Dayton Celtic Festival

This past weekend, Gus & I made a little trip to the 11th annual Celtic Festival in downtown Dayton at Riverscape Metro Park...

The park was very pretty!

 Love the kilts & bagpipes!! Gus didn't wear a kilt.

There was plenty of Guinness - as a matter of fact, I think it was the only alcoholic beverage offered!

There were a lot of food booths - and also booths selling clothing, souvenirs, and handcrafted items...

Yes, we tried haggis. How can you go to a Celtic festival and not try haggis? It wasn't served in a sheep's stomach - and it was made of sheep's liver, beef, oatmeal, and spices. I don't think that's quite how it's made in Scotland, but we decided to try it anyway. And yes, it's pretty much as disgusting as it looks.

Here's a booth that had tartans displayed as flags...

The Celtic rock band, Enter the Haggis! They were really good! I recommend their CD "Gutter Anthems" - love "The Death of Johnny Mooring", "Did You Call Me Albatross?", and "Murphy's Ashes"!!

We had a great time - can't wait for the Scottish Festival in September!!

Summer festival

Gus & I went to one of the local church festivals this past weekend. I'll be honest - we haven't been to one for about 15 years. The parish we used to live in always had their festival the last weekend in July - when it was sweltering hot. And everything was on black asphalt, which made it even hotter. Plus it always seemed that we had to be out of town that weekend. So I think we took the kids once when they were little & that was the end of that, LOL.

Since the weather was so gorgeous last weekend (and my sciatica was keeping to a minimum), we thought it would be a good time to help out one of the local parishes and eat some festival food, LOL!

I can't believe I forgot to take pictures of the food!! We shared a burger from some place I can't remember the name of, LOL - it was pretty good. We also shared a Reuben from Izzy's - yum, yum, & more yum!! And we also shared a slice of pizza from one of the local pizza places that we had never tried - ick - won't be trying it again. I also had a frozen lime margarita, but I didn't share that. :-)

We walked around for awhile, checking out the kiddie rides, games, and  pony rides.

Gus decided to ty his hand at the golf game. If you made a hole-in-one (without banking), you got to split-the-pot. When we left, the pot was up to almost $90. Gus came close a couple of times - too bad it was golf & not horseshoes. :-)

Before we left, I told Gus he should buy $4 worth of pull-offs. You can see him making his purchase in the picture. We each took 8 cards, and after I had pulled 6 of mine without winning anything, I told him that he was no longer allowed to choose the pull-off cards since he only picked losing cards. Then I pulled the 7th card and won $25!! LOL!! I swear he planned that just so he could make me eat my words. :-)

Festa Italiana 2011

Last weekend, Gus and I made our annual visit to the Italian Festival. The weather was gorgeous - sunny with a nice breeze - and it wasn't too crowded. When we arrived, a band was playing the Tarantella:

There were a couple of new restaurants this year, but I wasn't overly impressed with their offerings. What did impress me was a delicious prime rib cannelloni!! Delizioso!! Seriously melt-in-your-mouth delicious. The frozen margaritas weren't bad either. Wait - margaritas. Those aren't Italian...oh, well...

And of course, the cannoli. Mmmmmmm!!! I managed somehow to limit myself to just one small one...but I admit, I did have two margaritas, LOL!

And here's Gus & me enjoying the beautiful weather...

Italian Festival 2010

Gus and I went to the local Italian Festival this weekend, so I thought I'd share some pictures with you. The food was delicious as usual, except for the cannoli. I was heartbroken. How can a sweet little Italian nonna make bad cannoli? I guess it really wasn't "bad", it just wasn't to my taste. Which is probably just as well, since I didn't need the extra calories anyway! Enjoy the pictures!

This next picture cracked me up when I saw it. Gus had wandered off to check out the food booths while I saved our seats in the shade. I was sitting at a table with ny camera out, taking pictures of the booths - and I was trying to get a good shot of the cannoli sign. The dude in the black shirt walked in front of the sign just as I snapped the picture, and I was aggravated that I was going to have to take another shot. When I got home and loaded the pictures on the computer, I did a double-take when I got to this one. There was Gus, right in the middle of the picture! I didn't even see him when I took the shot. LOL!

The next few pictures are just shots I took while we were walking around the Riverwalk level at Newport on the Levee.

The Purple People Bridge is a bridge that is only open to pedestrian traffic. It spans the Ohio River, stretching from Newport, Kentucky to Cincinnati, Ohio.

The Showboat Majestic is the last survivor of the singularly American tradition of floating theatres.

Home of the Cincinnati Reds - the Great American Ball Park. You can see the two smokestacks in the picture - smoke comes out of them when the Reds strike out a batter, and fireworks come out of them when the Reds score a run and a win.

The Newport Aquarium is such a neat place to visit. They have 70 exhibits and 14 galleries and offer several interactive programs.

I hope you all had a wonderful weekend!!