Hello there!

How are you doing? Things are going well, we take it?

Life has been rather uneventful here in Rhi & Benner Land. Rhianwen is still working at Warner Brothers, where she rules at legal assisting and redlining contracts. Benner has started working at Trader Joe's, where he rules the dairy fridge and stocking eggs.

It has been getting sunnier and warmer 'round these parts as of late. Of course what we call "cold" 'round these parts is what we used to call "warm" back 'round the parts we used to live in. Seriously, if it's a degree or two colder than like 65, we're total wimps. I don't know how we ever lived in Philadelphia given that we seem to not only enjoy the warm weather, but depend on it for happiness.

Oh! Here's some news: Benner got glasses today! Over the past few years, he has had increasingly nagging difficulty when reading. It wasn't anything he couldn't easily tolerate, but some times were worse than others. A recent trip to the optometrist revealed that Benner is far-sighted, and seeing as how he is a writer and needs to be able to read and stare at a computer screen, we thought glasses would be nice.

So, Rhianwen and Benner set out to pick out some glasses. Benner wanted a very nondescript (and maybe a little nerdy) pair, but Rhianwen insisted on something a little more stylish. In the end, they settled on this nifty little pair.

Eh? Whaddya think?

In other news, our friends Roxanne and Aaron got engaged and are to be wed this fall. Hooray for them! Anything else to report? Hmm, not really...

What's going on with you guys?

Stan Fran visits Los Angeles, and all is well...

A few weeks ago we had the pleasure of hosting one of Rhianwen's oldest friends in LA:

CHRISTINE! WOO! Christine marks our fourth East Coast visitor out in LA (after Jen's parents, Rhi's mom and our unforgettable friend Adam), and she made the trip with her brother Tony (shown here, often referred to as To Fro) and cousin Valerie. As a bonus, Christine's cousin Dave lives in LA too, so it was one big Buglione fest!

We kicked off our time together at the Warner Brothers lot. Rhianwen met up with the Buglione crew at a taping of Ellen DeGeneres taping. Rhi was so thrilled to be hug Christine, in the flesh, in Los Angeles!

Then came Ellen. It was Rhi's first time in the studio as an audience member and she wasn't quite sure what to expect. There was a lot of clapping and dancing, and a lot of energy. There were some great laughs, particularly in the opening act where Ellen had audience members play musical chairs blind folded. No matter how many times she sees it, Rhi still thinks it's fun! The guests that day were Meredith Vierra and Olivia Wilde from "House."

After the show, Rhi gave a mini tour of where she works and they all headed out to dinner at one of the best mexican joints known to LA: Don Cuco's! We enjoyed yummy margaritas and muchso queso! And here we are enjoying ourselves:

We had a slight pause in our vist as Rhi and Benner flew home to Philly to be with Benner's family in celebration of GM and GP's 50th Wedding Anniversary. Thankfully Rhi was able to book a super early flight back on Sunday to spend some more quality time with the Buglione posse. After 3 days of sleep deprivation and a 6 hour flight, Rhi was greeted by Dave and Christine with coffee in hand! We swung by Dave's to freshen up before heading to Orange County to visit the acclaimed Aunt Bobbi and Uncle Jack!

It was a great day. We enjoyed the pace of hanging out, touring their "so California" backyard and garden. Notice, if you will, the firepit that Uncle Jack made himself, with his own bare hands:

We even got to pick our own grapefruits from the tree. We stuffed ourselves with the delicious and filling taste of an authentic Italian dinner. We drank wine while Aunt Bobbi's fiesty dogs threatened my sense of security. LOL, no I'm serious. I'm surprised Aunt Bobbi still has all her fingers. Seeing Aunt Bobbi interact with her dogs is something you can't fully describe. You have to experience it for yourself.

Oh, and Aunt Bobbi has a princess-and-the-pea bed. I rightly gave it that name, since it's the height of ten mattresses stacked on top of each other. Which is ironic because Aunt Bobbi is under five feet tall, and seeing her climb up there is like watching someone mount a horse.

That night was Oscar night, so we retired to the sofa for wine and M&M's. Hours later we emerged from the house and faced the hour long drive back to LA. Our motivation: In N Out burger! I couldn't let Christine go back to Philadelphia without tasting the magical, dilectable, satisfying scrumptuousness of an In N Out burger and fries. Also, they gave us hats.

