My Fabulous Family

enjoy

2007-07-10T09:18:00.000-07:00

Alright so I have a Myspace photography site. It's not really that good, but it's just a way to show people the things I do.

Photography Click Here

Southside Irish Parade

2007-03-11T18:07:00.000-07:00

Irish Superman.

<3 Sam.

Pie and Slice

2007-03-05T05:53:00.000-08:00

Another Sunday evening of entertainment performed by Pie (Mark) and Slice (cat). Funny!!!

To watch, press the play button:

Hello from Sam

2007-03-04T15:14:00.000-08:00

Hey guys it's Sam. My mom has been busting my butt about putting some of my stuff on here so I finally found the time to do it. It's been pretty crazy around here lately with trying to keep my grades up. I got my first job at a local rock "club". It's just a place I go every weekend with my friends to see local bands who are trying to make it big play. It's one of my favorite places, and I'm friends with the owner Rick, so I got a job. =] Well heres some of my stuff, my photography and then paintings/drawings.

PHOTOGRAPHY:

PAINTINGS:

DRAWING: This took me 2 months.

Video and Pics from Paul's Performance at DanceBreak

2007-02-12T12:56:00.000-08:00

We just got back from seeing Paul's performance at DanceBreak 2007. All 6 of the choreographers were extremely gifted and I found myself inspired after an hour of so much energy on stage.

For those that don't know what DanceBreak is...
The mission of the DanceBreak Foundation is to identify and nurture talented early and mid-career musical theater choreographers, and offer them an exceptional platform to showcase their work for an audience of industry leaders who can be most beneficial in advancing their careers.

A group of six gifted choreographers is selected from a nation-wide applicant pool,the applicants are reviewed and, after a preliminary screening of semi-finalists' reels, the finalists reels are seen and winners chosen by a esteemed Selection Committee with no bias towards race, ethnicity or gender.

Paul was one of the six invited to showcase his choreography in DanceBreak 2007.

For the DanceBreak presentations, each choreographer must create two dance numbers: one of his/her own choosing which may be performed with live musicians or recorded music; the other must be a traditional “ book musical” piece set in its original theatrical context and performed with live music and singing. The combined length of both numbers must be no longer than eight minutes. Each choreographer may use no more than ten performers and has a maximum of twelve hours of rehearsal time.

The showcases are produced with minimal production elements (no sets or lights and nominal costumes and props) in order to keep the focus on the choreographers’ work, not on the showcase’s physical presentation.

Video of "Supertoon" (press the play button)

Photos from "Look At Me Now" from the Wild Party

Performers: Al Blackstone, Izell O. Bluntt, Cara Cooper, Felicia Finley, Richard Fisher, Kathryn Fraggos, Spencer Liff, Ivory McKaye, Liz Racanelli, Davin Tullock, Daniel Vaniska

Hello From New Lenox

2007-02-10T17:19:00.000-08:00

It's freezing here! This is about the 10th day in row the temperature has been in the negatives with the windchill. When are we going to Disney again??
Boy Finn, it's looks and sounds like your 7th birthday party was a blast. I love your costume
and pictures. Good idea not to have the party at home Carrie.
CONGRATAULATIONS ON YOUR PROMOTION KATHY!!! It sounds exciting. What a
perfect choice of words too for your title (Director of and Excellence). :o)
Everyone here is doing well. We are all just starting to come out of a funk since the Bears
lost the Super Bowl.
Sam is learning how to drive. She is doing very well too. She has a few more paintings and drawing to show all of you. I'll leave that for her to post with a blog.
Eric's hockey team is on the move. They are in 2nd place again. Four more games and it's
on to the Championship.
Gabrielle has been in the Art Club at school and in tumbling. She painted this on the shirt. It's Georgio O'Keefe's "Black Iris".

A big THANK YOU to Grandpa!! He's been picking Gabbi up from Art Club and
driving her to tumbling for us. We really appreciate your help.
Chuck and I are fine. Same old, same old...... work, work, work.
Here are a few recent pictures. Okay! So there from Christmas. I would have posted them earlier but we had a camera malfunction after some of these were taken.
Speaking of Christmas...... Thank you again to Grandma and Grandpa for the wonderful Christmas celebration. Everyone had a good time.
Hope everyone is well. Love, Ei

Birthday Magic

2007-01-28T20:32:00.000-08:00

Sniffle, snort, achoo...I have a cold. Am I going to work tomorrow? You betcha. Cuz I have a corner office and people will see my green face and red nose, turn and walk the other way. It's a peaceful space when I have contagious cooties.

I do feel a pulse of healing joy in my world of germs...a promotion, I hear?...fantastic, terrific, stupendous news! Congrats Mom! Boy, Dad will be living the life of luxury now with his sugar-momma, right? heeheehahaahhahhhhhhhhhhhhhhaahhhhhhhhhhhhhh, whew, ha.

On a cold Sunday afternoon, Jan, 14th, the world of magic and wizardom were present at Via Paraiso park in Monterey. Finn celebrated his 7th birthday in style and festivity (and a Wizard theme) with about 56 friends, and thier siblings and parents (well, it only seemed like that many). We had several craft "stations" set-up for the kids including a “Spells and Potions” (the favorite) with lots of bath beads, water tints, dissolving crystals, and the basic chemistry of vinegar and baking soda (to make things bubble)- just a variety of ingredients for a magical concoction; a “Decorate a wand” station, and “Magic bookmarks & coloring pages”. Lots of munchies, sandwiches and wizard hat cupcakes. As you can see from the "cause and effect" photos below, Finn had a very unique way of eating his. It was spontaneous (I have no idea why) but once he got the laughing approval of his wizard buddies, there was no stopping him (I didn't even try, mostly because the dads were teasing Jim about being a poor influence on his eating habits). Finn soon realized that having icing in your eyelashes isn't quite the fun he thought it would be. Anyway, we had a great time and Finn was very, very, very happy (that’s all that really counts right?!). The bonus was a friend’s husband made a Starbuck’s run to get a large dispenser of coffee for the chilled parents. Hurray for Don!

We had a frost last week that damaged and/or killed about 1/3 of my garden plants. Poor things are not used to sustained below-freezing weather for several days (neither am I anymore). Lots to “redo” this Spring, but I’m looking forward to the work.

We are looking at plane tickets for Florida now and I just ordered a free Disney vacation CD to get us into the spirit. We can’t wait! After the trip we are likely going to get a puppy (oh boy). I think you all know that my dog of almost 15 years died on Halloween. That’s one more thing to take care of in Spring…dog-in-a-box (ugh!). We also have one mouse casualty from Finn’s new Christmas pets (currently a cryogenic rodent). He would be easy for your new fluffball Slice to catch (like a mousesicle).

Well on that morbid note, I better douse my innards with NyQuil and say goodnight for now.

Love to all.

Carrie

Congrats all around

2007-01-27T21:51:00.000-08:00

Congrats on the promotion - that's great news!

First things first... to post a picture, look for this icon:
right above where you type out your blog post. Click on that and then add your picture. Let me know if you don't see that icon (it's to the right of the spell-check icon).

It's 12:55 am on Sunday morning and Mark is still at the studio recording round 2 of guitars for his record. I think there will be 4 or 5 rounds altogether. Then they'll record vocals followed by mixing. So far I am blown away by the quality of the recording. The guy he hooked up with to engineer the record is extremely talented and Mark has a solid vision of what he wants the end product to be, so it's a perfect recipe for success.

In other news... we adopted a beautiful kitty last weekend. His name is "Slice" (of the pies). He's awesome and seems to be grateful for a good home. He had it pretty rough for quite some time. All he does is sit next to me on my desk all day long sleeping and purring... how cool is that!?!?!

On the business side of things, we're close to launching an online store. It should be live in about a week. We decided to take our collective experience and launch our very own web business. We've done enough time making money for other people! :-)

We'll be selling high end percussion instruments; bongos, congas, tambourines, etc.

Once it's live, I'll tell ya'll the web address.

One last thing before I hit the hay... congrats to Paul for being invited to DanceBreak 2007! Check out his website to find out just how cool that invitation is...

Peace... Kristin
P.S. Happy Birthday Paul!

