Angelina "Nonnie" Garioto 1913-2009

I am sad to post that Nonnie (my father's mother) passed away on Tuesday (6/16). We are heading to California with my brother and his family on Saturday to spend time with our family and celebrate her long life. Nonnie turned 96 in March.

You may recall Nonnie and her sister, Marge, cutting a rug at our wedding reception. :) Her last few weeks were more painful then we would have liked, but we now have a spunky, beautiful angel, or Angelina, watching over us.

Should you care to read it, click here for her obituary.

Vi amiamo, bella Nonnie
We love you, beautiful Nonnie
We took this photo with Nonnie about a month ago when we visited her after our Hawaii trip.

Taken at our wedding.

Severe weather!

We drove home from the mountains today to see this (taken from our back deck)....YIKES!I know, it is a "small" one, which is good since we were on the deck and not in the basement...

We have kept busy since the Maui trip. We celebrated Chuck, Alex, and Brady's birthday at a bbq here last weekend which was great fun.

This weekend we went to Annie at the Boulder Dinner Theater with Mom and Dick. My childhood was well defined by Annie, as I frequently would belt out the tunes from my window accompanied by my Annie record. :) Dick cooked up some yummy breakfast for us and then we headed up to Vail/Beaver Creek for the night. My good friend Natanee and her family live up that way, so we got to spend lots of time with them, which was great!!

Ok, now to the chores....cheers!

We heart Maui

What a great trip!! We had a wonderful time in Maui and can't wait to go back!!

Here are some of our photos --> HERE (the underwater cameras are being developed today, so look for those that turned out later!)

Trip details...

-Friday (5/15): up at 3am Denver time, arrived in San Fransisco at 7:42am. Flight to Maui was very, very delayed....scheduled to leave at 1:10pm and we actually left around 7pm. 12 hours in SFO...!!! But, alas, we made it. We rented a Jeep Wrangler and got to the condo around 10pm (so, 2am our time, and neither of us had really slept...yawn).

-Saturday - The alarm went off at 2am Hawaii time (so we got about 3 hours of sleep) and we headed to Paia to catch the bus up to the top of Haleakala to watch the sunrise. We were fitted with our gear and bikes and were on our way. The sun came up over the clouds just before 6am. It was amazing (but, very cold). After the sun was up, our guide took us down to about 6,500 feet and we started the 26 mile bike ride back to Paia. It was a great ride and the most amazing thing was the incredible smells of all the flowers. We stopped about 2/3 of the way down for breakfast overlooking the island. In our sleep deprived delirium after the ride, we decided to rent some snorkel gear and head to the beach! We snorkeled a bit and then headed to the condo to shower and get ready for dinner....except that we fell asleep about 4am and didn't wake up for 9 hours. :)

- Sunday - We drove up to Lahina after breakfast in Kihei and found a secluded beach about 30 minutes North of town. We snorkeled and sat and enjoyed the awesome views and amazing beach. From there we headed to Lahina for a Cheeseburger in Paradise (really) and then headed home.

- Monday - We got up early and headed for Makena Landing for our kayak/snorkel trip. Our first stop was Turtle Town, where a green sea turtle surfaced right next to us!! We had two more stops (getting out of the kayak easy...back in...not so much) and then had a yummy lunch on the beach. That afternoon we walked around the shops in Wailea. Our dinner that night was at Sarento's on the Beach Restaurant. We had the best table in the house for the sunset and had an amazing meal!

Tuesday - Up early again (we never really adjusted to the time change), we decided to do the drive to Hana. It was an all day adventure, but was so worth it. The views were so amazing. The drive is highly recommended (take Dramamine if you get car sick though, it is a very curvy drive). Tacos at Fred's hit the spot for dinner.

Wednesday - We decided to spend the day on the beach with some snorkeling on our last full day. We first drove down as far as the road would go south though lava fields to a reserve area. We braved the rocks and snorkeled among the lava. After the waves were making us a bit nervous, we headed up to Big Beach to enjoy the sun. It was a great day!

Thursday - time to go home! We got in one last snorkel just down from the condo and then went home to pack. We had a bit of extra time after breakfast and decided to go to the Iao Needle on the way to the airport. The valley was so beautiful. And then, off to the airport we went. Bye bye Maui!!

We spent Friday - Sunday in the Bay Area visiting my family. We visited Nonnie, who turned 96 in March. Her memory isn't very good these days, but she looked great. We headed back to Denver on Sunday (delayed again...!!!).

Aloha!

