annual Brandi + Dana Fireplace Picture

We then departed for New Jersey for some more festivities with The Smith family

Smith Kids

Brandi's new desk accessory - a Hello Kitty Water Cooler!

Smith kids on NYE - we clean up well (Ryan's even wearing pants!)

Well there you have it folks! Our holiday update in photos!

We are looking forward to an amazing 2012 filled with fun, family and some awesome weddings of our dear friends!

Happy Holidays from Pittsburgh

Wedding Memories: I'm On A Boat

Almost everyday I'm (Brandi*) reminded of the Smithkowski wedding. You see, the window in my office overlooks the Sheraton where we were married and when I pick up documents from the printer, I see the Gateway Clipper dock.

Today, I discovered the cutest t-shirt from Wear Pittsburgh that serves as a kitchy wedding reminder that I thought I would share!

The "I'm On A Boat" video shows what I see out my work window and a reminder of our wedding weekend!

(Source)

God Save the Queen

One thing I (Brandi*) really loved about London was that there was some super real castles. Like when you think of a castle or palace – this stuff was for real. Moats, bricks, towers to shoot people from, places where traitors were killed and JEWELS – the Tower of London had all of this and more!

Tower of London (The moat separates where we were standing here and the castle)

This was as close as we got to a guard!  

This place was built in 1066 and since they has served as an armoury, a treasury, a menagerie (fancy word for a place to keep exotic animals), home of the Royal Mint and home of the royal bling aka the Crown Jewels! (thanks Wikipedia for the refresher).

Brady with some armory

Tower Bridge from the Tower of London

Inside the castle grounds

Some facts about this castle:

·         Over a 400-year period, 112 executions were held here.

·         One of the most famous beheading was that of Anne Boleyn. I’m sure you’ve heard of her name, but if you want the full history, visit my friends at Wikipedia

·         Legend says that the palace will fall if the ravens leave the ground. So some ravens live here with clipped wings. As a Steelers fan, I booed them.

Beefeater

We weren’t allowed to snap pics of the Crown Jewels (and our guide suggested that women not compare their wedding ring to the bling either lol). But seriously – I’ve never seen anything like this in my life! There were some serious diamond in these cases. I read a fact that there are 23,578 jewels in the house. The most impressive is the Imperial State Crown, which contains 2,868 diamonds, 273 pearls, 17 sapphires, 11 emeralds and five rubies. Wow.

After touring the castle, we made another pilgrimage. This one was a bit cheesy and some of you “muggles” just won’t appreciate this. Our last tourist stop was…Platform 9 and ¾ at Kings Cross Station.

You don’t get it, do you? That’s because this stop is special to us Wizards aka Harry Potter fans. This is where Harry and his friends went to get the train to Hogwarts. They pushed their carts of school supplies through the wall and off to the famous wizarding school.

So many people have gone to visit this spot that they made a little photo opp outside the station where we totally had to snap a pic.

On Saturday night we dined a delicious new Gordon Ramsey hot spot called the Bread Street Kitchen (located on Bread Street). A yummy way to end our sweet trip!

London's Calling...us to come back to posting!

Ell-o again!

 After a mild domestic dispute over who was going to post next, we both abandoned this blog and didn’t finish our London posts. Well folks, I decided that there were just some pictures that we too good not to share.

On our second day in London, we dominated the Underground. No, not the night club in Chicago – the London subway system.

Brady and I rode this awesome train around London and visited a lot of awesome things. From Hyde Park (where Kensington Palace is – future home of WillKat) to Piccadilly Circus to Portobello Road - the Smith’s were HUGE tourists!

Some photo highlights.

British Museum

This rad place is FREE and it's the home of the...

Rosetta Stone

Brady being all serious because he's in historical mode

Us posing  with Aphrodite - the the Goddess of Love ; )

London is getting all pretty for the 2012 Olympics - here's a preview of the gold medals

Portobello Road 

So if you REALLY know my husband, you will know that he is a HUGE fan of the movie Bedknobs and Broomsticks. So needless to say, he was pretty psyched to visit Portobello Road. (watch the video)

  

There were a TON of good antiques on this road that we could have spent hours browsing through

I love this clock in Hyde Park - "Time Flies" - it really does! 

Kensington Gardens

Well now you get to why we got into an argument over the Day 2 post. As a lifelong Beatles fan, I thought that the Mr. would want to tell you about the following pilgrimage to the mothership, but he declined. So now you will get the description from the fair-weather fan.  

On a beautiful Friday two days before Sir Paul McCartney wed, we visited his hood and the world-famous Abbey Road studios.

Now if you are a Beatles fan, you know this is the site of THIS famous album cover and the studio where the Beatles recorded the majority of their songs.

(source)

Traffic and bikers coming right at ya

Millions of people come here every year to imitate that famous shot. I had these visions that it would be easy to snap someone walking in the cross walk. Let’s just say it totally is NOT! The reason why is that there is no red light or stop sign. Cars are just coming straight at you! Here are some of the best pics we snapped.

People sign the wall outside the studio, so of course I had a Sharpie and we had to leave our mark!  

Tomorrow I’ll wrap up our last full day in Europe!