Thumbs Up for Greenup

Since Mara is leaving us for Boston in a few weeks, we have decided to start a farewell countdown with what we are calling "Discovery Sundays"; every Sunday we try to do something we haven't done before in Cincinnati, go somewhere we haven't been, see something we haven't seen...

This weekend brought to us several neat discoveries. On Saturday there wasn't too much for me to discover, although Mara and Gabi had their fair share. I went to my charity fashion show practice on Saturday morning while Mara was nice enough to babysit Gabi. They went to Ault Park and discovered the children's playground area which I hadn't even found yet. Mara says she met a bunch of other little kids and their parents and that she felt like she was in the book "The Nanny Diaries" (I have lovingly nicknamed Mara my nanny). Gabi's discovery was how fun it can be in Mara's convertible Beetle. Here's a video of her rocking to the beat of the car stereo.



Then we went to Jorgito's house since his son Jorge Ignacio has having his birthday party. We enjoyed the wonderful warm weather which has thankfully decided to return to Cincinnati. Gabi discovered the slides...not a huge surprise since she already loves slides, but this one was much bigger than the ones she's used to at Lunken Airport. And she is still going at it all on her own.



And don't worry, while it looks like there might have been an accident at the bottom of the slide it was just my amateur camerawoman-ship, she was totally fine. After this, Gabi also discovered she'd like to be cast in Jackass 3 (minus the puking and the near-death experiences). This was hilarious!



On Sunday Manuel, Mara, Gabi and I went to breakfast at Jean Ro's new place in Covington, the Greenup Cafe. While the service was pretty slow, we decided that such a beautiful Sunday morning deserved our most relaxed attitude and that therefore we would not complain about the wait, especially if the food was worth it. We sat outside and I felt like I was in Newbury Street back in Boston (minus all the crowds people and the wonderfully expensive shopping!) and to Mara it felt like she was back in New Orleans. After the food finally arrived we decided it was pretty good, although I think I might have enjoyed it more had I chewed it rather than inhaling it. I had coffee and pancakes topped with bananas, Manuel had Eggs Benedict and Mara had an omelet. It was a cool place to do people watching and have a great afternoon conversation (if I wasn't with Gabi I would have been reading the paper or a book). The waiters were nice although they treated a couple at a table next to us much nicer than us, we think they are VIP/regulars. There was also an old lady with a black poodle in a doggie STROLLER of all things. What has this world come to? I know if my friend Tom (who adores his dog Shelby) read this he'd say what's wrong with a doggie stroller, but let me tell you I can think of at least a couple of things...


After Greenup Cafe we went to the Zoo because it was the last weekend we could go watch the tulips they have every Spring. However, due to the cold blast that we had in the last few weeks, the tulips were not in the best of shape. We did manage to take a couple of pictures around some of the nicer patches.



It seemed like everyone and their mother was at the Zoo. We even ran into a couple of the teachers at Gabi's day care, including Tracy who was her primary teacher until just last week. They both miss each other a lot so I was happy we ran into her and her son Isiah who also loves Gabi. While I had been to the Zoo already and also seen the tulips (they have about 80,000 of all different colors every Spring), it was a discovery well worth it for Mara. And I was pretty happy too that we were able to get some color on our cheeks (in other words it was hot as hell!).

Back on the home front, our pool is ready to go thanks to Jose. But we have discovered one more thing, the water is still way too cold. I guess there's a reason why the public pools here aren't open until after Memorial Day. Oh well, we'll just have to wait until we come back from Puerto Rico...