Kristin/Patrick and the In-Law in the City Pt 2

I promised you a multiple blog series about our trip to New York, since I am not in the business to disappoint here you are.......

Once we got off the train and into the city we had a pretty easy time finding our hotel and getting settled, since we had a couple of hours we decided we would walk up from our hotel in Chelsea and grab some dinner, tool around Times Square for a while and find our way to the theatre right off Broadway... that was the plan and to be fair we started off right, we stumbled upon a cool looking Irish Pub (seeing as though I married a Patrick and my in-laws just got back from Ireland last year this definately appealed to us) The restaurant was great, I had a Reuben because I have a soft spot for New York Reubens (I am well aware of the fact that if I keep eating them, that soft spot is where I will likely have a heart attack, but one sandwich will not be the death of me right)

While we were eating our yummy food minding our own business outside was a absolute downpour. Rainstorms are a little different when you are in a city and you are walking. I would say the word "pandemonium" would be actuate to describe what was happening on the streets. People were running into stores and bars just trying to get out of the rain. But we were prepared so we donned our ponchos and hit the streets.

We walked around for a bit and hit some stores mainly Toys R Us Times Square. If you haven't been there it is a real treat, they have everything, EVERYTHING.  Like.....

Barbies

Dinosaurs

and a Ferris Wheel!!!!!!!! I mean lets be real, that is just awesome.

Finally it was time to go to the show and since you are not allowed to take pictures inside the theatre I have no pictures but, the show was amazing. As somebody who is the employer at work it seems so very "anti-establishment" for me to go a show about a newspaper boy strike at the turn of the 20th century. I did a little bit of research before we left for NYC and I learned that the strike really did happen and helped lead to the establishment of child labor laws in the state of New York. (that is your tidbit of knowledge for today)

The singing was phenomenal, the dancing was out of this world. It was just great 100% worth the trip to the city. If you have the opportunity to go, do it, don't hesitate and buy the ticket immediately.

All in all.... Newsies was great!!!!!!!!!!

Next up in the thrilling conclusion of our trip to NYC: Free day in the city and I bet you will be a bit surprised where Patrick and I ended up.

My Ode to Bridgewater... Go BC

So I know I promised the next part of my trip to NYC with Patrick and his family update, but I got struck by such inspiration that I felt it necessary to post about it before I got distracted or forget about it. So don't worry avid followers I will post part 2 very soon (with a little luck it will be later this week.)

I notice as I scan my Facebook newsfeed that it seems like just about everybody is going to school these days. Lots of friends returning to college and sadly for even more of my friends their children are heading to school (some even for the first time) So I wanted to take a moment a dwell on my time at Bridgewater and tell a little story.

I wouldn't call myself the best of students. I had a hard time keeping up my motivation to finish projects all the time and truth be told I would have much rather spend time hanging out with my friends then go to class or do work and so that is what I did. Overall I had a awesome college experience I would say I did just about everything you are actually supposed to do while in college we ate, we drank, we had road trips and spring break, we skipped class to play old school Nintendo, attempted to steal street signs unsuccessfully, and spent entirely too many nights driving to Sheetz... but most importantly I graduated.

One of the things that Bridgewater College asks of all students is that they require you to attend 7 convocations or symposiums every semester. They are at the same week and there are no classes scheduled at the time to give all the students plenty of time to attend without class distractions. Nobody really liked going to convos but I hated going to them and so I just didn't. For the longest time my convo truancy was no big deal to anybody else but me and my roommates, it was a bit of a joke. Turns out though that if you do not attend all required convos it is printed on your semester grades and after a couple of semesters my parents finally figured that all out. Needless to say my parents were not too excited to know that I have just been not attending something that they paid for.

Now that you know the backstory, let me tell you what happened last week.

In my office the administrative assistance (lets call her B) her daughter is off to Bridgewater this week for her freshman year, we will call her daughter, A. A is super duper excited to start off at college, even though we are close to Bridgewater she is moving on campus and can't wait to start her classes and experience. Every once in a while she comes in to the office to visit with her mom during her lunch. Last week I walked into the office A had come in and while visiting during lunch they were looking at some of her Bridgewater information and talking about convos, A was trying to pick what she thought might be interesting to attend and as I walked past them in conversation B says words she would later come to regret,
        B: "Kristin you went to Bridgewater, tell A about how the convos work."
                 ... I couldn't help but laugh
       Me: "I might be the worst person to ask about convos."
       B: "Why, is there something wrong with them?
       Me: "Yeah they are terribly boring and I never went and I still graduated."

Turns out I probably should not have said that in front of her daughter A. #oppsie

Good luck A, have a great time at Bridgewater and take it from me, go to class, it actually makes cramming for tests easier if you have an idea what they talked about it class in the first place.

And just in case you need a little proof that I actually did graduate,  well here you go.

Kristin/Patrick and the In-Laws in the City Pt 1

While I may have spent the last 7 years of my life living in very rural Rockingham Co Va, I would really consider myself more of a city kinda gal.  Of all the cities in the world, I love love love love love New York. My mother is from Philadelphia and most of her family is based in either Long Island or Pittsburgh and over the years we have spent a lot of time in the city site seeing and just generally tooling around. So when the idea came up to plan a quick trip up north to see a show came up, obviously I was ready to pack my bags.

My husband is one of the smartest, worldly, down to earth people on the planet, so he doesn't always believe in splurging on a vacation. But he is also a movie fan and one of his favorite movies from when he was a kid was Newsies.

