Rob & Sherri

Rob & Sherri Lammerding live in Kenosha, WI and both have career's in the Navy. I was thrilled to visit Rob & Sherri in their beautiful home this past September while on business in Chicago. Rob & Sherri have a lovely home and enjoy decorating both the inside and outside together. Their Dog Zoe is a beautiful and loving animal and apparently loves to model her assorted Holiday outfits. This year for Halloween, be on the look out for a cute little dogie dressed as a Bumble Bee. If it should rain...have no fear, the one in the yellow slicker with the long tail would be Zoe.

Mike & Andrea

Mike (Lammerding) Brother Bill's youngest son and Andrea (Grazioso) were engaged early in 2008 and a Wedding date is TBD. Mike and Andrea currently live in Doylestown, PA. On a beautiful summers evening in August, we met in New Hope PA for an enjoyable dinner at the Logan Inn. New Hope has always been a special place for me to visit ever since performing at The Buck's County Theater during High School and so it's fitting for me to rendezvous with such special people as Mike and Andrea in one of my favorite places from years ago.

Dave Celebrates 25 Years at Brother

Dave joined Brother on August 1st 1983 and during the first week of August 2008 celebrated his 25th Anniversary in great style. Tadashi (President of Brother) Ishiguro awarded Dave gifts and a company pin with blue sapphire stones to commemorate 25 years of service. All employees were invited to enjoy cake and coffee to help celebrate the occasion.

Stockholm, Sweden

To enjoy these photo's of our Baltic Cruise vacation. Start with the Amsterdam entry and work your way up to this Stockholm entry.

Stockholm was the end of or 7 day Baltic cruise and we enjoyed two additional nights "on our own" in this beautiful city. In Stockholm we did pretty much what we did in all of our cities, shopped, toured and took a sightseeing boat ride but there was something special we really enjoyed about this city.

A good Hotel in Europe is expensive with a Euro costing $1.60 so we saved about $800 a night by using some of Dave's Hilton points and staying at the centrally located Hilton Slussen Hotel where we were treated wonderfully. We wondered around the cobble stone streets of Stockholm and crossed dozens of bridges and even enjoyed some local night life on Saturday & Sunday evenings. Frank seemed to especially enjoy our Baltic adventure as tall, blue eyed, blonde's seem to be prevalent throughout all of Scandinavia... who knew!

Helsinki, Finland

Helsinki was our last port call and we were stating to tire from our busy week of Baltic Capital sightseeing. In Helsinki we toured the city first by coach and then by boat. The white with green dome is a Lutheran cathedral in Senate Square. We enjoyed shopping a local market where we bought cuff links and a Christmas ornament from local Finnish artisans which are two things we collect from our travels around the world.

Our harbor boat cruise through the magnificent archipelago was a great experience and a relaxing way to see more of the capital of Finland.

Moscow, Russia

Our ship docked in St. Petersburg for two days with an overnight stay. This allowed us a once in a lifetime opportunity to visit Moscow. Upon arrival in St. Petersburg at 7 a.m. a group of about 136 of us immediately transferred to the airport for our 1 hour light to began our 1 day adventure to Moscow.
The flight itself was truly an experience as we boarded the huge Russian Airliner initially through the cargo hull and then up a second set of stairs to the flight deck. A "meal" was served but don't ask what it was as no one seemed to eat it.

The highlight of the entire vacation was standing in the middle of Red Square and in front of the world famous St. Basil Cathedral with it's multi-coloured onion shaped domes. One of the more unknown attractions of Moscow is the Metro, or underground transit system which we rode to see how richly the stations are decorated with mosaics, crystal chandeliers and marble columns, walls and floors.

We enjoyed a walking tour of the Kremlin grounds and museums which houses a unique collection of Russian treasures including royal crowns, jewelry and some priceless Faberge eggs. At the end of the day we had a delicious dinner in Moscow and a few shots of Vodka before returning to the airport for our return flight to St. Petersburg and back to the ship. We had left the ship at 7 a.m. and did not return till 2 a.m. after an exhausting but accelerating 19 hour journey.

A Nude Woman in St. Petersburg

"A Nude Woman" is the title of this painting. Does she look familiar??? She should!!! Leonardo de Vinci painted this portrait in the mid 16th Century (1542) This model was also the "Mona Lisa".

In St. Petersburg there is much to see in the way of Palaces and museums but we spent most of our second day touring the Hermitage museum where one could spend weeks and never see all there is to see. Part of our tour included time in the "Gold Room" and the many grand ornate rooms with golden ceilings were spectacular to see. I'm happy our master bath has a silver leaf ceiling... had I only known!