Making History in the Meadowlands

On Friday afternoon around 4:30pm, I got a crazy idea. I was reading an article online about how NY Giants fans were selling out and trying to make money on their Patriots/Giants tickets. The Patriots could make history during the Saturday evening game against the Giants in the Meadowlands. And the media made it sound like there were tickets to be had.

I have never been to a Patriots game. I have never been to an NFL game. However, Alex and I love the Patriots and are huge fans. He has become slightly (ok, extremely) obsessed with the NFL this season. It has been fun to follow football this year with Alex knowing every stat of every team and every player.

So with all of this information flying around my crazy brain, I somehow got the notion that Alex and I should attend the game. It was going to be an Historical NFL game afterall. At least it had the potential. And why shouldn't we be there? If the Giants were selling out and the stadium that held 80,000 people was going to be full of Patriots fans, why shouldn't we get to go be part of the fun?

Well, to make a long-ish story short about how we obtained tickets, let's just say I love eBay. You can truly get anything and everything on eBay. And I didn't exactly go through eBay, but I used them as a stepping stone. Tickets were insanely over-priced, but a lot of them were going unsold. So I started emailing the people who weren't selling their tickets. I told them I would make them an offer if they didn't sell them. And by 8am Saturday morning, I had 2 tickets to the Patriots/Giants game.

We left Syracuse at 11:00am. (After a bank stop and a gas fill-up.) We arrived in Hackensack, NJ around 3:00pm. I called Bernard, the man who was selling us the tickets. We had been in touch several times throughout the day already. He had told us where to meet him and we were there. He arrived within 10 minutes. And then, he offered to show us where to park the car so we could get a shuttle to the stadium. Apparently the Meadowlands is under major construction so there are only season ticket-holder parking spaces available. Bernard led us to a fun restaurant called "Grasshopper Also". He brought us inside to meet the hostess and told us how to get tickets for the shuttle. (Grasshoppers had a shuttle bus that ran down to the stadium before the game and then picked you up after the game. And they let you leave your car in their parking lot.) Bernard was the nicest man! Alex and I were very impressed with our experience so far. We exchanged cash for the tickets, we shook hands and off we went to experience a night of a lifetime.

It was only about 3:30 when we sat down at Grasshoppers to enjoy a much needed lunch. Alex had fish 'n chips and I had a nice ham and mashed potato dinner. We learned that the shuttle buses didn't start running until about 6:00. So we had a very leisurely lunch. We watched college football on the giant screen tv's. "Grasshopper Also" was an Irish sports bar/restaurant. They were extremely hospitable and great about letting us hang out at our table until the shuttles started running. Then again, Alex hadn't put on his Tom Brady jersey yet! The place was crawling with Giants fans. Hmmm...

6:00 finally arrived and we were on the first shuttle to the Stadium. The drive took about 5 minutes. The Meadowlands is a HUGE sports complex. Aside from the new Stadium they're building in the middle of it all, it houses Izod Center where the Nets play, there's a racetrack and they even have an indoor ski jump center. The Meadowlands Sports Complex is a "sprawling entertainment oasis". (Description stolen from their website.) And it really was!

Wow.. What a night, what a game, what an experience. I'm not sure what the media was talking about when they said the Giants fans were selling out, they were certainly there in full-force supporting their team. Yes, there were Patriots fans in attendance, but I think 85-90% of the crowd were die-hard Giants fans. They were loud, they were rude and they were pumped. But that's what made this whole experience all that more amazing. The energy in that stadium was like nothing I have ever experienced. By the end of the game, we were witness to 4 NFL records. We saw it in person. And it was awesome.


I have to thank those who made it possible for Alex and I to be able to do this. For all of those who helped talk me into this, thank you. I know it was very spontaneous and I asked a lot of a few people. To my parents: I apologize for any worry that we caused and I wish we could have had more time so that we could have stayed the night. To Eric & Steve: THANK YOU both for doing a tag-team dog watch for Jenny. I really, really am thankful to both of you for your help. I promise to be better about making concrete plans in the future!!

Here are photos from the game.

The New Zune Review

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I got a Zune for Christmas! And I love it. It has 30GB of storage space. I couldn't possibly ever fill that, could I? Well, maybe. But it might take awhile.

