Pictures

I have been getting hounded for a new blog, so here it is. I really haven't written because I had no new pictures to share with you. I now have some and hope you enjoy them all.

The first major snow storm hit New York on Friday. This is the view out on the ledge of the building where CB Radio and I work. I was also trying to get all the snowflakes coming down, but you can't really see that too well.

Another view out of the window at work. You can tell how fast the snow was falling because it just looks cloudy.

CB Radio hard at work on Friday. She was eating a left over cookie from our "holiday party" the day before. The holiday party was just a get together in our conference room during work on Thursday. There was also some more karaoke, but not as much as last time. I ate way too many sweet treats at the party, but I also got to drink some egg nog and rum!

Me also hard at work on Friday. Look it was snowing and the day after our party at the office. We just needed a little down time. I was also hit by a snowball at work, but don't worry I got BSIII back with my own snowball. Well really it was what was left over from what he threw at me, but still I got him back.

Friday night Coriander, Mateo, DKNY, BH and myself went out to dinner around Union Square at a Ramen Restaurant. Our original plan was to go ice skating, but the weather was so bad it closed the rink. The food was very good, and just what was needed on a snowy night.

After dinner when we were waiting for our check. I bet BH will love that I put this picture up. We also saw a movie after dinner. I haven't seen a movie in the theater for quite some time.

On the walk home from the L train. As you can see it was starting to snow again.

BH & DKNY walking in front of me on our brisk walk to our respective apartments. This is just before a girl that was wasted in high heels, in the snow mind you, fell in the middle of the street. DKNY was nice enough to help her out of the street and home, along with another person from the restaurant she fell in front of. I was going to take a picture, but I felt bad since she had just fallen.

I was told that the snow gets nasty and gross quickly in New York so I took a picture of it. I was a little disappointed in how gross the snow got; to me it looked the same as it does in Cincinnati after a ton of cars drive on the snow. It may be different in Manhattan though, I wasn't there late enough after the snow to test the theory.

On Saturday DKNY and Mateo went with me to the Xavier game in New Jersey. I was my first time getting on the New Jersey Transit system and boy was it a blast. They don't assign a gate for the train till 10 minutes before the train is scheduled to leave so you just have to wait around till they call the gate. Then once they announce it everyone hurries to the gate and you feel like you are being herded through the doors to your train. On our way down to the platform the escalator stopped working. I have never been mid ride on an escalator when it stopped working before, it is a fun experience. You slowly come to a stop, but your body kind of wants to keep going at the speed you originally were going, fun times. Really the transit out the Meadowlands isn't all that bad. They have a nice system, other than the original boarding at Penn Station.

Our seats for the Xavier vs. Duke game. Great seats too bad Xavier decided not to show up and play basketball that day.

The game was so far out of reach, after the first 5 minutes, I had time to take some pictures of the game. I also bet Mateo and DKNY and if Xavier came back from down 31 at the half and won the game I would pay for both of their tickets. Let's just say I knew it was a safe bet and I ended up winning.

Sunday was Christmas cookie baking time. BH being very domestic with her cookie skills.

Me doing some baking as well.Here are some of our fine creations. We made five different kinds of cookies all together.

More cookies, I will be bringing most of them home with me.

Our fourth variety of cookie for the day.

And our last cookies, I hope everyone will enjoy some cookies at Festivus or my family will enjoy them on Christmas because we made a ton of cookies.

Jenny even threw some on the floor and we have a ton. We put those back in the pile of cookies so you better hope you don't end up with a floor cookie.

Coriander cutting Mateo's hair. He said he had a mullet and wanted to get rid of it.

It all started innocently enough with a trimmer.

But then it got serious with some huge scissors. In the end it looked fine and now Mateo doesn't have a mullet.
This is my wall of Christmas cards. It may not look like much, but it is at least some decoration in my otherwise bland room. Thanks everyone who sent me a card!

I will be traveling on the 23rd to go home to Cincinnati and I will try and take more pictures of all the Holiday goings on that I will be attending, especially Festivus. And I will try to write a blog more quickly this time around.

I am getting ready for the Holiday's; I don't have any pregnancy news to give as a present.

Coldness

Well it has been another week, so I guess it is time for another blog. Plus I am drinking some wine by myself and listening to Christmas music so that seems like the appropriate time for some blogging in my book.

