Aunt Sis Celebrates her 50th Jubilee!

Aunt Sis (a.k.a. Sister Adele Solari) celebrated a major milestone this year, her 50th Jubilee Celebration!  50 years of service in the Sisters of Saint Joseph.  The celebration started at the Cathedral Basilica of Saints Peter and Paul (our old parish).  The mass was celebrated by Cardinal Justin Rigali himself, who visited with Aunt Sis for a bit after the mass to offer his congratulations.

 

After the mass there was a brunch celebration on the patio at the Archdiocesan headquarters, attended by Carol, Jeanne, Dave, Christine and myself.  Later that month we held a family mass and celebration at Old Saint Joseph’s Church, our current parish.  Aunt Sis got a chance to visit with all the cousins and many of their children.  Carol, Jeanne, and Aunt Sis’s friend Anita Taylor did a great job playing host while Dave manned the kitchen.

 

Her list of appointments and accomplishements are so numerous that its impossible to give a concise description.  Suffice to say that she has touched many lives, and continues to inspire us with her dedicated and loving service.  Not to mention that she is a great friend and confidant to us all.  We love her a great deal and wish her all the best.

 

Enjoy!

Mountain Biking in Maine

Jeanne and I decided to escape the heat and humidity in Philly in September 2007 and head to New England for some mountain bking and R & R.  We had an awesome time and vistited a ton of great places, including Rockport Massachusettes, Portsmouth New Hampshire, Portland Maine, Bar Harbor Maine, Acadia National Park Maine, and Camden Maine.

 

We got a chance to visit our friend Anita Taylor who lives near Portland, ME.  The highlight of the trip was a day of mountain biking in Acadia National Park, probably one of the most beautiful places we’ve ever been.  The rugged Maine coastline is amazingling beautiful, and we got a chance to train for our MS City to Shore Bike Tour in September.

 

We’ll definitely go back there is so much to see.

 

Enjoy!

Summer Visits from Friends

I’m catching up on a few pent-up blog posts I’ve been meaning to write.

 

Jeanne and I were lucky enough to have some very good friends drop by and see us in Philadelphia on the same weekend in July 2007.

 

Our friends Keith and Patty, and their kids Sophie and Josh, worked us into an extended vacation they took on the East Coast.  We were the last stop and were so happy to get a chance to spend some time with them.  When we were able to extract the kids from the pinball machine, we took a walk through Society Hill up to Franklin Square for some fun at the playground, carousel and miniture golf course.  We will forever remember Sophie’s rendition of "The Call of the Whales".

 

On the same weekend our friend Fran Crumley and her 6 kids did a drive-by on their way down to the shore.  This was our first opportunity to visit with the whole gang and boy was it a blast!  They have recently moved to Tenessee and we hope to visit them there next year.  The kids are so much fun and Fran is a bundle of energy.

 

Enjoy!

 

The Puppy Has Landed!

Our new puppy Charlie officially moved into 100 Delancey on Friday November 16th.  Charlie was born on August, 27 2007 so he is about 11 weeks old.  He’s fitting in great, and doing his best to train his owners .

 

We’re keeping him in the Kitchen, and training him to do his business on the back patio.  So far we are 4 and 10 on that score. 

 

He’s very bright and happy and full of energy, and Jeanne and I are totally psyched!  Here’s some pix:

Mr. Charlie is Coming!

Well gang Jeanne and I have been talking about getting a dog for a while, and we finally bit the bullet!

 

After investigating a bunch of breeds, we decided on a Maltese.  Jeanne had one when she was growing up named Seamus (Shammy for short) and has a lot of great memories.

 

They are smart, happy and well behaved companion dogs and boy are we psyched!!

 

We found an awesome breeder in West Chester named Beverley Qulliam who comes very highly reccomended.  Last Friday Jeanne, Carol and I went out and picked out a male that we decided to name Charlie!  He’ll be coming home with us around November 16th so you’ll all get a chance to meet him over the holidays!

 

Scottish Invasion

When summertime comes around we always look forward to a visit from my sister Dawn’s family from Aberdeen Scotland.  This summer was no exception!  Dawn, Alastair (16) and Max (13) visited for nearly a month in July, and we had an absolute blast!  Patrick (18) stayed on the other side of the pond, he’s starting University in Glasgow at Strathclyde majoring in Electrical Engineering.