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The Zune requires special software that you have to load on your PC to be able to then load music, pictures, podcasts, videos, etc. on to your Zune. It's a little clunky to me. I thought the Zune would just show up as an external drive on my computer and I could drag things to it and be done with it. It's not that simple. You have to open the software on the computer, hook up the Zune using the special USB cable and let the Zune "sync" with the software.

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It doesn't take long to load files though. So far I have added 7 CD's and 60 miscellaneous songs. I have also loaded about 150 photos. I have only used about 1 GB of space.

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I love that you can share files wirelessly with other Zune users. (Eric also received a Zune for Christmas!) Pictures can be shared forever, music however is different. You only get 3 plays per song. (Or 3 days, which ever comes first.) However if you want to just borrow a friends CD and load it into the Zune software on the computer and "sync" it to the Zune, you're set forever. I think it's just Microsofts way of being "legal" with the music guru's.

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I have really been enjoying the radio feature on my Zune. I don't have a radio in my office, so when there's nothing I want to watch on tv (which happens quite often!) I can now listen to the radio. Or my cd's/mp3's.

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It really is a fun little device. I have never had (aside from a Sony Walkman in the 80s) anything like this. I can't wait to figure out all the neat features it has, I know I have barely scratched the surface. I highly recommend the Zune. And thank you Eric for my fun gift!

The Post-Christmas Post

It's over! The shopping, the baking, the wrapping, the giving and the getting. And the hype. It's over for another year. I hope everybody had a wonderful day and got to spend it with family and friends. Here are the photos of my very busy day. Enjoy!

Merry Christmas!

More Holiday Fun

Last night my friend Rebecca had a "Mrs Claus's Night Out" for the girls at a great restaurant called "Santangelos". It was a fun event. I'm glad she invited me! I hope the 1st Annual turns into many. Here are her photos of the evening. I only took a couple of photos, hers were much better!


The Christmas countdown clock is ticking. We packed up Alex's bags today, he'll be heading over to his dad's house tonight for the week. His Grandma & Grandpa and uncle are arriving tomorrow. I'll go over on Christmas morning to witness the massive unwrapping of gifts. On Christmas evening, Eric & I will head to his mom's house for a very nice dinner with his family. Sounds like a quiet weather week, which is nice for everybody who is travelling.

Tonight Eric and I are going to a Holiday gathering at Beeb's house. We're thinking we may stop at the new LLBean Factory Store over near his place. We don't go over to that side of town very often, so we'll try to squeeze in some shopping while we're there!

The Pink Fuzzy Box of Lipstick

Last evening we went to Eric's company party. PBS does it up right! They had a great sit-down dinner and fun door prizes too. Eric and I each won something. I won a gift certificate to a local restaurant and he won tickets to the Symphony. I see a couple of dates in the future! It was a very fun evening. Eric was in charge of taking photos.

Today was my last day of work this week. I have a half-day on Monday and Tuesday off. We had our 3rd Annual Holiday 3-hour Lunch for the Bridge Street crew today. I also exchanged gifts with a few friends. It was a very festive day! I somehow managed to get all my work done too.

Alex also had a gift exchange at school today. At 10:00 last night, after Eric's company party, I picked up Alex. He informed me that we needed to go shopping for his school gift exchange. He said they were doing a separate boy/girl gift exchange. So we had to buy a $5 "boy" gift. We went to Wegmans for candy. A gigantic Hershey's bar, a couple of containers of sour candy drops and a Rudolph push-pop. After I picked him up today, I asked him what he got in his gift exchange. Apparently the boy/girl gift exchange turned into a whole class gift exchange and he ended up getting a pink fuzzy box of lipstick. Poor kid. He was horrified and very unhappy. As any 11 year old boy would be. He said he threw away the pink fuzzy box and ended up giving the lipsticks to various girls. He kept the cherry flavored lip gloss for himself.

Holiday Concerts and Snow Tunnels

Alex's "Holiday" Choral Concert was this evening. It was a lot like all of the other choral/band type concerts we have attended in his 7 years of schooling. There was one thing that struck me as odd though. I noticed this last year as well, but this year it seemed even more obvious. The "Holiday" concerts now seem to be a generic tribute to the holiday season. No longer are our children allowed to sing traditional Christmas Carols. In fact, there was a well known Christmas carol that they had changed to say "Have yourself a merry little holiday..." Huh? What has happened to our culture? I love that we embrace all of the holidays (last year they sang Dreidel, Dreidel, Dreidel and a Kwanzaa song) but nobody is allowed to even whisper the word Christmas anymore for fear of offending someone. I don't understand how or why that happened. Why can't we embrace everybody and still be able to celebrate Christmas? Why can't our children sing a Christmas carol or two at the Holiday concert?? It is afterall still a holiday.


