2011 Catch Up

HELLO!  I have caved to the pressure to update my blog.  I'm glad to hear that you miss my occasional updates and so I thought I would write about 2011 so far...   Ash has teased me saying 1. That its been so long my blog would have been closed down (apparently not) and 2.  That he now has more subscribers than me (I don't think so!!)...

When I look back at the photos for the year so far, winter seems a long time ago but at the time it just seemed to drag on and on.  My last blog talked about the snow storm on Boxing Day, well, the snow kept coming and everyone here says it was the coldest winter they have had in 20 years!  We thought the snow was a novelty of course but by mid April when I was still wearing my quilt (knee length puffer jacket) that had been worn every day since November - ENOUGH ALREADY!!

Spring was beautiful but brief and already this week we had weather hitting 100 deg (F) - do I sound like a local? - that is about 39 deg (c).  No, if I really wanted to sound like a local I would say "Boom!"

Here are some of our highlights of 2011 to date:

Trips

DisneyWorld
What an opportunity to escape the never-ending NY winter and join Ash while he was at a conference "working" in DisneyWorld Resort.  I have always wanted to go and it was not possible to conceive the scale of the Resort which includes 4 theme parks, 2 water parks, numerous hotel resorts and entertainment areas.  For theme parks, we only made it to Magic Kingdom and the highlight was the fireworks and laser display on Cinderella's castle in the evening.  We were so exhausted that our plans to visit Universal Park the next day were shelved for the hotel pool...

St Lucia
We enjoyed our first Caribbean getaway in May in St Lucia and it was a great break from the hustle and bustle of the city.  We were really able to relax and the highlight was definitely the plunge pool in our villa - It was hard to leave that, but we made an effort on a couple of occasions for a sailing trip and water taxi visit to other parts of the island.  Ash has many pics on his blog but here is one to give you an idea:

Other
Separately both Ash and I have been to London for work this year.  A free trip to visit Bren and boys was awesome, business class too!  I also went to Atlanta, Georgia for a client meeting so when I recap like this, it seems like a busy 6 months!

Sport

We have been back to the Yankees twice this year with our visitors but have seen some new sports too. We caught an NFL game (American football or Gridiron as we know it) at Meadowlands Stadium, albeit in the nose bleed section.  Was a great afternoon:

We also saw 2 ice hockey games, one in New Jersey and one at Madison Sq Garden, the Garden as its known.  I really enjoyed this fast paced game though it was hard to see the puck.

Also at the Garden, we saw a Legends tennis evening which we signed up for after seeing the line-up - Agassi v Sampras!  I was a big Agassi fan in his day.  The warm up match was Lendl v McEnroe so it was an entertaining evening though Agassi was smashed!

While not sport, but at the Garden, we saw Bon Jovi for the second time since being in NY.  The arena is not huge, so even though they were last minute tickets we had a great view.

Funny story, while we were waiting for the show to start, we saw an advertisement on the big screens for a show at MSG that sounded great and was coming up soon.  See:  cirquedusoleil/michael-jackson.  Ash came home and bought tickets and once bought we realised they were for April 2012!!  I guess we're staying for another year :)

Visitors
Homesickness is kept at bay with all the visitors we are lucky to have, and they bring Australian chocolate too!  Tina and Neil were here celebrating Tina's birthday staying at the Waldorf.  We enjoyed their famous Sunday all you can eat brunch which I very quickly made it through the savory to the sweet selection.

Kel and Chris came, and that was a real treat.  Of all my friends, I thought they were the least likely to visit, in fact it had never entered my head as a possibility, so when I received Chris's email I was very excited.  Then we had Dionne, an old friend of mine from Melbourne.  It was great to share time with them all and show them the real NY.  A great bonus for me when visitors are here is that they can usually be talked into going to the theatre.  With Kel and Chris we saw "War Horse" which was awesome - how I cried!  The story of the journey of a horse in WWI, I highly recommend it.  With Dionne we saw Jersey Boys which has been on my list for ages as it was a musical I had never seen and I thoroughly enjoyed the show.  It seemed really authentic with those Jersey accents and the NY audience is always ready to have fun, applauding loudly and singing along.

The day after Kel arrived we introduced them to the unique Manhattan dog world with a Dachshund Parade in Washington Sq Park.  Kel is not a dog person (though Dash almost converted her by the end of their stay) so thank you Kel, for indulging me and even taking photos on the day!  We decked Dash out in his bandanna (yes I'm one of those people now) though that was nothing on the dogs that were in hawaiian shirts and sunglasses!  There would have been over 100 dachshunds of all shapes and sizes there and Dasha was a hit...

On weekends in warmer weather NY comes alive with street markets, art stalls and parades and on one of our regular walks from the West to East Village you usually come across something.  But I couldn't have prepared Dionne for the parade we saw on their first day here.  It was the 5th annual NY Dance Parade - and what a sight.  I tell you, the Sydney Mardi Gras would teach them a thing or two!!  There were cheerleaders (yes, just like the cliche), hoola hoops, roller-skates, belly dancers, Bolivian cultural groups, dancers that were overweight or middle aged.  The thing that struck me, and its something I see regularly, is the confidence Americans have. I'm not sure if it is for better or worse but I think Australians are much more self conscious and wouldn't have been seen dead in some of these groups!

We are looking forward to Ash's family arriving in 2 weeks and we have been saving some of our to-do list to share with them including the Statue of Liberty climb and Niagra Falls so I should have some more inspired content.

I hope everyone at home is well and I miss you all!  Can't believe how quickly this last year has gone.

Finally, this update would not be complete without some pics of our gorgeous, now 9months old, Dasha: