Sunday Social: Childhood

Good morning, friends.  Hopefully everyone had a good weekend.  I definitely did and now we are in the final week until we leave for DENVER! I can't believe these last few months have flown by and we're almost to Labor Day weekend.  I can't wait to experience Denver with the hubs.  But for now, its Sunday.  This Sunday Social is all about childhood, enjoy!



Me at 5 years old.

1. What do you miss most about being a kid?
I miss that age when you have no responsibility and no worries in the world.  Its such a freeing feeling.  I wish I would have enjoyed it more while I was younger.
2. Did you have a nickname growing up? What was it? Just Suzy (my real name is Suzanne), or the classic Suzy-Q.  My Mom and Dad often called me Suzy Bear which might explain why I call my fur babies Teddy Bear, Rosie Bear, and Yogi Bear.
3. What was your favorite thing to do at recess? I loved to play tag or some other sort of highly competitive running game.  Freeze tag was a big one when I was growing up along with TV tag where you had to name a TV show before getting tagged.
4. What did you want to be when you grew up? A Teacher.  I loved school and I wanted to be just like my teachers when I grew up.
5. Did you participate in any school activities? In high school I was in track all four years throwing the shot put and discus.  My best friend and I did it together and it just happened to be something we did Freshman year to pass the time.



My best friend, Ranya and me during track practice our Senior year.

6. What is the funniest thing you did as a kid that your parents still remind you about? Instead of funny, I can just think of all the times I got in trouble.  According to my parents, I was an ornery child when I was really young. Once when I was four years old, I was playing with the neighbor kid and she invited me to play with her other friends a couple of streets away.  So thinking it sounded like fun, I went with her and didn't tell my Dad.  When my Dad couldn't find me, he got really worried and had the whole neighborhood looking for me.  After a little while I showed up like nothing happened and my Dad was obviously furious with me.  I learned my lesson after that day.  Although I was an ornery child, I turned out to be a good older child/teenager, so my parents always seem to remind me of these times when I wasn't so well behaved.

tbt: Green Bay, WI

Last October, Danny took me to Green Bay for my first ever home Packers game.  It was a birthday present  from April (even though he told me about it in March because he can't keep a secret...) so it was a long awaited trip to Lambeau.  We drove all the way from Cleveland, but the drive surprisingly wasn't that bad.  Danny planned the trip to stay in Appleton, WI.  Since Green Bay is such a small city, the hotels that they do have are really expensive to stay in on gameday.  Danny also found a bar that does a party bus from Appleton to Green Bay the morning of every game day.

Our first night in Appleton, WI was a fun one.  We discovered the small, college town by checking out the local bars including a Christmas bar!

Our first night in Appleton.

The Christmas bar was AMAZING!

The first night we also went to an Irish pub.  Guinness gives legit Irish pubs this countdown to St. Patrick's Day sign.  We were married on the day before St. Patrick's Day so whenever we see these signs, I always joke that Danny needs one so he can remember our anniversary every year.  Too bad I tried to find one for his man cave and they are hundreds of hundreds of dollars.

The next day we woke up extra early to get to the bar so we could get on the party bus in time.  The bar we went to had a Bloody Mary bar which started my very own Bloody Mary obsession!! After a morning drink, we headed on the bus to Green Bay! It was a short 30 minute ride and they had beer on the bus if you wanted it.

As soon as we got off of the bus, Danny and I were walking through the tailgating area when we suddenly heard someone shouting at us.  It was a nice group of family and friends that invited us into their tailgate! Danny's coworker is from Green Bay and told him that the people in Green Bay are very nice and welcoming.  They offered us food and drinks and we talked with them for the next hour before the game started.  I met a girl named Ashley and after talking, we had a lot in common.  We even found out we had the same birthday! They were the nicest people to welcome us into their tailgate and we had so much fun with them.

The group we tailgated with.

Danny and I tailgating.

Ashley, my birthday twin!

Before we knew it, it was game time.  We started to head to Lambeau Field.  It was such an indescribable experience since it's something that I've always dreamt of seeing.

Danny bought a Rodgers T-shirt, so proud :)

Outside the stadium.

After we got through the crazy crowd to get into the stadium.

Once we got to our seats, it was so surreal.  Our seats were amazing and we ended up making friends with the two women next to us.  All the tickets at Lambeau are season ticket holders, so they immediately knew we were new and were so nice to us.

The nice women that sat next to us.

Me and Danny in our seats.

How close our seats were.