In other news, it finally stopped snowing today. We are up to 52.2" of snow for the winter... err... season. (Winter hasn't even officially started yet!) Our seasonal average is 112". We're almost half way there. Or are we? Jan-Feb are typically the big snowfall months. I hate to think of how much more we're going to get before it's over! I am SOO thankful to my parents for giving me that snowblower. The picture above is of our backyard. Jenny is in there somewhere, in the tunnels she created. She loves to plow through them. I think she is the blur near the middle.

Christmas Comes Early!

I got Red Sox tickets in the mail today!! Well, I got Red Sox tickets for a game in Cleveland. Fenway would have been fun, but this will be just as sweet. I almost felt bad when I read the letter that started with "Dear Indians Fan"... errr... The coupon for a free 6-pack of Pepsi was a nice added bonus.

I also got 5 other sets of tickets with my Sox tickets. I will have them available on eBay soon. I might try to sell the Yankees/Indians tickets at work though. I imagine someone would buy them. The rest will go on eBay.... should I try to get rid of them now or wait til it gets closer to baseball season??

Today, Alex and I went downtown to Kitty Hoynes for lunch and then to the Erie Canal Museum. They were having their annual Gingerbread Gallery. It was something fun and different to do. Some of the Gingerbread houses were amazing and very yummy looking.

Tomorrow I will be staying home. I'll be baking, watching the Patriots and probably running the snow blower a time or two. We're apparently getting some sort of Nor'easter. Yesterday "they" said we were getting 12-24". Now they're saying up to 12". I guess we'll know for sure on Monday when it's over!

Friday Meme Fun

Thanks for everybody who participated last week! Maybe more will join this week. Don't be shy!! Here is the question for this week:

What was your favorite Christmas gift as a child?

My Answer: I had many favorites, but the ol' Atari 2600 certainly stands out as one of the best. The fun my friends and I had with that game system was endless. Space Invaders, Pac Man, Asteroids. All classic video games and I had them all hooked up to the old console TV in my bedroom... those were the days!

Secret Santa and Some Snow

I had a great Secret Santa! And I was right, she has been on vacation. She more than made up for it though. A great Dunkin Donuts gift card (how did she know??) and a wonderful vanilla scented candle. All put together nicely in a pretty box.

It snowed all day today, as it did all over the Northeast. Finally it wasn't just us! I just came back inside from snowblowing. I'm getting pretty good at it now. It only took about 20 minutes. Then I took Jenny for a run around the cul de sac after the driveway was done. She loves diving through the piles of snow that are taller than her. Which isn't really all that high since she's so vertically challenged.

Just Call Me Sunny

Sunny Snickleifigus. That's my Elf name. Go get yours! It's fun. And then post them back here for us to see.

Ok... do you see anything wrong with the image above?? We stopped at the Dollar Store for Christmas gift bags and this was on one of them. Actually, it was on a whole stack of gift bags that were for sale. I guess in order to get something spelled correctly you have to spend more than $1.

And speaking of money, we're doing a Secret Santa thing at work. Some of the people playing give little gifts along the way and then one big gift at the final party. The person who got me must be saving it up 'til the end. Because I haven't received anything yet. However, the person I chose made out quite well. I gave him a $1 Lottery scratch ticket as one of his pre-gifts and he won $25. Aren't I a lucky Secret Santa!? Tomorrow is the reveal party, so I will find out who has me... I'm thinking it must be someone who was or has been on vacation.

Christmas Baking 101

Last night Alex decided he (we) wanted to make sugar cookies. I had all the ingredients on hand, we got a great recipe off bhg.com and in no time he had the electric mixer in hand. I was pleasantly surprised at his enthusiasm during the entire project. I figured he would show interest early on and then leave the cookie making to me. Nope. Not this time. Start to finish. (Well, minus the washing of the dishes...) He completed the project and proudly ate the fruits of his labor. He had a great time. I think that cooking class he took over the summer really paid off! He did all of the mixing and then the rolling of the dough. He cut all the shapes and placed them on the cookie sheets. I think my only participation was the sprinkling of the sprinkles and taking the hot cookie sheets out of the oven. We only made half of the cookies last night, so we can make the rest once this batch has been devoured.

