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Welcome to the Schenkenfelder Home Page!

This is the home page for Brian and Jenny Schenkenfelder. Here you can read about the trials and tribulations of our family. So if you want to know what we are up to then this is the place.

May 2008

May 3- Derby 2008 The first Saturday in May in Kentucky is always a fun time and this year was no exception. Jenny's friend Lis drove in from Cincinnati for the festivities. We dragged her around Central KY, starting with a trip through the food line at the annual Derby Breakfast at the State Capitol. Were surprised to see that we shared a table with former Ky governor Paul Patton and his wife Judy. Brian took the opportunity to explain to non-Kentuckian Lis that he's known as the "Luv Guv". Not an especially high point in Kentucky political history. After we ate our fill of eggs, grits & biscuits, we perused the downtown Frankfort shops and then moseyed over to the Buffalo Trace distillery to check out their gift shop. Then it was onto the annual Derby party we go to out in the western part of lovely Shelby County. A slew of food and Rob's homemade dunkelweizen awaited us. We drank and ate the afternoon away to the tunes of the live band. Watching the Derby, were amazed to see Big Brown able to pull out the win from 20th post position. Truly an amazing fete. We were also extremely saddened to see the demise of Eight Belles after she had run such a fantastic race, coming in second behind Big Brown. Night time brought an intense chill though so we scurried home fairly early, but only after Brian defended his title of the fastest time through the kid's jumpy thing.

April 2008

April 12- Thunder over Louisville. Thunder was a week early this year due to Passover and thus landed on a cold overcast Saturday. We usually catch the Louisville bats game in the afternoon and then pass the time people watching and scouting out the best corn dog stand until it's time for fireworks, but this year we decided it was just too cold and we didn't want to spend 7+ hours out in it. Instead we went to a new restaurant in town, BJ's Brewhouse, at Oxmoor Mall. Apparently it's still too new and thus everybody's trying it out, since after being told it would take 45 minutes for a table, we were finally seated 1.5 hrs. later. Thankfully we were able to sample their beer while we waited so that helped pass the time. We sampled their Nut Brown and Hefeweizen and Jenny declared the hefe one of the best she'd ever had. Unfortunately the long wait for a table was only a taste of what was to come. We put our food order in, and then the second long wait began. The food, once it came, was absolutely delicious, but maybe that's because we had to wait at least another hour for it to arrive and were absolutely famished by the time it did. All told, we arrived at 6:15pm and didn't get up to leave until after the echoes of the fireworks of Thunder died down at about 10:15. The beer and food were wonderful but we just don't have the kind of stamina it takes for 4 hrs worth of sitting.

April 26- Indian wedding in Pittsburgh Jenny's sorority sister, Amee, was getting married in her hometown of Pittsburgh, PA to a wonderful Australian gent, Dan. We drove up Friday afternoon and met up with Jenny's friend Lis, another sorority sister who introduced us to several of Dan's groomsmen, who were all very engaging especially with their Australian accents. During the day on Saturday, we drove down to see downtown Pittsburgh and to try out the Church Brew Works, which was a former Catholic church that had been converted into a brewery. The altar now paid homage to beer rather than heavenly beings, which gave Brian a little bit of an uncomfortable feeling as he was raised Catholic. But the beer and food were fantastic and deserving of reverance. We bought a six pack of their Pious Monk Dunkel to take back home with us.

Feeling pretty good after our beer tastings, we headed back for the classic Indian Hindu wedding which began at 2:30 with the groom's procession. Ran into several of Jenny's sorority sisters from college in the lobby, most of whom she hadn't seen in either several years or since graduation in 1996. Knowing nothing about Hindu weddings, we were interested to find out what they were all about. The most challenging part was sitting through the 1.75 hr long ceremony that was entirely in ancient Sanskrit. Not that there's a modern Sanskrit, but that just drives home the fact that no one, even the Indians in the room, knew what the priest was saying. But Amee looked beautiful in her wedding sari and Dan pulled off his outfit extremely well, as did the other groomsmen and bridesmaids. After we survived sitting through the ceremony there was a cocktail hour(s) and then the reception began. Dan and Amee had their first dance immediately entering the ballroom and everyone was invited to dance with them, so the party definitely got started early. We sampled all the food, which was all vegetarian of course, but some of which would light your hair on fire. After dinner, we were taught a dance that was native to Amee's family's province in India which included using dancing sticks, or dandiyas. Brian caught on pretty quickly, but Jenny was a little hesitant to jump into a big group of people waving sticks around. We dubbed it Indian line dancing :) The entire evening was great fun though, catching up with old friends and dancing to Indian pop music that the DJ kept telling people to sing along to. We certainly wish Dan and Amee all the best and a lifetime of happiness.

March 2008

Mar 7-8- Winter Storm of 2008. Winter decided not to go quietly into the night and slammed Central Ky with a boatload of snow. We ended up with around 6-8 inches of the white stuff. We were socked in so we didn't get to continue our Lenten fish place tour on Friday. Instead of trolling for a new fried fish place to try, Jenny pumped up the snow tube she'd purchased on a whim at Kmart and took some runs down our hill in the backyard. Only problem was that the pond wasn't frozen over, so we had a few near misses of sailing right into it. We're sure our neighbors think we're crazy, but we figure you're only young once. Oh wait, we might have missed that boat already. Oh well, at least we're young at heart and what else are you gonna do with almost a foot of snow, besides make snow cream. Pictures of the winter whiteout are here. A video of Brian snow-tubing is here. Also since regular snow-tubing wasn't nearly enough, Jenny got the bright idea to build a ramp so we could gain a little altitude. Hilarious consequences are recorded on YouTube for posterity. Thankfully neither of us ended up in traction or in the pond!

Mar 15- Eastern Kentucky Elk Tour. We traveled with our friend Nick to Jenny Wiley State Park in Prestonsburg, Ky to take part in an elk tour that the Kentucky state parks had been putting on for a few years. It required assembling at an ungodly time of 5:45am to pack into 2 passenger vans to travel to some reclaimed strip mines where they've released elk over the past 10 or so years. The herd of elk in Kentucky is now up to 6,000 and they are aiming to sustain a herd of 10,000. Our first visit was to the Knott Co. Adventure Park where we saw a good sized herd of elk but the second stop is where we hit the motherload, or should we say "bull load"? It was actually an active strip mine with sections that had been reclaimed and it yielded an entire group of bull elk who stood majestically on the hillsides with their huge sets of antlers. It was amazing to see these large animals completely at home in and among the large machinery of a very active strip mining operation. And probably some of the most fun we had was "mud bogging" in the state van with our expert driver.

February 2008

Feb 1- Impromptu Mardi Gras party at the Schenkenchalet. No one else had a box full of beads I guess, so we ordered some BBQ and cooked up some red beans and rice and kicked up our heels to celebrate Mardi Gras. Our friend Cindy brought along 2 delicious King Cakes, which were the best we'd ever tasted. There's something to be said for fresh baked King Cake! We even managed to find both plastic babies that were hidden in each cake, meaning we get to host the party next year. Not a problem, we've got the beads!

Feb.8-10- OH Ski Trip. Our friends Jen and Brian have been up in the frozen tundra that is Cleveland courtesy of GE for two years now and we finally got organized enough to travel up to go skiing, since they live a whole mile away from the Brandywine Ski Resort. We carpooled up with our friends Jim and Kelly, with Kelly promising all the way that she'd teach Jenny how to ski. This would differ from her previous 2 lifetime efforts of simply snowplowing her way down the slopes and more often than not simply falling over in order to stop. Got up early Saturday to hit the slopes. Of course since we'd planned it for weeks, it warmed up to a lovely 44 degrees, making the slopes a delightful slushy consistency. Jenny did manage to take Kelly's advice though, donning short skis for kids, and finally mastering the S turn that's apparently the right way to get down a ski slope. Everyone had a good time skiing, even though the conditions were less than perfect. Woke up Sunday morning to a fresh snowfall of 3 inches. Of course it would snow after we'd gone skiing! Nothing like a little irony to make you grit your teeth! But as we traveled back home to the slightly less cold and much less snowy Kentucky, we were glad we'd ventured north to visit our gracious friends and partake of wintertime outdoor pursuits.

