Where Did March Go?

It’s kind of ironic that I’m starting a blog post with a title saying March is over and we’re getting hit with a snowstorm today. Oh well.

The last time Cindy or I posted here, we were still freshly relaxed from our trip to Maui and busy getting into the spring feeling by doing some cleaning at home. Now, 4 weekends later, so much has gone on that it’s really too much to cover in detail.  In the last few weeks, we’ve:

• Been to a few Hawks games,
• printed out photos from our Maui trip,
• ordered and received our vacation portraits (which we absolutely love),
• another cavity-free trip to the dentist,
• Cindy’s first visit to her new eye doctor,
• celebrated St. Patrick’s Day with some grub at Hackney’s,
• booked our next long weekend in Door County for my birthday in April,
• rocked out (badly) at our second Rockband Nite party,
• budgeted our next trip to Maui for September’s Maui Photo Festival (details soon),
• made it back to Woodfield (aka Swarovski) for the first time since January so Cindy could get her annual member pieces,
• and probably a dozen other things that I’m forgetting right now.

Hawks Games
As mentioned, we did manage to check out a few Hawks game this month. Two, to be exact, and both on the opposite sides of the spectrum. The first was a matinee game against the New York Islanders, a team which has the distinct honor of having the worst record in the league. And the Hawks played like garbage. There were actually people in the rows in front of us that decided to leave early, something we hadn’t seen in the handful of games we’ve been to this year.

The second game, however, was absolutely amazing. It was this past Wednesday against the Western Conference leading San Jose Sharks, and the rematch to the game we saw last year. Not only did we have incredible seats down in section 111, the Hawks played out of their you-know-whats to keep us on the edge of our seats the entire game. When the dust had settled, the Hawks were victorious by a score of 6-5 after needing a shootout to determine the outcome. 

Since we were setting closer for this game, I brought along some of my camera gear and took advantage of the view we had. I think I scored some pretty decent shots, and you can see them for yourself. We currently don’t have tickets for any more regular season games, but there’s always a chance we might grab some last minute. Potential playoff tickets go on sale Tuesday (they haven’t officially clinched anything yet), and we’re also planning on going to the upcoming Bud Light Hockey Night event at Buffalo Wild Wings the following week.

Door County
Well, seeing that it’s already been 4 weeks since our last vacation, we need to get away again. :)  Kidding aside, we’re going to spending my birthday up in Door County this year, as I celebrate turning 25 for the 4th time. This trip, we’re staying in Ephraim, which is just south of where we stayed in Sister Bay last December. We’re sticking with the 4 days weekend plan, leaving on Thursday (after a half-day at the office) and coming home Sunday night. Other than scouting out a few lighthouses, one of the state parks, and a spa day for Cindy, we’re planning to take it pretty slow and enjoy the peace and quiet.

It’s still a little bit chilly this time of year up in northern Wisconsin, but no where near the single digit temps and snow we encountered 4 months ago. From what we’ve been reading, we’re looking at mid-40’s during the day, which isn’t great, but still cool enough to switch on the fireplace and whip up the hot cocoa. May is supposed to be the time of year when everything starts blooming, so we’ll have to keep that in mind for next year.

Maui is Calling
As productive as March has been for everything else, I’m still pretty behind on my photos and website updates from our last trip to Maui. While I’m still working on getting caught up there, we’re already hoping to go back in September for the Maui Photo Festival and Workshops. It’s the first of what is shaping to be an annual event on the Valley Isle where novice and experienced photographers alike can attend workshops and hands-on instruction from professional photographers from around the world. Early registration ends on Tuesday, and I’m hoping to score the discount for that today or tomorrow and then start figuring out the rest of the details.

It’s a four day festival from Sept. 16th-20th, and we’re hoping to make a week out of it by leaving that Tuesday and ultimately arriving home the following Monday. While I’m off shooting and filling my brain (and my memory cards) with all new tips and skills, Cindy should have no problem finding things to do. It’s being held at the Hyatt Regency Maui, which has a HUGE spa and a quaint little stretch of sand along Ka’anapali Beach. It’s still walking distance from Whalers Village, where we always spend time during our annual trips, so it looks like a win-win for both of us. Plus, the 20th is our anniversary, and what better way to spend our anniversary than on Maui (again).