A case of the Mondays.

This morning was like every Monday morning in our house. I normally wake up early to avoid the usual stress of the daily morning chaos. I take care of the dog, get myself ready, have a couple of cups of coffee, make lunches and check my email. These tasks usually go off without a hitch. My routine is pretty well set. I am ready to go by 8am every morning. And then I wake up my son.

My grumpy little man has never done mornings very well. It almost makes me laugh at just how grumpy he can be. Keeping a sense of humor is really the only way I can survive this daily ritual.

This morning was no different. In fact, it was a truly classic Monday morning. Alex woke up on his own today, which was a miracle in itself. But he only came downstairs to find out why the dog was barking. He was groggy and miserable. And then he started to cry because I told him I was just going upstairs to get him up. He thought he had more time to sleep. Nope. So back up he went, he crawled back into bed, and refused to get up. I followed, to make sure he realized it really was time to get ready for school. Then I left. A few minutes later I heard noise. Thankfully he was getting himself dressed.

He emerged downstairs and plopped himself down on the couch. He curled up into some blankets. He refused breakfast. It was 8:20.

I finished getting his bag packed. I took the dog out one more time. Last night, I forgot to put the car back in the garage, so it was covered with a nice coating of ice. So I got the car warming up and cleared of ice. I go back in the house around 8:30 to see how Alex's progress is going. He announced that he had to use the bathroom. The kind where you have to hang out for awhile and read a book. Great. I gave him 5 minutes. We usually leave the house around 8:40, so he had a few minutes. Knowing he moves at a snails pace, I plan for such things. At 8:44, we're finally departing the house.

I get myself into the car and look over at Alex as he's playing with the tree in the front yard. He's taking the frozen berries off of some of the twigs. I have no idea what he is doing and roll down my window to inquire. He had suddenly remembered that he needed arms for the snowman building contest at school. Huh? Fine time to remember that tidbit of information! So I jump out of the car to help. Otherwise, he'd be there forever trying to rip off perfectly good tree limbs from my only tree. There is probably a good foot of snow in the yard, a lot of it melted over the weekend, so it was wet, icy and very cold on my feet. Which had otherwise been warm and dry. I grabbed a couple of small branches, making sure to remove any frozen berries. I give Alex the "snowmen arms" and we jump in the car. We drive to the bus stop. As he gets out of the car, I notice that he left the tree limbs on the back seat. I asked him why he wasn't taking them with him. "Oh, the contest isn't until tomorrow. I don't need them today."

Perfect.

Soups On!

This is the best soup ever. And I mean that. Seriously. The best. It came highly recommended from a friend and she was sooo right. It is amazing soup. They have a nice variety, I bought the Creamy Potato and the Chicken Noodle. We had the Chicken Noodle for dinner tonight. You don't need to add anything but water, however I chose to add some extra chicken. It was wonderful. If you have a Christmas Tree Shop near you, you can find them there. They are $2.99 per packet. Each packet makes a huge amount of soup. You can also order them online for a very good price. (Not sure about shipping prices though.) I'm sure they are available in various stores, so keep an eye out for them! They're perfect for a winter evening!

Cleveland in April

It looks like Alex and I are going to Cleveland for Spring Break this year! Ok, that doesn't sound very exotic or fun to most people. But wait for the explanation! The Cleveland Indians are playing the Red Sox on April 14. And we now have tickets! It's just a 5-hr drive, which is actually a little closer than going to Boston (where I failed to get tickets). So we will bring our Red Sox gear and head for the Rock n Roll city. Hmm... maybe we'll visit the Rock n Roll Hall of Fame while we're there! I think Spring Break will be a good time. Oh, and I also have 5 other sets of tickets for other various games if anyone wants to go to Cleveland... I'm thinking I might make my money back on eBay.

