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Archive for the ‘Travel’ Category

Daddy’s back!

Sunday, August 25th, 2013

Brendan came back into town! We spent his first day on the set of THE SURFACE. We took the girls to watch the rescue Coast Guard scene. It was pretty cool to see it all come together.

On Friday after the last day of shooting the movie, we drove up Green Bay to get in our first Packer Game. We had the pleasure of staying at Ed and my late Aunt Bert’s cabin. Such a beautiful home and nice to see her work. We ate at Kroll’s and ate gourmet butter burgers and deep fried cheese curds. YUM! After the game we went over to my Cousin Gretchen’s house and watched the last bit of the game. Page and Annie were so cute together, wish I could have a picture. We spent the next day relaxing at the cabin. I slept on and off all day, I had no idea how exhausted I was. Kudos to all the single mom’s out there, but I hope to never have to go at it alone like that again. Its such a treat to have Brendan around taking care of.

Posted in Daily Grind, Page, Sienna, Travel | 2 Comments »

The Italians on a lake

Sunday, August 18th, 2013

We drove up to the UP (Upper Peninsula) of Michigan for a small get-together with our family, the Ippolite’s, Martini’s, Fear’s, and Thomson’s. The UP is gorgeous this time of year. Lots of great stories about Grandpa and Grandma making raspberries pies and ravioli’s for us. Hard to believe its been 5 years this November since Grandpa Blo has been gone. Page ran around with her cousin Mason all weekend playing in the sprinkler, playing hockey… They were so cute together. Sienna has really found her voice this week. She is squealing with delight! We even ran into a movie star…

Auntie Barb and Page

The three sisters, Erin, Kim and Michelle

Don and Erin

Chris and the loud one

Awwww, happy Grandpa with his girl

Marissa and Katie Chang, Sofia Coppola’s newest muse and star of THE BLING RING – check it out!

Beautiful Marissa

Beautiful Katie

Silly Evan

Hockey practice!

Too cute for words!

Page wrapped the towel around Mason to keep him warm, so sweet.

Posing

Having fun!

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Hollywood, WI

Wednesday, August 14th, 2013

Grandpa Jim helped me sneak over to Milwaukee to surprise my girls.

I walked into Grandpa’s house early on Saturday morning.
I said “Hi” to Page.
Neither Page, nor Alex knew who I was.
After a few minutes they worked it out.
They both got very excited.

The film, that Alex has been working on was being filmed at the house on Monday, so I stayed an extra day to watch it all happen. It was fascinating, and I got to sleep on a movie set! (Look for my jammy pants hanging off a surfboard in one scene)

We had to wake up at 5:30am as the crew started arriving at 6am. By the time Page had woken up, they had turned the house upside down. Page was very excited to see Grandpa’s house “upside down”! I then felt it time to have that “idiom talk” that every parent dreads.

Despite not seeing the house literally upside-down, Page and I did a tour of the house looking at all the equipment. Page was even offered a ride on a “dolly”. Still more confusion.

There are about 75 people involved in the production, and a good number of them were involved in the shooting. The cars stretched half way out of the estate. You might notice the Airstream in this photo, where the stars were supposed to hang out. Though Mimi Rogers preferred to have a nap in the house.

There was even a train in the living room. After I picked up Sienna and Page from daycare we checked out the filming of this scene. We did until I got the feeling Page didn’t want to be quiet any more.

“Settle!”
“Action!”
“Rolling!”
“Cut!”

The final scene of the day was an establishing shot of the house. Should add an extra $100k to the value, I’d say…

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Swing sisters

Sunday, August 11th, 2013

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Behind the Scenes

Monday, July 29th, 2013

Here are a few shots from today, the first day of shooting. Things went very smoothly today despite a very hectic last week. Its a large crew, about 100 cast and crew members. Now that pre-production is over, its fun to see everything come together!

So cute, little kids in the neighborhood wanting copies of GOONIES autographed.

Setting up for one of the scenes indoors.

Director Gil Cates, Jr. and Sean.

Getting geared up for shooting.

A shot of the crew getting ready for a shot outside.

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She’s got the look!

Sunday, July 28th, 2013

And Grandpa’s heart, too..

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Back to work!

Monday, July 22nd, 2013

The girls and I made it back to Wisconsin yesterday. They were both exceptional traveling partners. Sienna slept most of the plane ride and Page watched Stuart Little on the iPad. We got to Grandpa’s and settled in. I have a new found respect for single parents today, its no joke. We all woke up early to get ready for the day. The girls went to daycare, the teachers graciously called me every 2 hours to let me know Page has a new BFF, Ashley, and that Sienna was smiling when she wasn’t sleeping or eating. I am so proud of my girls, what troopers.

I am excited about the movie! Today is the start of production, I will be the Production Coordinator on the film and shooting will last 5 weeks in and around Milwaukee and Chicago. That means managing everything from daily cast and crew schedules to equipment rentals. There was a great article in Variety today about the film. Its going to be a fun adventure!

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Utah and Colorado

Monday, July 8th, 2013

Whew, we made it home. It was a long haul, but totally worth it to see Page and Sienna meet new friends at each stop. We didn’t spend more than a day in one spot, lots of driving, but the RV made it a fun adventure.

We left Los Gatos on Wednesday night and stopped in Tahoe at the Naylor’s house. Brendan roughed it in the RV while the girls and I snuggled inside.

Thursday we awoke early and made the long haul to Logan, UT where the bike ride was taking place. We made a lot of little stops along the way so Page could get out and run/ride around.

