Slow down

When January hit there was a definite slow down in events thankfully. We did get to start our Friday night bowling league again. We're in the "Bowling for Bikers" league. Yes, it is filled with people who ride motorcycles. And yes, my husband has a motorcycle. He doesn't take it out much anymore but we still have it. Anyway, the league is a fun night out. It is amazing how much of a difference that smoking ban makes. I used to have to come home and shower as soon as we were done because of how bad my clothes and hair reeked of cigarette smoke. Not this year!

I can't really think of anything that went on in February either. In March, we went in to Pittsburgh to help Bronwyn redo the floor in their rental unit...sort of. Isaac helped Bronwyn do the floor, I got to watch my adorable nephew. I'll take that any time! It did at least let Bronwyn get some stuff done since she didn't have to worry about him the whole time.

About a week and a half after that we left to go on vacation and then on to the theatre convention. Vacation was out to visit Isaac's brother Ryan and his wife (Carol) and kids (Alexander or Xander as they call him, and Amanda) in California. This is a trip we've been meaning to take for a while, but I could never get Isaac to decide on a time to go out and if we did decide on a time that might work the tickets were too expensive. So since I'd never been to CA, we did a few touristy things. They took us to the Monterey Bay Aquarium and then we went down Cannery Row. At the restaurant on the way down my husband basically got steamrollered into having his picture taken while he was holding their youngest (Amanda who was about 6 months at the time.) Now the reason I say it like that is because Isaac had never really held a kid before that. Bronwyn would always try to get him to hold our nephew, but it was just to get Isaac to hold him, not for any real reason. At the restaurant Carol just handed Amanda to him and said hold her for a second and then just started get things packed up or whatever it was she wanted to do. Isaac also does not like his picture taken, but since he was holding an infant, of course we had to get one. Carol had her camera of course and Ryan had something with a camera in it and I had my camera too, so no matter where he turned he'd get his picture taken and he couldn't do his typical response of putting his hand in front of the face because he'd be too afraid she'd fall.

We went to San Francisco one day and went down Lombard Street then got out and took some pictures and saw a Chicago police car come down it. We thought that was rather odd. Then we went to Fisherman's Wharf and then Ghirardelli's Square. I think that was all for the day. But while at the wharf we did see the sea lions and the Golden Gate Bridge and Alcatraz.

We went to the playground one day, and it was fun seeing Isaac play on the slide and everything with my nephew. Xander kept saying "Uncle Zaq, Uncle Zaq" (Zaq is what most people call my husband) so he had to keep playing. I wasn't going to make him do anything, but when Xander started saying Uncle Zaq, I told him you can't just ignore that.... Isaac was a pretty good sport about it but he did roll his eyes every time we took a picture of them.

It was hard having to leave them after those four or five days, but thankfully they'll be back in Pittsburgh in June. (This trip was the first time we had seen them in over a year and a half, so we had never even met Amanda).

Then it was off to Vegas for the theatre convention. You can tell that there were all kinds of budgetary cutbacks. There wasn't as much stuff, there weren't as many stars, and some other changes. Overall it was a pretty good show though. We got to see a screening of the Proposal with Sandra Bullock and Ryan Reynolds. I had been looking forward to it, but my husband and father-in-law were not. However, I must say that they both enjoyed it and I actually liked it better than I thought I might. Let me just add that Betty White was his grandma in the movie. At this point I already forget what other movies we got to see. We did get to see a nice chunk of the movie UP. To be perfectly honest, I wasn't sure that I would like the movie, before the convention I just hadn't heard that much about it. I mean it was a Pixar movie so I figured it would probably be pretty good, but I just didn't know. Anyway after the 40 minutes they showed us, I was ready to see the rest, unfortunately I had to wait two months. Friday I'll finally be able to see the rest! We just had the equipment to be able to play 3D movies installed at the theatre on May 7 and UP will be our first 3D movie. I can't wait to see how it does. It is going to be quite interesting. I'm not sure how well people are going to take to the price increase for those. Also, we usually get two copies of the Pixar movies, but since UP is in 3D we'll only have the one.

Also during this stretch my husband turned 30 and I turned 28. We didn't really do anything special for either birthday. I did buy my husband 30 presents for his 30th and gave him one a day for the month of March (which worked because his birthday is the 30th.) Since we were in Vegas for his actual birthday we let him decide what he wanted to do that night. We ended up going to the Tournament of Kings. It was fun.

We went up to my mom's this weekend and I thought of things I wanted to write about, but after two blog posts, I can't remember them anymore. I'll try to remember to post soon when I remember what they were.

The kind of month that just wears you down.

I love Christmas, I really do. No, it definitely isn't all about the presents, it is just such a joyful time of year. However, over the holidays everyone wants to see you. Which isn't necessarily a bad thing, except for when everyone that wants to see you is spread out in a bunch of directions. Our December went something like this:

1st weekend: Isaac's company Christmas Party. It is held at Seven Springs every year, the food is pretty good and it is fun when the slopes are open and you can watch the people outside skiing. Although it does seem weird to be dressed up and then see people walk by in their ski clothes lugging their skis around.

2nd weekend: I think we actually didn't have anything.

3rd weekend: Isaac's friend Scott's bash on Friday night. That is a rather eclectic group of people and that party sometimes gets rowdy. Then get up Saturday morning to drive in to Pittsburgh area (out past the airport) to my sister-in-law's (Bronwyn, Isaac's sister) house. Stay the night and have a big family Christmas with her, her husband, and their son, Isaac's mom, his dad and dad's girlfriend, and then some of Bronwyn's in-laws. Oh and Isaac's aunt and one of his two cousins.