More Updates Soon
Seeing that it’s been almost four weeks in between this and our last post, we’re going to try and do a better job of keeping things updated here. March was such a busy month, but April doesn’t appear to be any less hectic, and once the weather (finally) starts warming up, we’ll be outdoors again and doing all sorts of fun things.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, it’s time to head out and grab some lunch. Where’s my winter coat?

Snow, Snow, Snow

Yup, Snow, Snow, Snow. As sung to the tune of "Girls, Girls, Girls."  Luckily, I don't know any other parts of the song. :)

Anyway, I wasn't being purposely underdramatic yesterday when I mentioned that the snow and frigid cold air was returning. I was just uninformed.  Turns out what I initially thought was just "a few snow showers" actually as the potential to leave us with 8" of fresh snow in the matter of only 36 hours!  Our first dose was early this morning, leaving about 2 inches by the time it stopped, and the heavy stuff is going to be starting in a few hours, just in time to spoil my commute home.

This might also be retaliation for a note I left on my photography blog about not having enough snow left to take photos at Bunker Hill again. So if you believe in karma and looking for someone to blame all this recent snowfall on, I'll take the heat (pardon the pun).

Skating Tonight?

Barring that I actually get home before midnight tonight with the evening rush hour, we're still contemplating visiting the Niles ice rink for some public skating indoors tonight. The other part of yesterday's post was still true, having evening temps only in the single digits next week, so if we want to keep up with our skating time, we'll have to do it indoors.

That is until we go public skating on Maui next month.  You read that right, public skating on Maui!  It's actually rollerblading out there, not ice skating, but it still looks to be fun.

Here we go again, more cold and snow

After enjoying some more seasonal weather as of late, and making it out to the ice rink 4 nights in a row (Sat-Tue), it looks like we're headed for another snow and cold tug-of-war.

It's in the teens right now, with a bright, cloudless sky stealing all the warm. We're supposed to be getting snow showers on and off tonight and tomorrow, but then the bottom falls out of the temps and we go back to single digit highs next week.  That makes it pretty unbearable to be doing anything outside, let alone trying to ice skate.

That just means if we want to skate anytime soon (which we do), we'll have to take it inside.  I'm starting to scope out some of the local ice rinks for public skating hours, and we'll probably hit up one or two this weekend.

If anyone is interested in joining us, shoot me a note and let me know.

Guess What? More Snow

Yes, as if you thought the frustrating pattern of...

Large snowfall, frigid temps, large snowfall, frigid temps, ...

Need another chapter, we'll it's here. It started snowing again waaaaaay early this morning, and for pretty much the entire day now it's been coming down with various amounts on intensity. Just around 3pm or so, while it was still light enough out, it looked rather nice with those giant snowflakes like we say Saturday night. Wishing I had taken a photo earlier, but now that it's darker, however, it's lost most of its charm.

The current predictions have this weather pattern going until at least tomorrow afternoon, and just for fun, switching from snow over to sleet and maybe rain depending on how warm it gets. All this, and no snow in the forecast for Xmas day.  What gives?  I guess that extra day this leap year is throwing off the schedule.

Anyway, talk of temps in the 40's this weekend is still a possibility, although, it will probably make the snow and ice even worse than it is now.  We'll see if they're right about December being the worst of the winter weather this year.

Second Skating Session

Those following me on Twitter and my Facebook buddies found out last night that I was back out on the ice again, and given today's deep freeze, it was just in time. And unlike two weeks ago, the rink was actually open this time!!!

It was a rather gorgeous night, if you like winter that is. It had been snowing lightly for about an hour by the time we left for the rink, and I was smart enough to bring my own shovel. Being on the ice for about an hour, I probably spent a third of the time shovelling enough space on the ice to actually skate. Those girls from the Ice Crew at the Hawks game are never around when you need them. :)

Anyway, Cindy came with this time, and although she wasn't skaing (yet), she still had fun and even shot a few video clips of me on the ice. I figured some sort of visual reference might be a good idea for those that either (a) don't believe I was back on the ice, or (b) wanted to see how fun it really was and come out skating next time.

This first clip is showing off that I still have a few moves left, and was taken later in the session once I shovelled a large enough area to spread out.

You can sort of see some of the snow falling down, but this next clip that Cindy shot is just of the snow falling itself. Again, if you like winter and enjoy those big fluffy snowflakes, this one is for you. If that's not your thing, you might want to turn away.

Personally, I think that shot of the snow falling is pure beauty.  Very well done, dear!