Happy New Year 2007

2007-01-27T12:28:00.000-08:00

Hi Family - no one has posted anything since 12/29 - so I thought I'd get the ball rolling again. We're still trying to figure out how to attach pictures to this website. We need a little help so if anyone can offer some, we'd appreciate it. We went to Florida on January 5th and spent a couple of days in Orlando. We met the Parrilli's there and saw the Lion King. Paul took us backstage after the show, and the girls (Natalie, Colette, and Margot), were thrilled to see the costumes and get autographs. The next day we went to MGM at Disney World and had some more fun. We got back home just in time to see the BEARS win the two games that gets them into the Super Bowl, and to enjoy the really cold weather and gray skies.
Last Friday I was promoted to Director of Clinical Excellence, with oversight for quality improvement, patient safety and regulatory compliance. It's a very nice promotion. Dad says he's very excited that I won't be working 12 hour days any more - it's 14 hour days from here on (ha, ha). Well, someone has to work and support us!!! (ha, ha, again - he's standing over me so I had to add the last ha, ha). If anyone has some news or just wants to say "hey" - post your blog!! Hope you all have a great 2007!!
Love,
The Mom

12 Pie Memories of Christmas 2006

2006-12-27T10:41:00.000-08:00

As the holiday celebration comes to a close (and since we have several hours to kill out here in the sticks of North Carolina before we head home tomorrow), we came up with our 12 memories from Christmas 2006...

1. Mom pulling off 2 nights of formal family dinners and doing dishes well past midnight.

2. "My Flabulous Family" comment by Carrie, with a comeback of "My Flatulous Family" by Chuck over Christmas dinner

3. Two back to back days of Rav’s

4. The worst rendition of 12 Days of Christmas in all of our family's history.

5. Hearing Grandma Bretz tell us about her Christmas memory at dinner

6. Hearing Mom's favorite Christmas memory about Mark getting sick from the anticipation of Santa arriving and Paul having panic attacks from the same thing.

7. Watching Vickie and her kids give each other a hard time.

8. The so called "dream team" of Trivial Pursuit (Benji and Jeff) losing to The Pie Team (thanks to "Slice", a.k.a. Chuck).

9. Cousin Bobby providing his musical skills for our caroling and watching Mark cringe at how out of tune the guitar was.

10. The toast at Christmas dinner, where everyone had something to add.

11. Hearing Pop tell me how smart he thinks I am! (hee hee... got him fooled!!!)

12. Great conversation, laughter and the joy of relaxed family time.

And here are some pics from our NC Christmas

Who said there's no Santa! ;-)

Grammy putting the trimmings on the tree, my bored brother and Pa playing Suduko

The dogs are always the entertainment at Christmas

THANK YOU, KRISTIN

2006-12-14T17:26:00.000-08:00

This is great!! I missed posting messages on the Fab Fam website. But when it was moved to My Space, we all felt a little uncomfortable about the privacy issue. So now it's back where we started - only better. It's much easier so even Papa Bretz will be able to use it and start posting blogs. Thanks Kristin for creating such a user-friendly family website.
Well, this Christmas we will miss being with the Barrys and Paul. But we'll call them on Christmas Eve and wish them a very merry Christmas. And maybe next Christmas we'll all be together. But - we have June to look forward to and our family vacation reunion at Disney World. Speaking of which, I think it's a great idea to postpone the Christmas grab bag until June, when you will all be together to exchange gifts. You guys are soooo smart!!
I was in Orlando Monday thru Wednesday for a conference with my boss, and coincidentally, Paul is there with his show, so we were able to hook up for dinner. That was fun!!
We had dinner at the Porta Bella Italian restaurant in downtown Disney - which is where we all had dinner the last night of our last family vacation. Downtown Disney is all lit up with Christmas lights and it was great walking around. I can't wait until we're all there in June.
Meanwhile, keep posting so we can all keep up with family news. Love to you all!!

Hello.

2006-12-12T10:03:00.000-08:00

Hello everyone. I'm glad we got the MFF site back up. I'm just posting to see how everyone is. I'm doing good. I recently got some of my art work entered into the art show at school, so I'm pretty pumped to see it being displayed. I've been doing alot of art work lately. I've become fascinated with the world of drawing, painting and writing. I decided to delete my old myspace because it caused to much drama. Personally I hate drama but there is no way to escape it. I do whatever it takes to avoid it though.

Love Sam.

P.S. Thank you for buying me that Beatles 1 cd. It really gave me a whole new out look on music. =]

Merry Christmas Everyone!!!!!

2006-12-11T16:47:00.000-08:00

Kristin, Thank you for reviving My Fabulous Family. It's great. I can give Eric and Gabbi the info on how to get on the website. They will love this. They're always asking about the family. Now they can get involved blogging and posting pictures. See you in less than two weeks. See the rest of My Fabulous Family in Disney, at the family reunion.....when we all..........you know. ;o)

Eileen

California checkin' in

2006-12-11T10:46:00.000-08:00

Hi family. I like the ease of this blogging tool-thanks Kristin. I went briefly through the other website links and am impressed by the amazing (and often fun) content, plus the visual sophistication of them all (although MySpace is one big jumble of information on a single screen- yuk). Kristin, did you design Paul's website? The Barry's do not have an independent family website (this is what MFF is right?!)- but I do have a site for my lab at the University that I update, populate and maintain http://seafloor.csumb.edu)- unfortunately, it is not nearly as professional looking as your personal/professional websites, mainly because I have NO web design training (I'm sure it'll be obvious!) and my "techniques" are pretty old school even though I use the latest version of Dreamweaver. I simply don't have the time to play, which is how I learn the stuff in the first place, and we don't have a budget for a consultant. With that said (covering my a--!), the site does function well and other research groups can obtain the information they need from it. However, any pointers (simple ones that I could accomplish!) would be most welcomed.

As you know, we are not heading east for the holidays. sniffle. We are staying home, finishing up end of the year projects at work and hoping for nice Christmas weather (right now it is cold-ish and it rained all weekend). Finn is very excited about Santa this year and wrote a lovely Christmas letter and list to him a week or so back. He is still on a Star Wars kick (just like his uncle!) and I can't imagine finding something that he doesn't already own- but I'd better! We are surprising him with a few mice this year, something he has wanted for a long time. He will see them by the tree Christmas morning, so shhhh, no telling. He has been a great kid all year and we will spoil him with a reasonable amount of Christmas goodies. And since his birthday is coming up too, we don't want to overwhelm him with "stuff".

Well, more bloggin' later, I better get back to work.....

C

...and she speaks from behind the camera

2006-12-10T16:41:00.000-08:00

Okay so here is my take on this. Forever, or as long as I can remember, my brother Mark and I have always semed to be the center of attention in our family. Not really quite sure why. It probably has something to do with the fact that we both crave attention and enjoy making others laugh, cry or just plain fell good about the fact that they don't have to live with either one of us.

With that said, I recently visited the web site of Mark's wife, Sunshine Stancato or Kristin Royce if you want to be formal, which I never do. On her site she has her art work she calls, 'pop art' as well as some of her photographs and blog enteries. After spending a minute browsing around and reading a bit of her insightful opioins, I've decided that she should come out from behind the camera more often and preach the word. Too long have the Stancato boys held the spotlight and it's high time some new blood take the torch. So here's my vote that Kristin Sunshine be the one the shine. So shine on sister-woman. You have my attention! Blog on! Just don't say anything bad about me ;)

Paul

Nice Site!!

2006-12-10T14:53:00.000-08:00

What's up Fam? The new site is fantastic.... very easy to create a post. Kristin rocks!!

Hey Sam! What's up with you? Where's your myspace page?

Hey mom - I've been extra good this year. Just an FYI in case you run into the big guy.

love
xoxo

mark

Merry Christmas to Mom / Grandma

2006-12-10T11:40:00.000-08:00

My gift for mom this year is the revival of MyFabulousFamily.com. The site has been uprooted once again and is back to being a regular blog like it was when it launched in February 2005.

The backend is supported by Blogger and you have all been sent invitations to start posting.

Blogger is much easier to use compared to TypePad - especially when it comes to posting photos.

So, follow the instructions in your invitation email and start posting!

