Sequim Visit

Hello family!

We took a trip up to see Sue and Doug last week. Even though we two ended up not feeling our best that week, our hosts were fantastic! 

Sue and Doug's house is in the most beautiful setting! Their hard work on the landscaping is very evident. We spent the majority of our time just taking in the ever changing amazing view from their living room, their dining room, their deck...you get the gist! The meals at the Lambeth B&B were fantastic, both Sue and Doug are great at whipping up a tasty dish. We can't wait to go back and take the excursion they had planned for us (ferry to Canada for the day), and do more sight seeing. We are looking forward to the reunion there next year when you all can experience their joy. Sue and Doug, we congratulate you on making your dream come true!

Molly upcoming schedule

Hi all!
Just a quick update - nothing impt. I just wanted to make sure I knew how to do this in case something important happens.
I have lots of work lately. See photo - May is a typical month for me. Yes, I still use a paper calendar and a pink marker to circle the dates I work...

And not very circular I’m noticing.   Now it’s August and September...

 Somehow, it turned into a full time job.  With that said, Mark has been coming to work with me every Thursday. Although backtiming isn’t an exciting job, (it’s actually more if a task) it’s still exciting to be in the control room for show. He’s going to time next Thurs. show on his own.

Been at the beach off and on and am working on 1/8 of the 32000 piece puzzle. It’s a chore.  Can’t wait for some help. 

Maybe when you come for the BASH in October. Maybe we could finish panel 1???

Sande is headed to NY tomorrow for a few days...we are well (considering our age) and happy. 

xoxo

M

PS if this makes it to the blog, I will only have to learn one more thing about blogging...how to post pictures in the correct orientation. 

DiNolfis do Italy

Hello Family and Greetings from Italy!

We are having so much fun and just finished our 3rd day.

Day 1 was obviously a travel day and although we did not arrive to our Airbnb until about 10 PM, we decided to grab an authentic pasta and wine dinner. (When in Rome...!). J further suggested we may want to try and eat gelato every day we're in Italy, so luckily we found one open past midnight. (picture 1 below)

Day 2 consisted of a great lunch learning fun Italian phrases from our waiter .  We are really trying to educate ourselves in the language/culture and Nani has taken a commanding lead!  We then walked to Trevi Fountain and strolled  around the ruins near the Forum including the Colosseum and a  couple of  churches. (pictures 2 and 3 below) I personally was awestruck  by the beautiful architecture. The weather was very hot and humid for these dry heat Arizonans, so we spent some of the late afternoon in a wonderful café and  waited  for it to cool off a bit. We ate our gelato on our 1.5 mile walk back to our place.  After a rest and maybe another glass of wine, 😉 we walked to another restaurant and had another late pasta dinner and some great tiramisu and cheesecake for dessert.

Today, we checked out of our Airbnb and took a train to Florence.  Our first stop was lunch in  hotel overlooking the city.  (picture 4-not pictured, J and our beautiful view 😊). We then checked into a 3 bedroom apartment near the Santa Maria Novella Square. We all took a much needed rest and afterwards walked downtown along the Arno river. We got some gelato and headed back.  This brings me to present moment as we sit here reliving the day and sharing our pictures.

We are enjoying our family time together as we always do.

Hope the rest of you are well and happy.
More later,
Kathleen

Fischjcik Update

Quick Update from Colorado:

1. I'm back at work! I'm teaching 4 sections of Integrated Math 1 and 1 section of Integrated Math 2 this school year at a public HS near us. The state of Colorado is suspicious of my teaching history so I also have to take some classes to get my teaching license, but everything is in order for that (it's been a process). I started last Monday with New Teacher Training all week with all the other new teachers to my school and a couple feeder middle schools. This week all teachers are back Wednesday. Students start on August 15. The school is about 15 min from our house, but starts early! I have to be there at 7 AM.

2. Jim is still enjoying his job, and asked his boss not to travel for the month of August so that we can all get used to our new schedules. We spent a week with his parents and aunt in Breckenridge in July so he actually got some vacation days in. Pics on his smugmug site! He is officially a Coloradan now after hiking and summiting a 14er (Mt. Quandary) while we were there.

3. Cooper is on the move. He can crawl and is extremely interested in how doors work and touching Max's bones, and generally curious about anything on the floor that isn't one of his toys. He is really good at picking up Max's hair with the front of his clothes, we're working on a Swiffer Onesie prototype so he can actually help clean up (Tom let us know if you can help with design).  Coop started daycare at a center in our neighborhood when I went back to work last week and seems to be doing well with that.

4. Max is a good boy- confused by all these changes but rolling with them all. He also made it to the top of Mt Quandary

Hummingbird

Hey family,

I wanted to share some very exciting news...

As I think everyone knows, Brian and I met on a show site, in Atlanta, six years ago last month. We loved working with each other so much we decided to GET MARRIED...

...well. That. And we later decided to start a business together. After working side by side for the past six years, we began to recognize a series of issues in the backstage/live event world. They're issues that are more or less factored in to the set-up process but, they cost us, the producers and the end-clients time and money, over and over again.

Being lovers of beautiful design and pointed efficiency, we began this year by sitting down together and making a list of ways we figured we could do things differently. That resulted in designing two road cases that we were sure would flip the live event video department on its head.

To get started, we needed the space to build these cases... hence the warehouse (which some of you have seen).  We received our keys on February 1, just minutes after filing our articles of incorporation with the state. For those of you that haven't seen the warehouse, it's a beautiful, historic building located about a mile west of our condo. It used to be the Arizona National Guard building and our portion is the old weapons storage facility (read: double brick walls and the original vault door). The space is way bigger than we initially needed but we grew increasingly excited about the potential the extra space offered any other crazy ideas we're sure to come up with.

Once we moved in, Brian took our sketches and turned them into cut sheets. He turned those cut sheets into a jigsaw puzzle's worth of wood, aluminum and laminate and turned those pieces into our final product.

In the meantime, I worked on our branding and we both learned how to launch a business the right way. Yes, we've both been freelancers for many years but we agreed we needed to approach this adventure differently. Meeting with a local business advisor ended up being so helpful.

Today, exactly six months after we got our keys, we officially launched our business. Our website is live, as well as our Instagram and Facebook pages. Feel free to check them out!

We have five shows with these cases lined up (but not quite confirmed) between September and January, but are first going to enjoy some much-needed downtime abroad, with the rest of the Di Nolfi crew.

We leave August 5 and will gallivant through Rome, Florence, Milan, Edinburgh, Islay and Glasgow before returning home August 17.

Thank you all for your support and votes of confidence over these past several months. Having a solid foundation from which to build this was imperative and we're very grateful.

LOVE YOU ALL!
-A+B