The Kat's Meow

Happy New Year!

WOW. So much has happened since my last post.

I guess I'll recap in order. The wedding on September 24, 2005 was amazing! For more details on the weddingand honeymoon (and sometime I'll get pictures up, I promise), see the wedding blog for more details.

In October, we had the beginning of the first hockey season in over a year, which was very exciting for us. We love the LA Kings and are very excited to see them back on the ice. We've been very pleasantly surprised by our new goalies. Neither goalie has much experience in the NHL (LaBarbera actually had none), but they've both been doing an amazing job this season!

In November, David was sick most of the month with a horrible cough and sometimes fever that just would not go away. We still went to San Diego for Thanksgiving, but I know David didn't have as much fun as he would have otherwise. I even drove both ways, which is unheard of for him. Not sure why he thinks it's bad for me to "have to" drive, when it's okay for him, but he's very sweet that way. I always know he's very sick if he actually asks me to drive or takes me up on my offer to drive.

December was very busy month for both of us. David's company bought a brand new building and they moved into the new building in the middle of the month. Because of this, he had to miss tha annual NYC trip and Lisa's graduation from Clarion University of Pennsylvania, but Lisa and I had a blast in NYC with Dad. I was surprised by how many shows Lisa wanted to see with me. I saw 8 shows and one hockey game in my 6 days in NYC and Lisa saw 6 shows and one hockey game in her 5 days in the city. That's pretty amazing - even for me. We saw THREE shows on Sunday (starting with the Rockettes at 9:30 in the morning) to make it all possible. A bit crazy, but so much fun!

I really enjoyed seeing snow on the ground, in the trees, on the holiday decorations, etc. I hadn't seen snow since 2000 and I wasn't in NYC that time. Getting to see all my favorite places in the city decorated for the holidays was so much fun. The tree at Rockefeller seemed a bit small this year, but everything was still very gorgeous.

The stock exchange traded in the many large flags that have been hung on the building since 9/11 for a beautiful flag made of lights hung around the columns of the building. I was amazed at how much of an improvement the lights were. If you haven't been to the stock exchange since they put them up, I highly recommend seeing it at night during your next trip to the city. Hopefully, they'll keep these lights and not switch back to the regular flag after the holidays. I'm guessing they will. I got to see Craig, too, which is always nice. We got to hang out with him Sunday night and Wednesday night. Fortuntely, Dad and I got out of the city to head to PA for Lisa's graduation before the MTA strike hit the city. :-) Dad did have to go back before it was over, and I'm sure he was very happy that he decided to live close to work downtown and commute to midtown when he wants to see a show rather than the other way around! =)

I got to see a mini snow storm in Pittsburgh. While we were getting Dad & Lisa's tree, it was a white out for a few minutes - big snow flakes. It was great to see Pittsburgh when it was snowing. It had been a long time. Even better, there was no major snow fall, so the roads remained clear. Dad, Corinne, and I went to a Penguins game, which they lost (not surprisingly). It was good to see Crosby in person, though he wasn't really giving it his all in that game. Ryan Malone, one of my favorite Pens, scored a goal, so that was great. :-) I also got to see the new Pens coach in person for one of his first home games.

While I was having fun in NYC & PA, David was fighting with building contractors and dealing with the mess of getting the business moved in to their new building. Of course, nothing ever works out the way you want it to. The poor guy even had to get parts replaced on the simple refridgerator he ordered for the office. When it rains, it pours...

We spent Christmas in San Diego with family and had a great time, even though Tricia was in PA with Mike. We missed her, but enjoyed our time hanging out with Ellen & Bob.

New Year's in Vegas with Melissa and Tom was great. We stayed at their place in Henderson and just hung out most of the time. It was my first trip to Vegas where I didn't gamble at all. Even when I've flown through the Vegas airport before, I normally put a quarter in a slot machine or something. This time, we did no gambling, but had a great time just hanging out. Melissa and I drank too much New Year's Eve (she later decided it must have been food poisoning from the 9 raspberries in our champagne cocktails) and were both hung over and not feeling well till late in the afternoon on New Year's day. We watched movies on New Year's Day and Tbo, Melissa & Tom's roommate, got back in time for dinner.

I miss Melissa & Tom a lot, so it was great to see them and it's good to know that we're going back for President's Day weekend. Tom is having a "Dude weekend" in Vegas for his friends, which David is going to attend and I'm going out to hang out with Melissa and have fun with her.

Tom has had one of the Nintendogs for a while now, but I hadn't seen him yet. I sort of laughed when I heard about it and thought "That's great for Tom." I would have never guessed that I might be interested in getting one myself. Then, when we were visiting for New Year's, Tom put the Nintendo DS in my hand and told me how to play with Beavis (his beagle). I was amazed at how cute it was and how much fun! The next couple days, I asked Tom to play with Beavis a lot and decided I needed to get one of the Nintendogs for myself. Unfortunately, the nice colored NDS was a limited edition that is no longer being sold any more, but I got the silver one and I'm going to have David put the Nintendogs mocha skin that I have for it on as soon as I exchange the NDS (there's a bad pixel in the top screen) and make sure that the new one is okay. :-) I don't want him to have to deal with it twice. He always takes care of those for me, since he's so much better at stuff like that than I am. The Nintendo DS plays all other NDS games and Gameboy Advance games, too. I doubt I'll bother with Gameboy Advance games, since they only use one screen, but I'm sure we'll have quite a few Nintendo DS games before long. I definitely want one that's similar to the old standard Mario Brothers game I used to play on Lisa's Gameboy. Oh, the memories...

The other day, a 10-year-old girl was on Ellen, a show David and I Tivo every day telling everyone about how she heard about a police dog dying in the line of duty and decided to help by starting to save pennies to purchase bulletproof vests for police dogs. Please go to her site Protect-a-Dog to help raise money to protect police dogs. It's amazing what one person who wants to make a difference can do. Seeing her story really makes one think about how much more we could be doing to help.

Okay, I've rambled enough for now. I'll try to keep this more up to date in the future and perhaps I'll finally get around to starting a blog for show (movies, musicals, plays, etc.) reviews. A friend of my aunt's was trying to convince me to get into reviewing professionally, since I love the theatre so much and I guess the best way to start at least sharing my opinions with a larger audience is to start a blog, so I plan on doing that in the near future. Stay tuned...

Labels: charity, hockey, holiday, Kings, life, NHL, NYC, Pittsburgh

Posted by Kat @ 11:14 AM | 0 meows