MEGA-Date

It is hard to find a babysitter some days, but even harder for us to find someone to watch our kids for an overnight. With our lack of family close by, weekend getaways are nearly impossible to come by. This is a conversation we were having with our friends one night a few months ago when Zack had a great idea. Let's do a kid-swap weekend. Which brings us to this past weekend. It was was round one of the kid-swap with our kids going off to our friends house (thanks Amy and Adam!) for the much anticipated "double sleep over" and Zack and I heading to NYC for our Mega-Date.

As many of you know, we are a couple of many contrasts. We own a Prius and a gas-guzzing SUV. I am a happily conservative republican who smooches with President Obama. We recycle, reuse, compost our kitchen waste and use CFL lightbulbs but we firmly believe in burning coal for energy production. You get the point. So when I explain that we opted to take the MEGA-BUS to NYC for the weekend versus driving to save money ($60 roundtrip for BOTH of us -- you can't park that cheaply in NYC), you won't be too surprised that we then took a cab to our hotel, the Waldorf-Astoria. Although, we did stay there for free (reward points are wonderful!). Now that we had "saved" so much money on transportation and accommodations, we used plenty of money to eat REALLY well and catch the latest Broadway show.

Eating in NYC is such a pleasure. Zack and I both enjoy eating food. All food. We love to try new food, cook new food, watch food shows on TV. So when we decided to go to NYC for the weekend, our first task was to figure out which restaurants of celebrity chefs we could get a reservation.

1. Friday night we went to Collicchio & Sons in the Meat Packing District. It was simply delicious from start to finish. The chef/owner is Tom Collicchio from Bravo's TV show Top Chef.

2. Saturday morning we headed to Ess-A-Bagels for breakfast. The line was long, but moved swiftly since it was akin to the soup-nazi from Seinfeld fame.

3. For lunch, we met Zack's former colleague, Courtney, who now lives/works in NYC at Mesa Grill. This is Bobby Flay's signature restaurant. I had a melt-in-your-mouth cornmeal crusted chile renello. This is a large poblano pepper stuffed with roasted eggplant and manchego cheese. Some of you are no doubt not salivating, but that is too bad. It was amazing.

4. City Lobster. After a frigid hour of standing in line for discounted show tickets, we stopped in for a bowl of clam chowder and a pint of porter. Not sure if the chowder was truly as spectacular as we thought it was or if it was just that we were that cold and the warmth of the soup made us feel that way. Nonetheless another yummy dish.

5. Fitting right into the flow of NYC, we ate dinner at 11pm after a show in Restaurant Row in the Theater District. It was called Yum Yum Too. In one block this Thai eatery had Yum Yum, Yum Yum Too and Yum Yum III. Clearly they were popular. The green curry and cashew chicken lived up to the hype, it was yummy too. ;-)

6. Sunday morning we found the understated Morning Star Cafe near our hotel. Just another little cafe in NYC, but the buckwheat pancakes and 7-grain oat french toast with real grade a maple syrup was fantastic.

After hearing about all those highly delicious and highly caloric feasting, I am happy to report that we burned an enormous quantity of calories walking every which way. We did a few touristy things this go around including:

1. NY Public library. Yes, they have a large collection of books, maps, etc. but the architecture of this building is what we went for: it is stunning.

2. Metropolitan Museum of Art. Not that we know much about the history of art or techniques that are used during this and that art period, but we enjoy walking around and saying, "wow. that is pretty" and "wow. what the hell is that suppose to be?"

3. Broadway show: SpiderMan. This is the much anticipated and overly panned rock musical that is plagued with actors getting hurt and changing directors. Of course, we had to see it since the music was created by Bono and The Edge. While we were excited to see what all the fuss was about, I was a bit nervous that all of the reviews bashing the show would lead us to a very expensive and disappointing evening. Thankfully, they were erroneous! It was a spectacle -- in a good way. The story was fine (typical comic book story good vs. evil), but the music was rocking, the actors flying over the audience battling each other, and the sets/scenery lived up to the hype. It was cool. We were secretly holding our breath scared of a sudden deathly fall of an actor every time they would fly up in their harness, so it was funny when they had to stop the show because a set fell and broke down during the scene. It is "technically" still a work in progress.