If you are lucky enough to remember this movie (PS it was released in 1992) you will know that it is awesome, stars a young Christian Bale, the singing and dancing is awesome.... and I owned it on VHS!!!!

Last year while watching the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, I learned that Newsies was playing on Broadway for a limited run. I immediately started begging my husband to let us go. Early in the spring my in-laws, Patrick, and I finally nailed down plans to explore the city. So we went, we booked tickets on the train destination NYC. So here is the rundown of our adventures in the city.

Come On Ride It Train:

When my mother-in-law (she will furthermore be known as MIL) suggested taking the train so we wouldn't have to drive I thought it was a great idea, parking in the city is a disaster and we both have new cars so clearly we didn't want to risk messing them up in the city.

I was kinda envisioning something very white glove and classy. You can imagine my disappointment that nobody greeted me with gloves and a top hat and no table clothes on the tables. I am not saying that the Amtrak was awful in fact I would say it was very similar to being on a airplane which I have done about a 1000 times. The neat part about riding the train as opposed to flying is that you get to go through cities and see landmarks you would never see from the air. Also as opposed to flying where you are forced to turn off your awesome electronics you get to keep them on... the WHOLE time!!! I read and played on my IPAD the whole way. Talk about a upside..... The Train Rocked!

Overall I think the train was way cool, and I would definitely be up for another ride anytime.

Next on on the blog train: First came the rain, then came the show

Pardon My Soapbox Rant

"Sometimes in life the proper thing to do is to sit back and let other people worry about problems."
- A wise old man

My parents taught me that if you can't say anything nice, don't bother saying anything at all. This is pretty good advise but at a point I can no longer sit back and hold my tongue. You see if have had some thoughts on my mind for a while that I just haven't been able to move through. There are some issues that are not worth commenting on issues like:

• The Chik-filet debacle: I love chicken and the whole thing is a mess. Nuff said!
• Politics: Do you really want me to stand on my soapbox and tell you how I think the country would be. Heck no. God bless the people that want to run this county, as long as I get to keep running my little pool. I got no problems. Plus what do I know, I voted for Nader in 2000 (I mean the man did bring us seat belts standard in all cars, the guy is a lifesaver....literally)

But I quite frankly am tired of seeing E-cards, constantly every time I get on to any social media website. I mean I get them, they are snarky, and cleaver, and they show fancy people dressed up as aristocrats and they are saying abnoxious things. And truth be said I have laughed at more then a few of these little cards. But I am over it.

I believe the real change came the day Facebook purchased Instagram for 1 billion dollars. All of the sudden Pinstrest needed a way to compete so almost instantly these pictures started going up, and they are everywhere. At this point I believe I have read a E-card about everything.

Let me walk you though the lifecycle of the E-card experience:

1. Girl chilling on the Pintrest
2. Girl spots cleaver E-card
3. Girl realises that this particiular E-card was made for her and her besties
4. Girl posts said E-card on her facebook and tags all her besties on it.
5. E-card is spotted and reposted by 15,385 other girls experiencing the same feeling. 

I guess the thing that bothers me most about the eCard phenomenon is that I acutally like seeing my friends pictures. (not just because I am a Facebook/Twitter stalker) I like seeing my friends from long ago's children and vacation. And I hate it when the whole newsfeed is clogged up with snarky pictures somebody thought was cleaver.

Moral of the story: Post more pictures of your cute kids and vacations... I love them!

Enter The Dragon

So as usual I have not blogged in well about forever, and I am not going to  make exuses because my "where I have been" excues are all old and used. I have been busy, and lazy, and overall unmotivated to blog. Sorry :-(.

However I have done some kinda interesting things, here's a Top 5 of how I have been spending my time.

1. I went to NYC with my husband and in-laws to see Newsies on Broadway. It was awesome, maybe within the next several months I will post a blog with pics from our trip.
2. I broke down and did the adult thing by buying a $19.00 can opener... go ahead and tell me I over paid but the last 6!!! can openers I bought were $3.00 at Food Lion. Clearly I needed to just spend the money and buy something that would hold up.
3. I developed a dependency on Olympics coverage. With a little luck NBC will have some sort of program to help me cut the cord after it is over.
4. I got to spend a special day with my best friend from high school and her kids. She lives all the way in Alaska now so it is a pretty big deal when she is "in town"... super special day for sure.
5. We got a new little friend that hangs out at the house... AKA a new cat and that is what this post is about.

Let me introduce you to the newest member of our family. Dragon (or Rain that was his name with his first family). We adopted him from one of Patrick's friends who just had a baby and needed to find a good home for him. So we took him in. What we thought we got was a very shy cat that would spend a lot of time hiding especially since we have two other pets in the house. And that is exactly how things started. Poor little Dragon was so scared he hid in different corners for days. Everytime Patrick and I would come home we would scan different rooms in a effort to find him and try to convince him to eat anything. In fact these days are how little Dragon got his new name.

Dragon was hidden for so long I started to compare him to a dragon under the stairs. You know he is there somewhere you just never see him.

Meanwhile Dragon eventualy got over his shyness and now he is everywhere (when the dog is in her crate that is) But when the dog is way Dragon is constantly with us, on  top of us, walking over us, meowing at us. Basically he is our new best friend for ever. He is very sweet and while at first I was nervous that we were turning into that "crazy cat couple" I really like him around... Don't get me wrong, we are done taking on animals because I don't want to be those crazy people. 

So now you have the brief sum-up. Much more to come.... maybe???

Bethany Fun Fact of the Day: She is a really good artist and I suck. When we were in school she used to make fun of me and my mad skills...alot