Revisiting the family web

2006-02-14T09:36:00.000-08:00

Hi all. Sorry about the lack of posts. I was blaming my lack of web communication with my ineptitude of not knowing how to add images, but here is proof that my excuse was lame. Just a few “test” photos from our Christmas visit: “Finn and friend” (before), “Oh_No” (after, nice 'pile of face', eh?). Ice-skating in California vs ice-skating in Illinois. More pictures to come….promise. As grandma mentioned, Finn turned 6 in January, and we had a birthday bash with the theme...what else...Star Wars. I made each kid a lightsaber so they could whack the hell out of one another. Fun was had by all. Only a few mishaps (not saber-related thank god)...just one near fist-fight (between 5 years olds), one biting incident, and one boy who cried for 20 minutes because he didn't get a part of the birthday cake he wanted. All-in-all it was like being back in college at a frat party.

We are leaving for Oahu and Kauai on Saturday and will be back March 1^st. Jim is presenting some research at the Ocean Sciences conference in Honolulu, and Finn and I are studying the ancient Polynesian customs of pineapple eating, beach walking, and haole shopping.

Aloha!

Here's an Update

2006-02-08T09:47:00.000-08:00

Well, I guess it's about time for the family website to get updated, so here's some news.

The Grand Kids: Finn turned 6 on January 17, but he's more like 6 going on 16 - has great analytical skills; Eric will be 12 on February 25 and is absolutely showing strong leadership skills - I think Eric will eventually become very famous....for something; Sam will be 15 on March 19 and getting prettier every day - she's also very smart and could be a cast member on "Boston Legal"; Gabbi will be 10 on April 21 and is every bit as sweet as she is old.

The Kids: Chuck and Eileen are very busy keeping up with all of their kids' sports commitments, working around the house, and - oh, yeah - their jobs!! It keeps them young and 'lookin' good!" Carrie and Jim are back in the "groove" in California after spending an awesome Christmas with the family in the snow and cold weather. It was great fun!!! (But I'm sure they are happy to be back enjoying the California winter climate). Paul is in Seattle working on a show that will come to Broadway in April. It's a great learning experience for him, but he misses Tasha, who is spending most of her time in Miami working. Well, at least they took the time to get engaged. They will see each other again sometime before October 7, which is their tentative wedding date. Mark and Kristin - well, what can we say about "The Pies." They are planning to move into their new condo in Jersey City (the end of February), and planning their wedding on May 20th in their condo, and planning their wedding celebration on June 9, back home (Orland). Eileen and I are planning their bridal shower on March 31, for which they will fly home for the weekend (invitations to follow).

The Parents: Dad B. and I have joined the Orland Park Sports Plex and we are going at least twice a week to work out (huff,puff). Dad B. is going to Florida on February 13 through the 17th, and then we're both going on March 19th through the 25th. I am going to a work-related conference in Boston in April and Dad is going with me so we can make a long weekend of it - April 25-29th. I've never been to Boston so I'm looking forward to it. Before you know it, it will be summer - with lots of good times coming up. Thank God everyone is healthy and happy. We are a truly blessed family. And, we are "growing" - welcome Kristin and Natasha. I LOVE IT!!!! Dad and I are talking about the next "family reunion vacation." We'll get through the weddings and then plan ahead. Well, as they say in show biz - "that's a wrap" - Love you all

THE MOM

Christmas

2005-11-20T09:48:00.000-08:00

Here are the final plans: Paul and Natasha arrive on Friday Dec. 16. Mark and Kristin arrive on Saturday Dec. 17. Carrie, Jim and Fin arrive on Wednesday Dec. 21. We all go to Bucca Di Beppo's on Thursday Dec. 22 for a family dinner. Paul and Natasha leave on Dec. 23 for Ft. Lauderdale, FL to spend Christmas with Tasha's family. The rest of us have Christmas Eve at our house. Mark and Kristin leave on Dec. 25 to go back to NYC. Carrie, Jim and Finn leave on Dec. 27th. Ma and Pa Bretz take down Christmas decorations on January 2nd and leave for Florida on January 7th for a week of R and R. This will be a "fabulous family" Christmas and we're really looking forward to it.

Christmas Updates

2005-11-17T09:50:00.000-08:00

Here's the latest - Paul and Natasha will arrive on 12/16 and stay until 12/23. They will then fly to Ft. Lauderdale to spend Christmas with Natasha's family. Still waiting to hear final plans for Mark and Kristin - although they assure me they're coming home. I made a reservation for Dec. 22 at 5:00 p.m. for all of us to have dinner at Bucca Di Beppo's - in the "Pope's room." That 's one date when we canl all be together. Carrie, Jim and Finn come home on 12/21; Paul and Tasha leave on 12/23; Mark and Kristin are staying through Christmas - so 12/22 seemed like the best date to get our family together. Stay tuned for updates.

