Crazy weekends...
What a weekend! Taking the red eye to Harrisburg, then driving to Danville for your mother's 60th anniversary party and having to leave Danville just 28 hours later to return to Harrisburg to catch the flights back is TIRING! It would have been tiring without the huge delays in my return flight last night, but landing at LAX after 12:30 in the morning is a bit amusing. There was no one in the terminal who didn't work there other than the passengers on my flight and yet they were assigned a gate at the very end of the terminal. Wonderful...

Had I known I'd get in so late, I probably would have taken a cab home to at least spare my husband from having to wait. The funniest thing is that initially, it was saying that our flight would be early when he checked online. Then, it said on time, then it just kept getting later and later. Apparently, landing after midnight in LAX adds an extra 25 minutes to your flight time, since the pilot has to fly you out over the ocean for your approach, so they don't wake up everyone in LA. Just what you need when you're already going to be a lot later than scheduled.

Fortunately, the trip was well worth it. My mom, sister, and everyone else there (other than Tricia, who was my accomplice and got me all the info I needed) was shocked to see me. Mom even called again today to thank me for flying out for the party.

I finally got to meet my cousin Amy (and her husband Paul)'s adorable children. It's sad how long it's been since I saw that group of my mom's family. The kids are always the favorites, and even with meeting Kally, Ethan, Nicholas, and PJ, I still haven't met 5 of the other kids in that generation.

We had a great time hanging out with everyone and at the party on Saturday and taking the kids to Knoebels on Sunday. The party was supposed to be at Knoebels, but unfortunately the cabin was very badly damaged in the recent PA floods.

I almost finished the book I'm reading on the trip, but got too tired for reading during part of the last flight and tried to sleep through the flights on the way there. The funny thing about the book I'm reading is that my cousin Amy was telling me (and my sister Lisa) about this really good book she's reading and she had to go get it, since she couldn't remember what it was called. It was Little Earthquakes by Jennifer Weiner. I laughed and told her what I was reading. She's already read Good in Bed and I can see why she really identified with part of what the main character in it went through now that I'm almost done reading it.

I also met a guy across the aisle from me on my first flight yesterday who went to UCI, where I work, and now works at Hershey Medical Center with my cousin's husband (Jeff). I saw Jeff's father when I was at my mom's party, but unfortunately Jeff, Kathy, and the kids couldn't make it (but I hear all the kids did well in their all star games & swim meet). Sometimes it really is a small world.

Hope your day is going well. I'm counting down to after working out with my trainer when I can shower and just relax.

Labels: books, life, party, reading

Posted by Kat @ 2:11 PM | 0 meows

Dude (& Dudette) Weekend 2006
David and I spent this past weekend in Las Vegas, as we normally do for President's Day weekend (except for last year when we'd just moved and had the wedding planning and house stuff keeping us busy). However, this weekend wasn't the normal weekend in Las Vegas for us.

First, it wasn't Valentine's Day weekend as it was the last few times we went to Las Vegas on President's Day weekend.

More importantly, this year our friend Tom (and his wife Meli) organized Dude Weekend 2006. I went to hang out with Melissa, since I really miss her and I figured she'd be alone on the weekend otherwise. As it turns out, Kate was there, too, so it was three women and 6 guys. Mostly Penn Stater's.

It was really cool to meet some of Tom's friends we hadn't met yet (especially Ken, who's also very into hockey, even though it's the Rangers, and who shares my love of the Yankees) and spend some more time with their friends we had already met. It was also cool to hang out with Meli's friend Tricia for the little bit she was there (she was at a bike race most of the weekend supporting a friend).

The weekend was so much fun! We played some poker (Texas Hold-em, which seems to be one of the only things out there lately - I feel so much more with the in crowd in that one now, I'd watched it, but never played Texas Hold-em before). We bowled (which most of us hadn't done in years). I won one of the three rounds we bowled and was never the worst, so I saw that as an amazing feat in a group that was 4 guys, Meli, and me. :-) Poor Melissa was clearly having wrist issues - especially at the end and her scores dropped down as a result. I hope she's feeling okay now, she seemed fine yesterday. We also played Hoopla (by the makers of Cranium), which was a ton of fun. I love the games they make! The guys played Playstation 2 & our Nintendogs (Earl & Beavis) got together. They got along really well and I was able to give Beavis an accessory they hadn't found yet on one of their walks, which was cool. I figured there would be nothing I'd have found that they hadn't, since they've had their Nintendogs & NDS longer than I have, but that wasn't the case. :-)

I'm behind on the Olympics now, of course, but fortunately most of the sports on this past weekend were either sports I don't really care about (other than the results) like cross country skiing & ice dancing and things that I love in the early - mid games (like hockey and curling), so I'm already done with everything that happened before today. This is good, since I've got a nail appointment tomorrow, 700 Sundays on Wednesday, a chiropractor's appointment on Thursday, and a concert on Friday. I won't get to see any Olympics (or anything else, for that matter) on Wednesday or Friday, so it's going to be a while before I can see the news still. Fortunately, David keeps me up on anything major happening.

For those of you at Dude Weekend 2006, it was great to hang out with you. Thanks for letting me join you, even though I'm not a dude. Of course, when I mentioned this to Tom earlier today, he asked who I was kidding and pointed out that I'm a dude with breasts. With my love of sports, poker & other card games (I learned to count playing Blackjack and learned other card games from my dad growing up), etc., I guess I see his point on that one and I'm honored to be included. :-) I also want to thank you all (especially Holtz, who clearly had to bite his tongue yesterday when he read some news online) for not giving away anything about the Olympics to me. I think it's good that none of us are as into the Winter Olympics as we are the Summer Olympics. It would have been much more difficult to wait...

Thank you Tom & Melissa for all the work that went into this weekend. David and I had a great time and I know everyone else did, too! We hope to see you again soon and we're glad you haven't moved too far away yet! Stay close in Vegas. We'll definitely be out there for Frozen Fury 2006 and will surely see you before then.

Of course, no post during the Olympics would be complete without this...

GO USA!

Labels: baseball, hockey, Las Vegas, life, NHL, Olympics, party, Penn State, Yankees

Posted by Kat @ 9:53 PM | 0 meows

David's 30th Birthday Party
David's 30th Birthday Party went off without a hitch (thanks mostly to Mel, who made sure everything was in order at Dave & Buster's before we got there). David's party was mostly a surprise. I had to mess up the idea of just hanging out by putting on makeup on a Saturday - something I almost never do. So close... The important thing is that David was impressed that I could pull so many of our friends and his family together for one event and everyone seemed to have a great time! It was really great to see some of our friends - we really don't see some of you enough.

Now that the Olympics are over, we're going to be able to get back into our normal routine (and Netflix will stop wondering if we vanished). We're heading to the Sawdust Art Festival in Laguna Beach tomorrow night. Neither of us has ever been there, so we're excited.

I'm also looking forward to trying out the Orange County Mining Company this Saturday for David's real 30th birthday. Another busy weekend, since his birthday is followed by a wedding and Labor Day picnic on Sunday. Thank goodness for no work on Monday! We can relax some before going back to work.

Thanks again to everyone who helped out with David's party - the fact that you've all known for so long and nobody slipped up is wonderful!

Labels: party

Posted by Kat @ 2:12 PM | 0 meows