Once again I don't have many pictures to go with this blog so I am going to try and keep it on the shorter side. I know "people" would much rather see pictures than read my horrible writing. I have never been a very good writer and I know it too. So here are some highlights from the week that was.

Wednesday I went to the bar with Mateo to watch the Xavier game. It is hard to find bars in Brooklyn that show Xavier games; we tried, but ended up back in Manhattan at bar XII where you always know the XU game will be on. DKNY and BH considered coming with us, but backed out at the last minute. When we got to the bar and ordered some beers they said they were having trouble with all of the taps and we had to go with bottled beer. Then we ordered a bottled beer and they were out of it, on to something else. I told our waitress to just bring me whatever they had because it really didn't matter at that point; I didn't want to strike out three times. I got a nice refreshing Michelob Ultra, but hey it was free since they didn't have our first two beer selections. There were some other X fans there as well, but we didn't talk to them. I'm glad I have someone who wants to watch basketball with me in NYC, thanks Mateo! You will probably get to hear all about another Xavier game in the next blog too, in fact the crosstown shootout is on Saturday.

Friday night after work CB Radio and I met up with Goose to help him light the green screen for his Saturday movie shoot. We didn't have to meet till 7:00 so CB and I went and got some dinner after work before meeting up with Goose. We went to a Thai place right across the street from SVA, and we were going to get some "drinks", the only thing on the menu was a generic Thai beer. What the hey, how bad could a Thai beer be, but of course they didn't have any; we were denied our beers.

Lighting didn't take too long so we went to a bar for a couple of drinks, where DKNY met up with us, before heading home for the night. It was going to be an early morning, 6am, on Saturday for the final day of shooting.

Saturday morning was freeeezzzing! We were out in the bitter cold right by the water for about 3 hours in the morning, where there was no sun either, freezing our butts off to help Goose with his movie. Luckily CB Radio and Goose brought some hand warmers, the little packets you put in your gloves to keep your hands warm, for everyone so we would have our extremities freeze off. I put the hand warmers in my shoes too; my feet were so cold I thought my toes were going to freeze off. Let's just say I never wanted to be running on a Saturday morning as much as I did that day.

After freezing our butts off we finally got to go indoors and finish up all of the shooting. It is now official that the movie is finished shooting, unless of course Goose finds something he needs to pick up while editing. When I got home from the long morning/afternoon only one thing was in order, a nap. I got in a nice 2 hour nap before heading out for the night.

When I left with Goose on Saturday night , much to my surprise, it was snowing! Ok, really it was flurrying, but hey it was my first NYC snow so I took it all in. We met up with Joel, TB and Ice and headed out to some bars in the Park Slope neighborhood. Nothing overly exciting happened yet we managed to still be out till 4:30am.

Which brings me to my Sunday, well it was already Sunday at that point. I did nothing on Sunday. I didn't even leave the apartment that is how little I did. It was just laying around doing some reading, netflix watching and Christmas shopping. Hopefully I can finish all of my Christmas shopping tonight and be worry free till Christmas.

It was a longer blog than I was expecting; I'm not expecting a long time of child rearing ahead.

Cincinnati Thanksgiving

Well as you all know I went back to Cincinnati for the first time since moving to New York this weekend. It was my turn to go see Ando and since it was Thanksgiving now was as good of time as any. Really I haven't been able to go before because I don't have the time off work. Luckily the day after Thanksgiving is considered a holiday at our company and I didn't have to take any days off to head to Cincinnati for 3 days.

I flew out of JFK on Thursday morning and was expecting some long lines to get through security since that is all you hear about this time of year, and I have never flown around Thanksgiving, but I was mistaken. I didn't need to leave myself two and a half hours to get to the airport and through security. It only took a half hour to get to the airport, with my gabby driver, and even shorter to go through security. Lets go back to my car driver though. He was quite a talker and didn't shut up the whole car ride. I found out all about him and his family as well as how he like Thanksgiving more than Christmas because he can work more. It was 6am too, the last thing I felt like doing was talking to my driver the whole way to the airport, but you can't win them all.

When I got to my gate I talked to the gate agent about not needing my connecting flight anymore. I thought I was going to have to make up a story about how I needed to get off in Cincinnati because it would be quicker for me to drive to Dayton than wait two hours for my next flight to take off, but that wasn't the case. He said it was fine and he unchecked me from the flight right away. Thank goodness I could get off Cincinnati and not waste time waiting around for a flight to Dayton and then have to drive an hour back to Cincinnati.