Love, Me

Family Christmas

2005-11-12T09:51:00.000-08:00

Great News!! Carrie, Jim and Finn are coming home for Christmas. They arrive on Dec. 21 and will stay until Dec. 27. Finn is very excited - and so are Grandpa and I. The New Yorkers are still planning to come home, but haven't firmed up the dates. I hope everyone is thinking about getting a Christmas wish list together. We're going to send out the grab bag names to you soon, and you'll need to send me your wish list so I can pass it on.

Chuck, Eileen and the kids will spend Thanksgiving Day with us, as will Great-Grandma. We're looking forward to "turkey day" with them.

Hey Sam - how about posting a blog??? Do you have any pictures you could post? You're really good at that.

Hope everyone has a great weekend.

Family News

2005-11-09T09:51:00.000-08:00

There is a slight change in wedding plans for Mark and Kristin. The change is that they will be married in New York on May 20, 2006. But we will still help them celebrate the occasion at a reception on June 9th at DiNolfo's in Homer Glen.

Christmas: Who is coming home???? So far, tentative plans are that Mark and Kristin, Paul and Natasha, and Carrie, Jim and Finn might all come home for Christmas. Hopefully, we'll find out for sure soon.

If anyone else has some news to share, please post a blog.

Love to all.

Mark & Kristin are getting hitched!

2005-10-02T09:52:00.000-07:00

Hello All... long time, no blog. hee hee!

Mark and I just had brunch with Paul and Tasha this morning, so I was inspired by the family bonding session to post a quick update from the east side.

I'm sure most of you have heard the exciting news that Mark proposed to me a few weeks ago. We're getting married June 9 in Chicago. The planning involved to pull this off is already making me nuts considering that our lease is up at the end of June and we're looking to purchase a loft around that time. So we've got our hands full and enjoying every minute of it.

Mark started a new job a month ago for a new boutique planning firm as the senior manager for their wealth planning department. It's a sweet gig because their specialty is wealth planning and business management for high net worth entertainers so Mark fits the role like a glove.

He's also been extremely busy with his music - the new Exit 8 EP is now complete and we're starting the process of shopping it to record labels and publishing companies. Paul actually wrote the lyrics for the #1 song on the disc called "Penny Waits". That song has already gotten some serious positive feedback. Check out the new Exit 8 website and music at http://www.exit8.com.

There's a lot more going on with the music side of things, but you can read all the details at the Exit 8 blog page.

For me, other than the wedding planning and house hunting, I'm trying to keep up with an overload of freelance/consulting work. My main client is iVillage.com where I do search engine optimization and product development for their network of 12 sites. Last month I flew to Yahoo! with several of my iVillage colleagues to pitch a new product idea to them that went extremely well, so now I am working with them daily to bring it to fruition. The goal is to make a public announcement about it in early November, so check back for the juicy details.

My other freelance work is mainly search engine optimization consulting for websites. It's amazing how having high rankings in search engines is quickly becoming a major priority for companies. Knowing how to do it is apparently not a skill that most webmasters have - especially for large, database driven sites - so business for me is booming. Here's my bio that might help explain what I do if you're interested.

That's about it from here - I typically spend most of my time on Sundays preparing The Pauper for the week, so I need to get to it. Looking forward to hearing from you all,

Kristin

Rockshow Performance!

2005-06-03T09:53:00.000-07:00

Congrats to Paul for an amazing ROCKSHOW last night. Matt (one of the creators of the show) flew in for the performance which added some extra spice to the night. No time for a full review right now, but be sure to check out some of the shots in the photo gallery to the right.

Also, be sure to check out The Pauper website! The Pauper is a site that Mark and I built and maintain with the help of 2 other partners. It's a site dedicated to helping artists succeed and has been getting a lot of attention after a site redesign and added features. (I actually sit here and give it all my TLC for about 5-8 hours every day). Please let us know what you think and give suggestions for improvements because we're actively seeking funding so I can work on it as a fulltime job. Thanks!
http://www.thepauper.com