More Weekend Fun!

Hey Guys,

Sorry it's been a couple days, but I've had a crazy busy weekend! This Friday was BW's Fall Break, so Gene & Katie came down for a visit (Gene is auditioning at CCM for grad school, and Katie just wanted to tag along for the visit!)

Friday night, I got a group together to go visit Hofbrauhaus in Newport, Ky (there are only three in the world - Newport, Pittsburgh, and Munich). Katie, Gene, my family, William, James, and James' parents all went out for beers (them) and delicious German food (all of us). Hofbrauhaus is SO much fun - I wish that I hadn't been tired, because there was tons of dancing on tables, live polka music (seriously!), cougars, and GIANT (liter-sized) in-house brewed beer that apparently is delicious.

Me & James (& James on beer #1)

Gene & Katie

My Mom & James' Mom

Me & William

William & a rose that my dad bought me :-)

My DELICIOUS dinner - JaegerSchnitzel, veggies, and a potato pancake. The JaegerSchnitzel is pounded, breaded, and fried pork with a musrhoom & bacon sauce (LOTS of pork!) and the potato pancake is DELICIOUS with applesauce... I was kind of nervous that it was going to be super-bacony, but really I couldn't tell at all. It was SO good and SO filling. Mmmm!

William

Me, Katie, & Gene

James telling secrets (& beer #3)

James (& beer #4)

On Saturday, we took a jaunt down to CCM, where I took Gene & Katie on a tour of CCM until there was some kind of security issue and alarms started going off. We headed out of the building at that point and went down to Ludlow, where Gene & Katie experienced their first tastes of Skyline Chili & Graeter's ice cream.

5-way (spaghetti, chili, beans, onion, cheese)

Katie with her Graeter's

Gene

Graeter's reppin' the support for Children's

Gene had to head out early Saturday evening because he has a church gig Sunday mornings up in Cleveland, so he had to get back up Saturday night to wake up for that. Katie & I headed out to do some shopping (I'm proud to say that I didn't buy anything!) and get some Tex-Mex for dinner. We'd had some big plans for a night out on the town on Saturday night, and we totally did! (I can't believe I forgot to take pictures!)

We dressed up and went to Below Zero on 12th & Sycamore for Human Rights/Equality night to hear our friend Erin play piano and sing. Unfortunately, we were running late and only caught the last couple songs of her set, but you should go check her out - she's AMAZING!

After that, we stopped by a bar/restaurant called Nada - it's right next to the big theater downtown, so it's pretty fancy & there were tons of people there. One of the bartenders is actually a guy in one of my classes (who I didn't recognize at first, and I felt SO bad about it!). Katie & I kept being hit on by this really creepy pair of OLDER men (think 60+), one of which was super drunk and kept wanting to kiss me for good luck (since I'm bald). After several emphatic rebuttals, he asked me if I would kiss him if he readjusted his dentures. The bartenders quickly intervened after that...

Finally, we went to Arnold's (the oldest bar in Cincinnati) to meet up with Kelvin (who I worked with this summer) and Mike (a guy I went to elementary/driving school with and had run into the previous night at Hofbrauhaus). We stayed there for a bit, then Katie & I headed home because she had to leave this morning to get back to to Berea for homework, etc.

I'm so glad that they came down to visit - I always love showing people around Cincinnati and taking them out to my favorite places. Thanks for visiting, guys!!!

Lots of Love,

Lauren

ps everyone should listen to this button!