4. The subway. Since we both aspire to running the Amazing Race some day, we took on the challenge of the NYC subway system. We are happy to report that we can put a nice solid check mark on that to-do item. It really is fairly easy, not that dirty, and definitely faster than a cab or hoofing it all over town.

Hopefully you can deduce that we had a wonderful time on our Mega-two-night-NYC-date. My only bummer of the whole weekend was forgetting my camera. Right. I know. Me?! Yes, me. The shutterbug. The family photo historian forgot her camera on an adventure. Oh well, guess we will just have to go again!

The last two weeks FLEW by!

Hardly believe that two weeks have passed since POTUS and I became bosom buddies, because it seems like just yesterday. Yet SO much has happened. Allow me to catch up....

On Thursday, February 10th --- CJ's BIRTHDAY --- she was sick as a dog. She started the day off (okay, really it was 12 AM) with horrible vomitting. She was miserable and pathetic. It was so sad. She had been looking forward to her birthday for months. She spent the day laying on the couch and not moving. We had to cancel the little birthday dinner we had planned with our friends and deal with just getting some sips of water in the little thing. She did rally a bit after dinner since we had her open her presents, but then quickly crashed for the night.

Here's our FIVE year old. Can't believe it.

Barbie was the big hit for the night.

Alexander at age 17 is going to hate that I snapped this picture of him. But I love it!

On Friday, Zack left bright and early to go to his Dad's to take him in for a doctor's appointment. While he was gone for the day and overnight, I tried to nurse CJ back to health and entertain Alex.

Saturday: Zack got home after lunch, helped me clean and disinfect the house, and then prepared for our guests for CJ's belated bday dinner. We had fun hanging out with the adults and the kids (CJ full of energy again) had a ball playing, eating cheese balls and then dinner/cake.

The Birthday Girl. This is her third celebration. Hope she doesn't get used to this treatment!

How about the cake I made? She requested strawberry. I delivered.

The princess cap was a present. Amazing how she so quickly knew what to do with it and how to pose for the picture. Where ever does she get it???? ;-)

Here she is with friends, Taryn and Clare. The rest of the boys were too busy eating cake and ice cream.

I was off to bed early that night, since I was leaving for the airport at 5am to go to Las Vegas until Wednesday. Too bad, since CJ woke up at about 11pm with more stomach issues. Fun times.

Sunday: I leave at 5 am. Zack is now Mr. Mom. The kids and he hang out most of the day and take it fairly easy. The kids love it when it's just "Dad-time". Why wouldn't they? They skipped church and took a field trip to the pet store and each bought new video games for the Wii. I just can't compete with that!!

Monday: Goes pretty well. CJ off to school. Alex at school. Zack to work in the morning. They have plans to go to a friend's house for dinner. All should work smoothly.

Shortly after 10pm that night, Alex calls downstairs for Zack to come up to the bathroom. He is getting sick and now he has the vomit-bug. Luckily he made it to the bathroom, so Zack thought. Until... Alex says, "Daddy, you need to go into my room."

I was in Vegas having a great dinner with co-workers when I got the following text: Alex is sick now. His room looks like a gory horror film scene.

So, well, that was Monday... and most of Tuesday.

Mon-Tues.: Meanwhile in Nevada, I was doing great. Enjoying the 70 degree sunshine and jumping back into the saddle again as a professional. Since some of you who read this don't know, allow me to explain. For the last 3 years, I have being working as a part-time marketing consultant. A college friend of ours started his own business and I have been the "marketing department" for the company. It's been wonderful. I work from home on my own schedule and can easily say that I am too busy because my kids have to go to the park. It's been perfect.

We went to Vegas to show off a new software product at a tradeshow. So, here I was trading my mom comfy clothes for business attire and heels. It makes you realize how comfy those slippers and sneakers are when you are on your feet for 8 hours on a concrete tradeshow floor in heels.

This is our booth. It was a meat manufacturing and grocers association conference, so MegaMoo was making the rounds on the floor. I, obviously, needed to have a photo.

Here we (Nick and I) are at then end of the show. I insisted that we drink a Yard o' Daiquiri while walking down the Vegas Strip back to our hotel.