 

Max and Allie started the month off at camp.  Max went to Camp Innabah, and Allie went to Pocono Plateau.  While the boys were at camp, Dawn took the train to Atlantic City, NJ and we met for lunch at had a great lunch at the Continental and a little gambling at Trump Plaza.  We then headed down to Stone Harbor, NJ for a few days of R & R. 

 

When the boys got home from camp they headed down to the shore with Mary Anne (Aunt Terlie) and Nibbit (Grandma Elva).  They were joined in Ocean City by The Randolphs (Laura, Susan & Hadi), friend Manny, Grandpa Roger and Uncle Duffy where we celebrated Mary Anne’s birthday.  Later that week Grandpa took the kids to Six Flags Great Adventure for some gut-wrenching roller coaster action. 

 

After the shore, Dawn, Max and Allie drove to Ligonier, PA to visit cousin Dominique, then Allie & Max joined Jeanne and I in Philadelphia for a couple of days.  They did a day trip to Washington, DC with Grandpa Roger.  After they got back we went to see the King Tut Exhibition at the Franklin Institute, and caught a Phillies game at Citizens Bank Park.  

 

It was tough to say goodbye but Dawn, Max and Allie headed back over the pond and got home safe and sound.  We are already looking forward to their next visit!

 

Enjoy the pictures.

 

 

Carol’s Birthday / Retirement Celebration

Jeanne’s Mom Carol celebrated a BIG birthday in July.  We took the opportunity to celebrate it in grand style with a group of her closest friends from West Catholic and Lockheed Martin.  It was kind of a combo birthday / retirement bash and a good time was had by all.

 

We started off at the Moshulu for brunch, then headed back to Delancey St. to hang out.

 

Enjoy the pictures!

 

 

 

Sean Graduates High School

It’s hard to believe, but Jeanne’s "little" brother Sean is a high school graduate.   I’m truly feeling old, because I remember being in the hospital when he was born.

 

Sean is working at GameStop, and is starting at Gloucester County Community College this fall majoring in Criminiology.  He’s interested in a career in law enforcement.

 

I’ve uploaded some cool pix chronicalling Sean’s senoir year, from playing center for the Clayton Clippers, to the senior prom with girlfriend Lindsay, to graduation and finally a celebration at the Gallagher’s in Clayton.

 

Congratulations Sean we are all super proud of you!!!

 

 

 

 

St. Joes Christmas 2007

Yikes I’m late on posting these!  We joined the Dineens and the Blazers for some post-holiday fun last January, and just realized I never posted the pictures.  The kids are such a blast! 

 

Jeanne hooked them up with Christmas sleeping bags, which turned into amazing multi-purpose toys.

 

Enjoy…

Trip to Chile

Just got back from a great week in Chile.  I monitored one of the final deliveries of the BI Voyage developer workshops that I’ve been running worldwide in Santiago.  It was a great week, both for work and personally.  Got to bring my Mom, Elva, with me.  I worked during the day and she did some great seeing in Santiago and the surrounding region, then we both went to beautiful Vina del Mar just outside of Santiago on the Pacific Coast for some much needed downtime over the weekend.

 

I was really impressed with Chile.  It was clean, with a very high standard of living and great infrastructure.  The people were super nice and helpful and glad to see us.  The scenery in both Santiago and Vina del Mar was breathtaking.  There is a lot of history and culture and we were really lucky to see it.

 

While I monitored the workshop during the day, which was taught in Spanish by my friend Alejandro, Mom took some side trips including a city tour, a day trip to the wine country, and a day trip to the Andes.  We would get together in the evening for dinner and light sight-seeing, including a trip up the Funicular to the Parque Metripolitano which overlooks the entire city.  There’s a lovely outdoor church at the top that really got us into the Easter spirit.

 

Mom got to hang out with my friends from work on Friday and they treated us to some good Chilean food and great conversation.  One of the students, Alvaro, had actually been an exchange student in Oil City, a small town in Northwestern PA near Franklin which is the town I grew up in. 

 

Mom and I got to spend a lot of time together over the weekend on our side trip to Vina del Mar (Garden of the Sea).  It was a really beautiful place and we toured the botanical gardens, fine arts museum and archeological museum together.  We stayed in a great little hotel built right on the rocks overlooking the ocean.  It was really nice getting to spend some one on one time with my Mom in such a beautiful place.

 

Let’s do it again Mom!!!

 

Regards,

Rog