We made it to Logan before sunset and scored a RV spot in the fairgrounds where the ride was taking place. We had all of Friday to take it easy, swim, fix up the bike, and greet friends as they arrived. The ride on Saturday was for Kelley, a good friend from Park City. She has recently been diagnosed with MS. I chose to ride 75 miles. Kelley’s sister brought along her 3 year old, Gage, so Page had a blast hanging with him while we rode. They went to the zoo and lounged around waiting for the Mama’s to get back… The ride felt great, didn’t reach 100 degrees until the last hour, thankfully most of the ride was under cloud cover which kept things cool.

After the ride, we loaded up and drove to Park City. We parked at Mike’s and pretty much moved into his house for 2 days. We got to catch up with some friends from Backcountry over a BBQ and Brendan got in a ride of the Flying Dog loop, a PC favorite. We took a walk down memory lane and hit up the Park Silly Market for a monkey puppet show, took the girls for a too hot hike and hit the High West Distillery to cool down. Maybe its the hormones but I found myself crying a few times missing the PC life…

We left PC early Tuesday and tackled the long drive to Silverton. We stopped in Fruita, CO to check out the dinosaurs. Then to Ouray to soak in the hot springs. We stopped off at the top of Red Mountain to pose for a pic, Page was soaking in the beauty of mountains, she wanted to stop everywhere and take pics… We spent the night at an RV park in Silverton. Brendan woke up early and tackled the bike climb on Kendall Mountain, he has some great pics on his Instagram account, @bshenanigan (mine is @ippygibby). We quickly cleaned out my storage unit, grabbed my diaries from when I was a kid through post college years and my cherished box of pictures and all the dishes Mom brought us from Mexico. Feels good to finally have my belongings out of that town, but I am sure we will be back. The San Juans never truly leave you…

Now onto Durango!!!! Oh, how I love Durango and all the people in it. We took a quick dip in the Animas River and then headed up to Kennan and Cheryl’s place for a little get-together. Nan, Rob, Sailor, Mark and Dylan came up and there were lots of laughs. Its fun to see all the kids grow up and what a cool bunch of kids they are. We crashed in the RV and woke up early to head to our final destination, Pagosa Springs. But not before a quick stop at Bread to say goodbye to Nan and Rob, Rob generously loaded us up with a couple bags of fresh goodies from his Bakery.

Oh these two are too cute. So many RV snuggle sessions…

Last stop, Pagosa Springs to visit a good friend from my high school years, Dawn and her family, Gary, Marlowe and Harper. They own a pub in London, The Marksman, but spend time in CO every year to be close to Dawn’s parents. Fires have been raging all throughout this area, but Brendan and Gary hit the Pagosa River trail for a mountain bike ride. I took a 4 hour nap with the girls, how did that happen? We caught up over a lovely dinner and reminisced over some local Honeyville wine… Our last day was jam packed with a 4th of July parade on Main Street Pagosa and then off to Hidden Valley Ranch where Dawn’s parents have an amazing *cabin* at the foot of the Wimenuche WIlderness. It was also sweet Marlow’s 5th B-day. Page was introduced to pinatas, baseball, bucket walking, but best off all, she was able to spend some quality time with her new BFF, Marlowe. After the picnic, it was time to leave. The long 17 hour drive was ahead of us…

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Road Trip!

Thursday, June 27th, 2013

We rented an RV to take all our bikes and the girls on a whirlwind trip to Logan and Park City, UT and then down to Telluride, Silverton, Durango and Pagosa Springs, CO. We are so excited to see the mountains and good friends!

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America’s newest National Park

Wednesday, June 26th, 2013

Pinnacles National Park is about an hour and a half south of our place, and the closest campsite that I could book two days before the weekend during school holidays.

You may think you know of the place from Post in which Page goes spelunking and other feats of derring-do. You would be mistaken. That adventure was to Pinnacles National Monument, which was but a pale shadow to Pinnacles National Park. Pinnacles National Park became a National Park this year and is way better!

This time, I took Page AND Katya. The girls’ job was to set up the tent while I … I did something really important ..

Once they had finished their jobs, the girls were let out to play with the local gang who were chasing rabbits.

I gave them a choice of going for a swim, or going for a hike. Page, of course chose the swimming pool, which was freezing. She only jumped in once and then spent the rest of the time lounging by the edge.

We then went off for a hike to a reservoir (which may be familiar to connoisseurs of fine art) and through some caves.

Throughout the weekend, Page was mimicking everything Kayta did, even if that meant running into dark tunnels.

I mentioned fine art earlier. Aunty Ayla took one of our photos from Post in which Page goes spelunking and other feats of derring-do and made a painting of it last year. Here I tried to recreate the scene.

It was bat mating season, so we weren’t allowed in all the caves. We still had enough fun.

In the evening after a hot dog and Rore Smore dinner, we trotted off to a ranger presentation about Condors which are being reintroduced into the wild at the Pinnacles. Page and I left early, leaving Kat to take it all in as a future veterinarian would.

Our biggest adventure was on the Sunday morning. After packing up. That is after Kat and I packed up (Page practised driving the car) we hiked 4km each way to the Balcony Caves.

While I had to crawl on my hands and knees at times, Kat was climbing up and over boulders and up and down slopes which would have given her Mother and Sister heart attacks. This is why I take the girls camping.

Both of them were very well-behaved and had a great time in the outdoors. It is much more fun hiking when you are accompanied by two singing angels, even if their trail mix eating habits are a bit weird.