Wednesday: Zack is still nursing the ailing Alex, trying to get some work done, and sending CJ to school and a friend's house to play. He really stepped in as Mr. Mom with some serious gusto. Sure he was tired and hectic, but he was a rock star! In retrospect, this is good for me. If no one had been sick, he may have thought this was easy and fun. Which could lead to thoughts of him wanting to stay home while I go back to work full time. Well, I just can't have that! It's only a few short months until the pool opens. NOTE TO SELF: Do NOT go on a business trip this summer.

Thursday: I am home and Zack is on a plane bright and early to DC for work. This household is getting a bit crazy. All of the kids are now well and energetic.

Friday: Zack is in DC and then takes the train to Baltimore. I wait for after school and pack the kids and dog in the car to set off for Baltimore. We went to spend the weekend with our very good --- and very fun --- friends.

We had a great time hanging out with our friends eating, drinking, laughing and being merry. The kids (they have two boys) had so much fun that I really didn't see much of them. Every now and again they would pop up and request some food.

Left to right: Wrenny, CJ, Van Pelt, and Alexander.

Everyone went Duck-Pin bowling on Saturday morning.

The kids loved it, but I think that Nate and Zack got the most out of it. The whole weekend was a great escape for us all.

Sunday: We head home together. It had been a long two weeks of criss-crossing paths. I think we all did rather well, even with CJ and Alex working through that horrible 48-hour virus. The only thing a little worse for the wear was probably the carpet in Alex's room. But we can fix that.

It was a whirlwind of planes, trains and automobiles; good friends; hard work and fun times, but there is something to be said about being home, in your PJs and snuggling on the couch as a whole family just to watch Kung Fu Panda for the 100th time.

It's good to be home.

Number Game: 75-50-5

What do 75, 50, and 5 have in common on February 10th? It is the celebration of my favorite birthday girls: My mom, my sister Ann, and my little peanut, CJ. It is pretty cool that they all share the same day of birth and this year the multiples of 5 were just a cool extra.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY: Ann, CJ, and Mom!

We traveled to southeast PA this past weekend to honor the birthday girls with one of the fanciest family parties we have ever had! Ruth and Tai hired a caterer for the meal and so all we had to do was enjoy each other's company and feast! It was wonderful.

Mike, Zack and Jack. Great Minds.

The honorees were all smiles for the day!

The cousins. I love this picture. All the boys with CJ. From ages 17 to 5, those boys sat at the table and "ooo'ed and ahhhhed" while CJ opened her presents of frilly dresses and Barbie dolls!

Come on! Aren't they the cutest kids?????

Mary, Ann and Zack.

Tai and Ruth. They know how to kick a party up a few notches! Thanks Tai and Ruth for the yummy feast!

Self-portrait. Thought I should get in at least one photo. :-)

Mom and Dad. Can't you just feel the love?

Even though Paul/Julie/Ben didn't join us from South Carolina (and with these frigid temps, they are the smart ones!) it was a great family party. It was a really wonderful change from the typical holiday gathering. Everyone joined in one game or another and I even walked away a few dollars richer after an interesting game of pre-dinner poker.

I kissed the President and I liked it!

I continue to find it funny that I have had more "meetings" of famous people in the middle of central Pennsylvania then I did living in Washington, DC for 20 years. Perhaps when I came to tour Penn State as a high school senior with my parents and met Rusty Wallace (famed NASCAR driver) at a local hotel it was not just a random occurrence, but merely foreshadowing.

In the last three years, I have been able to have conversations (albeit quick ones) with:

1. Ryan Seacrest (American Idol host)

Here I am with Ryan and Maggie (Zack's colleague) at a PSU football game.

2. Todd Palin (Sarah's redneck husband, see earlier post http://nittanyhome.blogspot.com/2008/10/you-betcha.html)

Again, here I am with Maggie and Todd at a PSU football game.

3. Franco Harris (Pittsburgh Steeler and the famed Immaculate Reception)

Okay, I don't have a photo op with Franco. I just chatted with him in an elevator.. on the way up to watch a PSU football game. But the photo below made me laugh when I googled for a image of Franco. In the photo there are three people I have met while here in Happy Valley: Barack Obama, Sen. Casey, and Franco Harris. Too bad Bettis hasn't had the opportunity to meet me yet!! ;-)

and now,

4. President of the United States of America Barack Obama.

While POTUS was in Happy Valley giving a speech, Zack and I had the chance to sit up front and meet him on the 'rope-line' after his speech. Here's what went down.

