Tag Archives: Roma’s

Bikes & Blossoms

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Spring has sprung in the past week or two since Easter, with blossoms appearing on trees all over town. We also got to see our tulips and daffodils in our yard again, a colorful display that will last probably a week or two. I’ve been enjoying biking all over down as well, of course, going by Hanscom Park, the Big Papio Trail, the Keystone Trail, and catching a whiff of blossoms every which way. Several woodchucks seem to be out and about along the trails as well (making things interesting as I try to avoid them).

I even got out to go biking with Hannah a bit on Saturday, pedaling on down to the Sandy Park and back, pushing against 25 mph winds along the way.

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In food-related news, I got to have some barbecue with Nate down at Oklahoma Joe’s, and Vivian and I got to have some of Graley’s last hand pies of the season. We also took our kids out to Roma’s for some Italian food on Thursday. We were going to take them to Malara’s, but they decided to shut down forever even earlier than they’d planned, likely because they could barely keep up when Vivian and I dropped by a week earlier. Roma’s had remodeled since I last visited back in 2019 (with my parents), so it was an unexpectedly fancy affair. Hannah was quite delighted at the endless garlic bread we got with our meal, and Aaron’s naturally a big fan of noodles and sauce and parmesan (please).

Then on Saturday, I went to see the Steve Deace movie “Nefarious” with my parents. It was an R-rated “Christian horror” film and very good. It reminded me both of The Screwtape Letters and Anthony Hopkins as Hannibal Lecter speaking with Jodie Foster in Silence of the Lambs. It was good enough I may wind up seeing it again. Then Vivian made some split-pea soup, which was perfect for a cold and rainy Saturday.

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We wrapped up our last Men of God dinner of the year with some smoked ribs from Woody on the following Tuesday. We also got to hear from Colt Doherty, who pastors a church in Atlantic, Iowa and talked about his experience getting a wreck while drag-racing and coming to accept Christ afterward.

Aaron’s got a few more weeks with his friends at Royal Rangers before the year. Some of his troop-mates made pizza on Wednesday, and we got to sample some before heading home.

Mother’s Day Weekend

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So Spring is still here, which this year is including far more not-blistering-hot and not-still-snowing days than last year. It also seems to include far more birthdays, for reasons I can’t fully understand.

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We kicked off the weekend last week with a trip down to Stinson Park with the kids after work. We mostly avoided the Heart Walk preparations, which were happening at the same time. Our friend Ryan was in charge of that, so Tamra brought Quinn (and grandpa) down while that happened.

Our kids got in some quality swing time and running around, and I tried unsuccessfully once again to introduce them to dim sum for dinner. Hannah seemed to like the Vietnamese spring rolls, but Aaron only wanted the fortune cookies.

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The next day, our friend Kate celebrated all three of her girls’ birthdays simultaneously down at the Armbrust YMCA. We got to have cake and ice cream with a veritable herd of other little ones running around (and getting sugared up). Then we managed to fill an Olympic-sized pool for an hour splashing around together with mommies, daddies, and siblings.

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This year, Vivian and I decided to split Mother’s Day between our two respective moms, which meant I took my folks out to dinner at Roma’s on Fort Crook. It was a decent family-style restaurant just down the street from us with giant portions of Italian-American standards, like the chicken parmigiana, which I had (and bread rolls). Vivian stayed home with the kids, negating the need for a babysitter and giving me some rare one-on-one time with the folks.

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The next day, of course, was Mother’s Day. After church, Vivian and her mom spent the afternoon together shopping at both the World Market and the Old Market (no relation).

I stayed home with the kids, helping them prepare a homemade Mother’s Day card for mommy, which included one from Zoey. Jack was busy making some ribs and potatoes for dinner, and I contributed with some roasted broccoli and my first-ever loaf of homemade bread. I had to scramble to find a recipe that didn’t require five hours of “proving” to have it ready in time, but it turned out surprisingly well, with a nice, hard crust that I knew Vivian liked. We ate together with the kids and then let mommy open a few of her Mother’s Day presents before breaking out the chocolate cream pie Grammy brought with her.

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The next day, we had a belated birthday party for our little friend August. A cluster of his little friends (and their moms) gathered at the reclusive Twin Ridge Park II between Ft. Crook and Highway 75. The kids had fun spinning on the merry-go-round before and after getting sugared up with a tasty camping cake, courtesy of Donna. I stayed long enough to get a few pictures and then went to tear up our garden at home in preparation for a season of home-grown tomatoes (and other produce, probably).