Which may or may not have been a good idea.

Oh Stan Fran, we miss you already and are so happy you came to visit us in the sunny LA. Lots of love and kisses!!!! Mwah!

Back to Philly, again

So a lot of people probably didn't realize it, but Rhi and Benner were back in Philadelphia this past weekend. It was a last minute trip, and a whirlwind one at that. We weren't even in town for a full 40 hours, really. But the purpose of our trip was to celebrate the 50th wedding anniversary of Grandmom and Grandpop Benner. What a remarkable accomplishment! This milestone has us thinking about how you measure 50 years...we'll post more on that later.

Here's a run down of the weekend:
Mike's Aunt Marge picked us up from the airport on Friday and to our delight had a philly soft pretzel and some after dinner candy that Rhi enjoys waiting for us. She is so thoughtful, and man was that pretzel good! Aunt Marge was one of the few people that knew we were coming into town and we tried to keep it a secret as much as possible. From the airport, Will and Aunt Marge took us to the Benner family hang out McShea's where we met up with Ray and Barb (Benner's parents) and brothers Ray and Chris. We enjoyed a gourmet and quite satisfying meal. Mc Shea's is actually owned by a chef who always wanted to open an Irish pub and if you get the chance to hit it up, you should.

We spent the night at Greg and Trish's house-- Greg you will recall was Benner's best man. Tirsh is expecting and it was so exciting for Rhianwen to see her baby bump! (Can you guess who is writing this blog post?) It was so nice to catch up and weren't feeling entirely jet lagged until the next morning when we woke up early to meet Rhi's parents for coffee. It was a brief visit but it was nice to spend time talking face to face. Gwenyth shared about a delightful little 3 year old at her church that she simply adores which was fun to hear about. Rhi had a nice little walk around Borders with her dad and we all got to catch up for a bit before stopping by the Lozano's to say hello. It's amazing how big the kids are getting and we always feel at home at Naylors Run Rd. But it was only a matter of time before they had to run off to celebrate baby Matthew's 2nd birthday.

We got there early and surprised Vince and Janet and got to spend some special time with Matthew while they set up for the party. Then we hid upstairs while everyone trickled in. Few minutes later we emerged and the smile on Benner's grandmom's face (Babe) was priceless. Matthew is such a big little guy and has such hilarious mannerisms that kept us constantly entertained. We can hardly believe that he is already 2 years old and are glad we got to be a part of the celebration.

We left the party to go get ready for the reason we flew in in the first place: To celebrate GM and GP Benner. A party was held at Evviva in Narberth and we had the whole restaurant to ourselves. It has a mix of classic and eclectic art and is really a one of a kind place. All of the immediate family were there and a photographer was busy at work to document it. Rhianwen enjoyed the opportunity to spend time with her three girl cousins: Maddie, Regan and Savannah who are all such sweet, fun and clever girls. The food was excellent and we all got to hear GM and GP's kids reminisce about their childhood. Grandmom and Grandpop Benner have seen a lot in their day. And they've worked tremendously hard-- year after year--in order to build their business and provide for their family. Their work ethic is defined discipline, commitment and perseverance and is to be admired. They have stood by each other through it all, and they are still each other's most precious friend. Grandpop read aloud a sweet poem he wrote for his bride of 50 years and the family showered the couple with gifts. It was a great night.

And no one forgot that the very next day was Savannah's birthday. She was celebrated with a birthday cake of her own, which you'll notice in the pictures. yum.

We work up at 4 am the next morning so that Rhianwen could fly home and spend the day with her friend Christine who was visiting LA. Details to come!




Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR.

Much apologies to our friends that we didn't get to see. We didn't tell you we were in town because there just wasn't enough time. But hey, you can always come out and visit us!

San Francisco treats

I don't care what anyone says, there is nothing more romantic than a Valentine's Day spent with your sister. That's why we headed up to San Francisco a couple weekends ago to hang out with Sarah and Steve, our favorite set of in-laws!

It was an all-around fun weekend. We made sushi for Valentine's dinner, we explored SF all day Sunday and had birthday drinks with some of Steve's co-workers that night. Unfortunately, we didn't take many scenic photographs but here are some choice shots from our indoor times.

So what does it all mean?