Me thinking: {here he comes. what am i going to say? i'm between to state legislators who are bending his ear about issues/politics. should i mention i didn't vote for him? no, bad form. hmmmmm. ruth really likes him. what would she say?}

Me: Mr. President, my sister would just love it if I could give you a kiss on the cheek. May I?

POTUS: SURE!

Me: *smack*

Me: HA!!

Him: Hee-hee. (gives side hug)

And that was it. Not much substance, but still pretty cool to do. No one else got kisses on that rope line. So perhaps it was just Michelle and I who gave him kisses that day. Got to wonder.

Here's the best part of all of these chance-encounters... Zack. If it wasn't for him and his hard work, I would never have the chance to do any of these things. I like to joke that the harder he works, the luckier I get.

He simply shakes his head and smiles when I do these crazy things. Thanks Zack! Thanks for working hard and simply smiling at your crazy wife being a complete goof in front of people who get their name in the papers. Love you!

Winter

Every now and then, I get a few minutes at work while I eat at my desk to look at my favorite websites. Today, I checked our lovely little blog, kept up to date lovingly by Jean, and noticed that we haven't updated it once in 2011. So sad.
But I needed to write a blog post at least once this month, or risk being hounded by friends and family when we see you next.

But let's be honest...we all hibernate a little in January. While we haven't gone so far as to stock up on provisions and bar the doors, we do tend to put our heads down and plow through the winter months, every day thinking more about the sun that will soon warm our faces in the Spring and Summer.

But we have had a couple of things going on this month:
-We have enjoyed several Penn State wrestling matches. Alexander started really liking them last year, and Jean has now attended two matches this year. For those of you who aren't into wrestling, we understand, but on a cold and snowy January afternoon, we have enjoyed watching our recently top-ranked Nittany Lions on the mat. CJ justl looks forward to the popcorn and soda...

-State College hasn't really gotten a big snowfall this year, just several one to three inch coverings. But when the temperature doesn't rise above 30 degrees for the entire month, snow piles up a bit and now we have 6-8 inches on the ground. So this weekend we played in the yard a bit, unsuccessfully tried to make a snowman, and went sledding on our tiny hill in the backyard. Unfortunately, the hill likes to steer sleds directly into our shed, and at one point I pushed CJ down the hill only to have her go head first into the corner of the shed. Needless to say, she immediately wanted to come inside for hot cocoa...

-Jean and I have consumed more than our share of red wine this month. Enough said.

-We signed Alex and CJ up for a wrestling/fitness class Wednesday nights with the Nittany Lion Wrestling Club. It's fun to watch CJ run around the mats in her socks playing tag with 200 pound behemoths, and equally fun to watch Alex wrestle his buddy Luke after receiving instruction from some serious wrestlers.

-CJ is taking a gymnastics class on Tuesday afternoons. Look for pictures from Jean soon. I think CJ is more excited about wearing a leotard than about the actual gymnastics.

-The Steelers run to the Super Bowl has been tremendously exciting for our family. Alex is a true football fan, watching every game intently. Even more fun to watch are the mock games he plays by himself in the kitchen area, scoring touchdowns and interecepting passes with ease. He even keeps score, and accurately predicted a Steelers victory over the Jets (although his predicted score was Steelers 84, Jets 14). CJ just likes that we make nachos and have soda for every Steelers playoff game. (Do you sense a pattern here?)

-Finally, we've had two events for me this month. I was honored at my final "Dads Are Cool" breakfast at the pre-school earlier this month. The highlight of the breakfast, other than the 4 pancakes that each of our kids ate, was CJ standing on her chair singing the, "Dads are cool, dads are cool, sometimes they bring us to school" song... This past Saturday was the annual "Doughnuts for Dads" event sponsored by the elementary school PTA. Doughnuts and coffee, and a presentation by the general contractor on the elementary school renovation! Good times!

Hope everyone else is surviving this winter without Seasonal Affective Disorder...

Zack

Christmas Follies

What a great two weeks of fun our family has enjoyed. Not sure how to web a cohesive story about all our adventures, so you will have to be happy with the following pictorial review.

My sister Ann joined us for the festivities. We loved having her with us! She was here by Christmas eve and helped all of us gear up for the big day!