Feb.15- 2008 Lenten Fish Fest Tour Kickoff We got started a week late, since last week we were riding up to Cleveland, so we had to make do with fish sand's from Wendy's, which actually weren't half bad. Officially started off our fish place/fish fry tour of 2008 at The Fishery in Louisville with our friend Rob. The place was mobbed, just like every fish place in Louisville is on Friday nights during Lent. Did manage to scavenge a table though in order to dine comfortably on a couple of pretty decent fish sandwiches and sides of cole slaw. The portions were huge but the cole slaw was a bit dry. We decided we liked Stan's Fish Sandwich from our tour last year a bit better though, but onward and upward, there's always another fish place to try. Too bad we only do this a few weeks out of the year, or maybe that's a good thing.

Feb.16- Evita at the Lexington Opera House. This was Brian's birthday present from Jenny. We traveled to Lex-town, thinking we'd slip into DeSha's downtown to grab a quick bite. They have the most awesome cornbread ever, that Jenny had been dreaming of all week. Of course with the motorcross event being held at Rupp Arena that night the place was jammed packed and the wait was an hour, so we skipped down to the Cheapside Bar & Grille instead. Had a nice, if quick, dinner, plus a glass of wine and a Guinness. Slipped into the almost packed Opera House a few minutes before the curtain call. The show was really good, even if the lead playing Evita was a bit weak. The actor playing Che Guevara was fantastic however and carried the show. Enjoyed him much more than Antonio Banderas in the movie rendition. All in all, it was money well spent, especially now that we have songs from Evita running through our heads that we can sing to each other. "Don't cry for me Argentina..."

Feb.22- Fish Fest Tour Stop 2: There was a lovely ice storm on Thursday, Feb.21, and with the danger of it all re-freezing at nightfall, we zipped just down the road to the Moby Dick in Taylorsville for our Friday evening fish. Moby Dick is definitely one of our favorite fish places, year round. Yummy fish on rye with sides of cole slaw and hushpuppies hit the spot before we skedaddled back home to hope for spring.

Feb.29- Fish Fest Tour Stop 3: Tried The Fish House in Louisville. They coat their fish in a "Green River" style cracker crumb crust that was simply delicious. Jenny's favorite of the fish tour so far! The cole slaw wasn't all that, and the fish sandwiches came on the teeniest styrofoam plates you could buy, but the fish was the star so it didn't dampen the outing too much. Plus they also have beignets for dessert, which are always delicious covered in a half cup of powdered sugar.

January 2008

Early Jan- Brian's birthday was spent driving up to Lexington so that Brian's sister could join in the birthday festivities. Tried to slip into our favorite place for burgers, Lynagh's Shamrock, but were denied. It was already filled to capacity with young whipper-snappers drinking and playing darts. Alas, Brian had to settle for Marikka's. Not all was lost though, with Marikka's extensive beer list and German food offerings, Brian dined and drank to his heart's content and came away happy. Jenny treated him with a gift of tickets to see Evita, which had been on his must-see list for awhile. Gotta love a man that likes musicals!

Jan 25-26- Trip to Georgia via Gatlinburg. We roadtripped to Dalton, GA to attend a party for Jenny's cousin to celebrate her high school graduation, birthday and college entrance. Drove down early on Friday to Gatlinburg to take in the Smoky Mountain-ness of it all. We drank and dined at a local brewery and walked it off along the Gatlinburg strip, taking in the myriad air-brush t-shirt shops. Got up early to eat pancakes at the Pancake Cabin and then drove into Smoky Mountain National Park to squeeze in a quick hike before zipping on along to Dalton for the festivities. The party for Jenny's cousin was fabulous, complete with pulled pork BBQ and all the fixin's. Held at the house of a family friend, horseback riding and a bonfire were highlights of the evening, along with celebrating the great accomplishments of a young lady stepping out into the world.

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To all Schenkenfelders!

If you are a Schenkenfelder, I would be happy to put your contact information on the Schenkenfelder Family Page. Please email me at brian@schenkenfelder.com to add your information to the web page.

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This page last changed on 12-May-2008 13:28:58 EDT by jennys.