Then even though we saw pretty much everyone at that family Christmas my father-in-law has to have a Christmas Eve thing at his house that he expects everyone to go to (even though there was only one person that was there that wasn't at the event on Sunday.) Then from there we drove up to my mom's that night to celebrate Christmas with my mom, grandparents, and sisters and their families. Then we had two days of nothing really going on. Then on Sunday we had a family Christmas party with all of my dad's brothers and sisters and their broods. (Dad was one of eight kids and I don't get to see any of his siblings very often anymore.)

That same day Isaac's mom's family had a family Christmas party also that we didn't make it too. It was also in the afternoon, but most of the people at that event are local, unlike dad's family.

Tuesday the 30th was the 5 year anniversary of my dad's death. It seems so hard to believe that it has been that long. My dad was always a big John Wayne fan, so I passed the evening by watching some of our favorite John Wayne movies (McLintock! and El Dorado). Isaac of course wouldn't watch them with me though. Dad and I watched those movies together so many times that I have some scenes pretty much memorized and I have the tendency to recite the lines.

For New Year's Eve we stayed in, but we couldn't decide what to do so Isaac decided he would endure the last of the John Wayne movies that I didn't get to on Tuesday (Rio Bravo). He of course picked the one that I knew the least amount of lines from.

Then the weekend after New Year's we had one more Christmas party to go to. This one was with Isaac's paternal grandmother's family. His grandmother was one of three I believe, but her brother had about a dozen kids (I'm not exaggerating, I'm just not sure that is the exact amount) and they're scattered all over the US, and that is one of the two times of year that a lot of them get to come in. This was only the second year I've gotten to go to one of those Christmases, usually they fall on the same weekend as the weekend we are in Franklin visiting my mom.

By the time December is over I'm always exhausted! The trips to my mom's and to Bronwyn's are both over two hour drives. The one after New Year's was another 1hr.+ drive and the trip into his dad's is even a 30 min. drive. It almost feels like the car is our home more than our house at times.

All that being said, it is definitely great to be able to spend some time with family. I love seeing my nephew run around at Bronwyn's, and I'm amazed at seeing my other nephew when I go to my mom's, just because he is already 16 and I was only 11 when he was born. It is always fun to see him interacting with his little sister as well (she's 6 & 1/2 now).

Time sure can fly

Even when nothing major is going on, time seems to pass so quickly. Over a month and a half ago I was asked to update my blog since I hadn't for a while. I was away on vacation at the time, so I've been saying to myself since I got back I need to go and update my blog. So finally, here I am. :-)

Since my last post, I've been to Orlando for ShowEast (theatre convention), California to visit family, and Las Vegas for ShoWest (another theatre convention). I've also had several weekends of traveling to Pittsburgh to see my sister-in-law and her family or up to Franklin to see my family. It seems like lately we've been getting no more than one weekend at home alone in a row.

Orlando was a lot of fun. We got to see I think 9 movies (including Earth, Soloist, Bolt and Soul Men). Met with some vendors and saw some new products coming out too. That's always interesting. After the convention was over we switched from the Marriott where the convention was to Port Orleans French Quarter (a Disney hotel). We went to Epcot one day and met up with one of my husband's co-workers and his family who were also on vacation. We were there during the International Food and Wine Festival. That was rather interesting we got to try out some new food, but probably not quite as many as we would have liked. The portion size was rather small and the price was $2 and up for each item. So we didn't do a whole lot of that. Although I did try some ginger ice cream (I think that's what it was) and that was really good. We had been to all four Disney parks in 2007 but we had a two day parkhopper pass and went to two parks each day. Epcot was the last one we went to, so we were really tired by that time and we didn't even really get to the world showcase.

The next day we went to MGM - which by that point was renamed Hollywood Studios. The only things I really remember us doing there this year were going to the Lights, Camera, Action stunt show and the Sci-fi Drive-in theatre restaurant. The Sci-fi restaurant was really interesting, it had cars with tables in them and a big movie screen which showed previews for cheesy sci-fi movies, and of course my husband recognized a few of them.

The next day we had a relaxing morning at the hotel, lounging around the pool. Then at two we went to Walt Disney World for Mickey's Not-So-Scary Halloween party. We had so much fun there. You got goody bags and got to go trick or treating all around the park. There were a lot more characters out and about for photo ops during the party including more of the villains you don't usually get to see. We had started a Disney photopass card at Epcot so we got all kinds of pictures taken. When we tried to get our picture taken with Donald Duck in Frontierland he pretty much pushed Isaac away and was just hugging me and kissing my hand things like that. At first I couldn't figure out why. Then I remembered that when we packed for the trip we had assumed we would get t-shirts at the convention. We didn't get any though so we had to buy some while we were there. So in Epcot Isaac picked up at least one and so did I. Mine was a Three Caballeros shirt. The Three Caballeros shirt with Donald and pals on it is the one I was wearing when we went to Frontierland. We had a lot of fun at the Halloween party and I'm hoping we can go to the Christmas party sometime.

After that we had to come home.

I believe November was really uneventful, so in my next post (because I'm at work, and this one is already kind of long) I will start up with December. I'll also try to post some pictures from Disney. Blogger is acting weird today and I can't add pictures.