Constant checking of Norad's Santa tracking website. They were so in to it. In fact, when they went to bed that night, they begged us to go down and check it so that we knew if he was getting close that we had to hurry and go to bed so that Santa would stop at our house. Too cute!

The Great Debate: How many cookies does Santa eat at every house and how many carrots are the "right" amount. After much back and forth, they settled on six cookies and 8 carrots.

The final picture before going to bed with high hopes and excitement for the daybreak.

Here they are ripping into the big Santa present.

The camera caught this expression as he read the back of the steelers shirt. "Polamalu" -- he was loving it!

Santa brought CJ the "little sister, Purpley" to her Pinky horse (a white stuffed horse with a pink saddle). This gift was on CJ's Santa list for the last 3 months. Let me just say how excited I was that Santa was able to make this toy that CJ dreamed up in her head. It was just right, according to CJ, albeit "smaller" than she was hoping or thought it would be. That's when I reminded her that it was the "LITTLE" sister.

The the next day was spent playing with all the new games. Guess Who was CJ's favorite. While Alexander was all about marathon Uno.

To finally burn some of that energy, we all headed ice skating. This was the first time the kids tried ice skating while it was Ann, Zack and my first time in something like 15 to 30 years. Not sure what was more special about this day: was it the success and fun everyone had ice skating or the fact that CJ was wearing pants???

The Tuesday after Christmas, we headed to visit family. First to Zack's sister to exchange gifts with them and Zack's dad. It was a great visit for the five adults and 8 cousins.

CJ and Saren all dressed up.

Gift exchange, Part Two.

I guess you could call this controlled chaos.

Then we hopped in the car to head to my Mom and Dad's house. Another house full of aunts, grandparents and cousins. The kids were in heaven!!! On Wednesday, Zack and I took the kids and our nephew, Mike, to the Please Touch Museum in Philly. Talk about an interesting place to people watch!! The kids loved all the stuff to push, pull, poke and throw. I was on a mission to find every available Purell station.

This was a cool green-screen, dress up area. I can't believe we got Alexander to wear a pseudo costume!

Curiously, Alexander was the best of our group hula-hooping. He can shake those hips!

This was Flamingo croquet from Alice and Wonderland.

That night it was our last present opening escapade with the cousins and my parents. CJ opened two presents and then declared, "That's all I get?" Nice. That was a proud mommy moment! (Please detect my comment's dripping sarcasm).

These cousins look like they had enough of Christmas. Love the expressions of boredom on all of them.

My Mom and Dad. Always great to see them and spend some quality time.

Aunt Mary came through on this present. CJ opened it and within 2.3 seconds had changed into it. Three days later she is still wearing it. Not sure when I will get it off of her to wash!

We headed home the following day and everyone was a bit exhausted from late nights, early mornings and copious amounts of Christmas stimulation.

Another soon to be classic picture of CJ. Her Aunt Ronece gave her a dress up kit and she just had to put it all on. She stayed like this for most of the afternoon, belting out the lyrics to all of her own made-up songs. Hannah Montana better watch out!

Homework Time

Most people cringe when they hear a homework story coming. It usually involves frustration, confusion, short tempers and occasionally tears. So far, I have been lucky. Homework for a 1st grader is not that tough and my kid seems to like doing it. This fact I will, of course, remind him of in a few short years when teenage melancholy hits.

Alexander has homework Monday through Thursdays and it always include 10 to 15 minutes of reading to me. This is my favorite part. Now the tables are turned... which sadly means no more Goodnight Moon, but I really enjoy a good Berenstain Bears from my 6 year old toothless narrator.

CJ is never to be left out of anything (even homework), so she frequently joins in. She will do a few pages in a preschool workbook, color something, or try to "help". In fact, she is already writing kid-sentences and using punctuation. Sibling rivalry can be an excellent thing --- once harnessed and used for good!!

The other day, I was inspired to document our table-time. I want to remember how cool this time in their and my life is.

They were learning and having fun. Just the way I like it!

Deep thoughts....

Doing homework gets tiring, so a little head rest is apparently needed.

CJ was writing out a number chart from 0 to 100. She completed the whole thing and I was so proud!!! Four Years Old. That's all. She amazes me.

Alexander is doing a subtraction sheet. For some reason, he believes the answers are hidden on the top of his pencil.

Here comes the fun.....

"MUSH FACE"

"FISH LIPS"