Interactive Friday Fun

I'm going to try something new! Inspired by RB and her meme post... I want to do something a little more interactive on Fridays from now on. I will post a question, and all of my fun, loyal readers can share their thoughts, opinions and answers for all of us to enjoy. All you have to do is click on the "comment" link at the bottom of this post and a new window will pop up. Follow the instructions and post your reply! It's not a requirement to leave a name, but it's nice for the other readers to know who is saying what.

Ok. Here we go! The first Interactive Friday Fun Question:

What is your favorite holiday movie and why?

My answer: "Christmas Vacation" is by far my favorite holiday movie. It is hysterical. Every year I still laugh when Cousin Eddie shows up in his turtleneck dickie drinking eggnog from a moose cup. I love this movie for its humor and spirit. I can't wait to watch it this weekend!

Christmas cookies and snow

I have all the ingredients to make lots of cookies this weekend. My holiday favorites, Red and Green M&M cookies are first up. Then the Hershey Kiss cookies. I might also make a batch of pumpkin cookies. I also found a great recipe for Pumpkin Pie Bars that looks quite good. Although, I might wait and make those once the cookies have disappeared. That's far too many sweets for one weekend. Even though I'll be giving a lot of it away.

The snow finally stopped this afternoon. I actually saw the sun come out for a bit. I think we had 4 straight days of non-stop snow. I hear it will probably start back up in some form or other tomorrow. But I bought a new 2-gallon gas can, so now I can have up to 3 1/4 gallons of gas on-hand for the snow blower. I think (hope) that will last a little while.

I think we have a nice quiet weekend ahead. No parties, no ballets, no nothing. Just some relaxation, possibly some shopping (not at the mall) and lots of baking.

The Igloo

Alex is in the midst of constructing an igloo in the front yard. He's stock piling pieces, made with the help of a rubbermaid container. It's still snowing out there, so the pile might be buried by the morning. Oh well, the winter is young, there will be more time to construct and more snow to do it with.

It won't stop snowing!!

"They" said it would taper off after midnight. I'm now wodering if "they" meant midnight 3 days from now. It's not slowing down, and there's no end in sight. There's no school either. I also figured out how much snow I can clear on a tank of gas. Although, to be fair, I'm not sure if the tank was full when I started.

At least the Patriots pulled it out in the last seconds of the game last night! That was quite the game. Phew... I'm exhausted!!

Golden Snowballs & Footballs

Well, we're leading the race. So far anyway. There's a long way to go. And not really a race I look forward to winning! I used the snow blower again this evening. And will probably need to use it again in the morning. It's supposed to snow all night. I wonder how much snow I can clear on a tank of gas...

We're inside keeping warm. Having more hot cocoa with marshmallows and watching Monday Night Football. Hoping for #12 to lead us to 12-0. Go Patriots!

Snow blowin' & tubin'

I got the chance to use the new snowblower today. This photo was taken after I had already cleared the snow... but you get the idea. We didn't get that much, just a few inches. But it was good practice for the big stuff. Which will be here soon.
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Video of Alex using his snow-tube.

Holiday Hoopla

Eric and I attended my company Holiday Party last night. It was at the Glen Loch Restaurant in Jamesville. I had never been to the Glen Loch, or to Jamesville for that matter. It was about 30 minutes south of my house, straight down the interstate, then off some side roads and into the woods to the middle of nowhere. It was very cold and there were intermittent snow squalls. We arrived around 7:30 to find no parking in the lot by the restaurant. It seemed others had the same problem. There were what seemed to be restaurant staff out braving the snow and cold to direct cars to an empty, muddy field across the road from the restaurant. So in our formal wear and high heels, (well I wore high heels, Eric did not) ran through the mud, snow, ice and cold from the car to the restaurant. It was warm inside, but very crowded. I think the entire staff showed up with their significant others. In addition, we had clients and their significant others. I would say there were about 200+ people there. A very good turn out. However, it was very crowded the first hour or two. The bar was 3-4 people deep waiting for beverages. I felt like I was at a college keg party, without the stench of stale beer. We chatted with many co-workers on our way to the bar for our first of many (well, I had many... Eric was a very good designated driver.) Then after that, we stood in line for the buffet. They had a roast station, with rolls, then a pasta station, a salad station and a nice dessert area. We headed back to the room with the bar to park ourselves down at a great table in front of the fireplace. It was very cozy and warm. I think it is safe to say it was a good time had by all. Here are some photos of the party. Enjoy!