My plane landed an half hour early in Cincinnati and I called Ando to see if he had left yet to pick me up, but he hadn't. I told him to leave right away since I was so early. Luckily I came into the C terminal so I took my time walking back and didn't get on the tram, which I really don't understand why anyone would need to.

That afternoon Ando and I went to his family gathering and then at night we went to my families Thanksgiving. This year we only ate one Thanksgiving meal; with Ando's family and that is what I am most grateful for. Last year I was so stuffed from eating twice and I am glad that we decided not to make the same mistake again this year. I also got to see my nephew whom I haven't seen in quite some time. He is really starting to come out of his shell and is becoming just what you would think a 3 year old little boy would be. Christmas should be exciting with a child around this year.

On Friday Ando and I met my dad downtown for lunch; it is just something my dad and I have always done since I can remember. Really all of my sibling will go down and meet my dad for lunch. We used to ride the bus downtown when we were little to go meet my dad for lunch and somehow it has continued on all these years. After lunch Ando and I went to the Contemporary Arts Center. We still had not been to the new space and we had the whole day off and were downtown so we decided to go. I'm glad I finally went and got to see the space as well as see the art. Nothing blew me away in the exhibits, but I still enjoyed them all.

Friday night was some dinner at Asiana with Ando, Jenster, Teed, Mo, Wint, Wenda and ED. For some reason it took longer than usual for us to order and get our food so it was a good thing we had some back-up adult beverages in the car. And after everyone got their meals Ando and I realized that they forgot our sushi boat. We decided to just split some sushi as our dinner, but they forgot to look at the back of the sushi menu and missed our boat completely. We finally got our sushi after everyone ate and Teed and Mo had already left for the night; Mo wasn't feeling well.

The night was topped of with Ando, Jenster, Wint, Wenda and myself all heading to Molly Malone's for some good beers on tap; TD met up with us as well since she was in the area, or Cincinnati for her.

Saturday Ando and I had an appointment to meet with a florist and cake person to discuss wedding plans. Well really I had some appointments and I just drug Ando to them. The appointment was supposed to be for 11am, but the cake lady didn't show up till noon, I think. It felt like we were sitting there forever talking to the flower lady with nothing really to say. After sitting and agonizing for an hour the cake lady finally showed up and we talked about cake flavors and price, don't worry I worked in a coconut layer. We haven't officially gone with this place, so I will let you know when the final decision has been made and what to look for when selecting a piece of cake at the wedding.

When we finished the appointment we met Rando at his place and walked down to Skyline for some lunch. I realize that I don't really miss Skyline that much. Yes, I like it, but I wouldn't say that it was so awesome while I was eating it. I can definitely go two months without eating Skyline and not have a craving for it.

That night was my 10 year high school reunion, which I hadn't decided if I was going to go to or not by the time the night rolled around, but in the end I went. I kind of only went because Jenster was feeling sick that day and couldn't go any more. She already paid to go, so I was just filling in for her which didn't matter in the end. They weren't checking anyone in or making sure you paid to be there. The reunion turned out to be a little disappointing as well. All the people I was hoping to see weren't there. In the end it was just a strange mix of people that you wouldn't think would be at the reunion and not many people who you thought would. In fact I have no really good stories to share with you.

After the reunion we headed over to BW's and met up with Ando for a little hanging out amongst ourselves. I didn't want to stay out too late since I had to get up early for my flight the next morning, plus I had a huge headache, so we left around midnight to head home. My flight was out of Dayton this time around and we left out house at 6:30am to get me to the airport on time. When a flight is early in the morning is when you wish you could just fly out of CVG for cheap.

There were no problems with my flight on the way back either, in fact I got in about 20 minutes early this time around. Of course my cab driver had no idea where he was going to get me home, so I had to lead him in the right direction, or really just lead him the whole time. It was a crappy day out in New York as well, but there were things that I just wanted to get done so I pushed myself out the door, after a quick nap of course, to get some laundry and grocery shopping done.

That pretty much sums up my trip back home for the long Thanksgiving weekend and I am sorry about the lack of pictures, but I just didn't think about pulling out my camera ever.

I flew back to Cincinnati for the first time since moving; there was no baby flying with me.