After the game, we headed back on the bus and back to our hotel room in Appleton.  We had dinner plans, but because of the crazy, long day we had, we ended up going to sleep early so we could get a head start on the drive home the next morning.  Going to Lambeau was an amazing experience and I loved every minute of it.  The people in Green Bay were so friendly and I loved the small towns surrounding the area in Wisconsin.

tbt: Our trip to Cincy

Today on throwback Thursday, I wanted to recap our Cincinnati trip to keep adding to the our travel adventures collection.  Danny's parents are both originally from Cincinnati which is why Danny grew up a Reds and Bengals fan (I can't say I agree with it, but I've vowed to be somewhat loyal to both teams).  Danny even went so far as to work for the Cincinnati Reds in 2010 and also worked for their AAA team, the Louisville Bats in 2009 and 2011.  Cincinnati has a special place in Danny's heart so we decided to plan a trip to visit and see the Reds in action in the Summer of 2012.  To preface this post, I am not totally against the Reds.  I actually grew up as both an Indians fan and a Reds fan, but I just choose to root for the Indians first.  As far as the Bengals go, I'm not the biggest fan only because I went to Paul Brown Stadium with my Dad in 2006 to see the Packers and the Bengals and I received way too many "Who Deys" while wearing my cheesehead.  Danny and I have been back since to Paul Brown when the Bengals were playing the Packers and I felt so much better because 1. I had a 6 foot 2 inch Bengals fan with me and 2. The packers won.

Anyways to get back to our trip in 2012, Danny and I headed down to Cincinnati and bought tickets to see the Reds play the Cards.  This is a huge rivarly and it was fun being a part of it.  It was a sold out game and we barely got tickets.  We also met his parents at the game since they are only an hour away and they are huge reds fans too.  We got to see them at the beginning of the game and grab something to eat, but then we went to our seats to watch the game.  The Reds ended up winning which was good for Danny and Reds fans everywhere since they were nearing the playoffs.

Danny and his parents, Kathy and Doug

Danny's parents

Some highlights of that night include seeing my brick at Great American Ballpark.  When I was younger, I watched the Reds like I mentioned before.  For Father's Day one year, I decided to get my Dad a brick since they were building the stadium.  It said, "Marc and Suzy: Fans Always".  Everytime I'm at that Ballpark, I have to visit our brick.  Another interesting thing that happened that night was the city (almost) caught on fire. It just so happened to be fireworks night and Danny thought it would be nice to watch the fireworks from the bridge.  Turns out there were way too many sparks and it ended up catching the hill right underneath the fireworks on fire.  It was a crazy night.

Me and my dad's brick at Great American.

Waiting for the fireworks.

After watching the fireworks we headed to some Newport bars, one in particular was Hofbrauhaus.  Its a traditional German style beer hall.  People were dancing in the aisles, on the chairs, it was very different than any other place I had been to.  We hit up a few other bars and then headed home.

At Hofbrauhaus.

The next day we headed to Kings Island.  Kings Island is the amusement park near Cincinnati.  Danny and I both grew up going to Kings Island since we were both very close to it.  I like Kings Island compared to other amusement parks because it is a little tamer.  I am not a thrill seeker whatsoever (which Danny discovered this weekend) so Kings Island has the perfect amount of "thrills" for me.  Our first ride was somewhat of a kiddie roller coaster, but I still screamed my head off.  Danny realized quickly that he was going to have to be patient with me if he wanted to get me on some of the bigger rides.  He eventually did, it just took some working my way up to them and of course, some convincing.  All in all, a very fun day.

That night we headed out to eat and out for drinks on the water.  Since Cincinnati is right on the river, there are a lot of resturants near or on the water.  We went to Don Pablos for dinner and then went to a bar actually on a boat.  It was so much fun and we talked through a lot of things.  We were newly engaged (about a month) so we talked a lot about the future.  One thing in particular that I remember talking about that night was what we were going to name our dog.  We always knew we would get a dog and Danny and I often have the future talks, so it was not out of the ordinary.  That night we decided when we got a dog, we would name him Yogi.  9 months later we held true to our promise and adopted a pup that we named Yogi.

It was a great weekend in Cincinnati and we are hoping to go back soon to visit.  It helps that we have good friends that just moved to Cincinnati this past spring that we need to visit! Also, we love watching the Reds and I'm excited to see them in DENVER in a few weeks to play the Rockies!

tbt: Baby Suzy

This week's throwback Thursday is picture from when I was a baby.  This was around Christmastime, hence the tree in the background and here I am pictured with my older brother.  My mom recently sent me this picture because we did an activity at work where my coworkers had to match the baby with the technician.  I was the only baby to completely stump both groups of people since I choose a photo of me in gender nuetral clothing instead of me dressed up in a pink dress (figures).  I thought this picture was also a good choice today since my Daddy is coming to Cleveland tonight to spend tomorrow with us and as you can see from this picture, I love my Daddy!

Hope everyone has a fantastic Thursday!