Overall, there are 7 clips that I uploaded, and you can few them using the playlist below. There is one of me shovelling, which is not to be interpretted as my audition tape for next year's Ice Crew. There is also a few of me skating with the camera, including the last one which is a pan of the entire rink. Very peaceful.

Enjoy.

Best Tuesday this Week

Given the fact that work Tuesday morning was a little more aggravating than usual (for multiple reasons), and since we had yet another snow storm that dumped close to 4" of snow on us, it didn't look like yesterday was going to be that memeroable. Well, yesterday was awesome!!!

Skipping all the bad stuff and going right for the gold, Tuesday night was our first trip to Buffalo Wild Wings for Bud Light's Hockey Night in Chicago. For about half of the Hawks' road games this season, they host an event at different area BWW locations, with giveways, a season long air hockey tournament, and a packed house with lots of hockey fans.  They've been doing this for a few years now, but this was our first one.

The Game

Last night's game was against the Edmonton Oilers, who despite being last in their division were on a bit of a roll winning 5 of their last 7 games. They even recently knocked off the league's best San Jose Sharks in OT, who the Hawks haven't been since 1812 or something like that.  Regardless, the Oilers are never a team to take lightly.

And the Hawks did anything but that. With a season record 5 goals in the second period, the Blackhawks provided all the firepower to keep a lot of wings fans (the buffalo kind) very happy despite horrible driving conditions and multi-hour travel times people had to endure to get there. The Hawks finished the night with a 9-2 win, which made everything else seem trivial.

As if a Hawks goal scoring spree and a few drinks wasn't good enough, the Hockey Night in Chicago event was a blast. They hold a season-long air hockey tournament, which my brother and I both signed up for. While my name wasn't picked to face-off in the tournament that night, Bobby's was. It was a short game in the first round, and he ended up getting bumped out by some 320 lb giant. The air hockey table itself didn't look that great, and I think my brother might have broken the other guy's finger with one of his shots. Hilarious.

Even though my name wasn't called for the tournament, it stayed in the box for some of the other giveaways they were having. Which turned out to be pretty sweet because about 30 minutes after Bobby was eliminated from the tournament, my name was called as a winner of 2 tickets to the Jan. 14th game against the Buffalo Sabres. Nice!

Needless to say, with a late 8:30pm start in Edmonton, the game lasted until about 11:30pm. The commute home was about 750% faster than the drive out there, which was great. Getting home around midnight, we mostly just crashed and, as a result, I'm getting a little later start than usual this morning. Well worth it.

Doing it all again

The Hawks website has the schedule for the other upcoming Hockey Nights. While most of them are out of decent driving distance for us, there are at least two more that we'll likely go to. We highly recommend going for anyone that has a chance and loves the Hawks.

Door County - Dec '08 Photos Posted

What few photos I was able to take from Friday have now been posted.  You can check them out on Flickr at our Door County - Dec '08 photo set.

As we had anticipated, there was quite a bit of snow already on the ground when we arrived. Friday was a very nice day, although it was terribly cold with temps only in the teens. Clear skies and only a brisk wind at times on Friday made for some good shooting conditions.

Saturday, however, was a different story altogether. The winds really picked up, and by Friday evening, it was snowing again. And is snowed all night and much of Saturday morning. It tapered off a little bit in the afternoon, but then the winds picked up. 30+ mph winds with gusts going up to 50 mph!  Bruttle for me to try and stay outside long enough to take more photos.

Anyway, take a peek and let me know what you think.

Snow and Holiday Shopping

That's what pretty much filled up our weekend. We had the first official snowfall here in the Chicagoland area, and what other to celebrate (I guess) that going out holiday shopping? Kidding aside, we did get quite a bit of our shopping done this weekend, and I'm trying hard not to pay attention to what we've been spending. It's all worth it though, in the end.

Still feeling a little overwhelmed with having too many things I'm trying to do not getting done. Some recent accomplishments do include, however, us receiving delivery of Cindy's new curio cabinet for all her crystal pieces (still in the process of taking pictures). We were also finally able to get all of our Maui '07 photos printed out that we wanted for our photo album and scrapbooks, and I even blew up one of the star photos for my office at home.

We're also days away from putting a deposit down on our next trip to Maui, which might actually happen sooner when we had hoped, so that's totally sweet. As more details are finalized, I'll post more info over at Ka'anapali Dreamin'.

That's the quick update for now. Will post a few more soon.