We had a great mother's day weekend celebrating all of the Mothers in our life! They are all pretty special ladies. :) We slacked completely, however, and took no photos...We'll be much better in Hawaii - promise!

We're off to Maui tomorrow! Woo hoo!! Our adventures planned are a visit to Haleakala Crater followed by a downhill bike ride. We'll be watching the sunrise from the summit of the volcano, so we'll be up early Hawaii time! We are also taking a kayak/snorkel trip and making the day drive to Hana. Oh, and we'll also sit on the beach, snorkel, and perhaps eat.

Off to pack....ALOHA!

Lots and lots of DCB....

Hello my faithful readers (who now never check this blog since I never seem to write....)! April has been very busy!! Maddie had a wonderful time celebrating being 3 on the 11th! We were able to surprise her with a Dora bike, and she had a great time enjoying the spoils of being cute! :)

The next weekend we went to Houston for the Association of Concert Bands (ACB) convention and to visit the Smiths! The rain was a bit crazy, but Matt braved the elements to get me back and forth for rehearsals and the concert on Saturday. Sunday we were able to drive up to see Cris, Linda, and Goo Goo at their home on a lake. It was beautiful! Lisa even stopped by for a few minutes, so now I just have Heather, and Andy and the kids to complete meeting all of the Smiths. Hazel Claire is just a doll, and we can't wait to see how much she has grown when they visit in July.

And this weekend I had even more band!! We had a performance at the Metro State WindFest on Saturday morning, where we were critiqued by the composer of one of our peices (no pressure!). He encouraged me to really smack the daylights out of the suspended cymbal by (and this *is* a direct quote) "smack(ing) it like an ex-boyfriend. Not one that you dumped, but one that dumped you on a family vacation." The whole band was cracking up, along with the audience. It was hilarious (well, to us...band humor...). After just a couple of hours at home (and Chuck spending a few hours at work), we jetted off for the DCB Young Artist concert. We had dinner first with Mom and Dick at Benny's. The concert went well. It was out last formal concert of the season (next one is in November), so now it is time for our summer season.

Needless to say, I am pretty darn tired and am happy to have tomorrow off from rehearsal! I feel like I'm getting a cold or something (yuck!), so I'm off to bed early to fight it off! Cheers.

Neglecting the Nellis News...

I have been a bad blogger!! I can't believe it has nearly been a month...

My last post said that spring was coming...well, in true Colorado style, winter has made a comeback over the last couple of weeks! It snowed has snowed a bunch, which will hopefully make the lawn be green instead of brown! Ha!

This past few weeks have been busy! We had our monthly Nellis sibling dinner on 3/17 (corned beef - yum!) and celebrated Mom's birthday and St. Pat's (again) the following Saturday! We stayed the night at Mom and Dicks and had some of his famous crepes in the morning. More yum! It is birthday season, as two of the Schwerin kiddos (Erik and Krissy) celebrated their big 0-5 and 1-0 in the last two weeks. :)

The exciting news here is that last weekend we book a trip to Hawaii!! We are going to Maui for 7 days in May - YEAH!!! We are so excited!! Operation Bathing Suit is in full force, so we now have a work out area in the office for me!

Last night I went to the Elton John concert with the Hoppers (well, Kari is a Snyders) in Colorado Springs! He was AMAZING. The drive wasn't all that fun (lots of wind and snow), but I stayed slow and steady. Thank you to Jim, Jan, and Kari for such a fun night!!

I serve my civic duty tomorrow - Jury Duty! I had to reschedule (originally called during our loan review), so I have to appear! We'll see!

We are off to Houston in two weeks for the ACB convention. I get to meet some of Chuck's cousins while we are there, so I am very excited!!

Next week we celebrate Maddie's 3rd birthday! She is growing so fast!! Happy belated birthday to Christine and early (tomorrow) birthday to Erin (told you it was birthday season!!).

Cheers!

Spring is coming....

We have had a great couple of weeks! We celebrated Jeremiah's birthday (a couple of weeks late) with Chuck's family, took in the US Curling Team Trials, had dinner at my brother's, and DCB had a concert. No wonder I haven't been posting! :) I have put a video of Maddie reading to Aunt Darby below for you - she is pretty darn cute!

My next few weeks are really busy work-wise with events, meetings, and preparing for an audit - blah! But, I am really excited to attend a lecture by Jane Goodall next week!!! We'll celebrate St. Pats twice, once with the Nellis siblings, and again with at Mom's with the family. Happy early birthday to Mom! :)