So, even though I’m writing this post on March 1st, this is technically my first post for 2019. I’m still a bit behind on telling our adventures, but that’s because I like keeping you in suspense. : \
Anyway, the reason I titled this post the way I did is because I began the new year doing something different: flying to Rochester, NY, to visit family right off the bat. I usually go home twice a year, and last year I went in mid-February to take advantage of President’s Day which is a day off from work. I had that same intention this year, but had to use my $300 of Southwest Airlines credit from a cancelled flight by the end of January. So, January it was!
I learned something that week: don’t travel the first week of January. I was hoping to be able to take a day off and hang out with the family, but work was SO busy because it was the first full week after the holidays that I was slammed with lots of requests.
But, I did still manage to have some fun with the family as well as with a few friends! I flew in on a Saturday and was whisked immediately to a really nice dinner at an old, stone restaurant in Batavia called the Red Osier with parents, sister and family, uncle and two aunts! They also had a great assortment of animated Christmas light displays in their backyard.
On Sunday and a few times during the week, I did manage to hang out with the boys, Leonardo and Domenico, who are now 6 and 3!! I helped Domenico make a monster with googly eyes and he proudly added it to his wall o’monsters.
He and I also got to play Superfection together, a game from my childhood, remember it!? Perfection was the game where you had a timer ticking down as you had to fit differently shaped pegs into holes in the board, and when the timer ended, the board popped up. Superfection is harder in that you have to fit two different shapes together to form a square against the timer. He actually did really good at fitting the pieces together!
One night, we hung out at Erica’s house and I played half of a Battleship game with Leonardo (attention span, ya know, he’s 6!) and watch them play games with my dad, their favorite person of all time.
And this was too cute with the Star Wars bean bags.
And on the last night together, I watched Leo and mom build LEGOs, his favorite toy, while Domenico danced naked, like ya do.
In addition, I spent an evening with my sister-in-law Myko, JC’s sister, who now has to commute to Rochester for work like once a month! She happened to be in town the same time I was, and we haven’t seen each other since May, so she came and got me and we had a great meal and some pints at a nearby local brewpub.
The following evening, I had dinner with Dave and Charlotte. You may remember Dave from 1.5 years ago when I spontaneously got into a rental car with a total stranger in Philly after our flight got cancelled and we spent the 6 hours driving north chatting about the translation industry because his wife is a translator. Well, I finally got to see him again and meet Charlotte, his wife! They cooked a lovely meal for me and we actually chatted in their gorgeous home for like 5 hours!! That was fun and I hope to hang out with them again the next time I return!
Next, on Friday night, the parents and I went to a Rochester Americans hockey game, our second one. But first, we had some of the best Mexican food I’ve ever had at La Casa downtown. Seriously, the burrito is in my top 5. And check out this awesome mural!
Then, the game was crazy back and forth, and in the end, the Toronto Marlies won.
Finally, on my last day there, mom and I got to spend a few hours getting our craft on with her friend Jennifer at her house. Jennifer has a huge basement all decked out as a craft room with walls LINED with shelving FILLED with, you guessed it, craft supplies. I brought a couple of easy card kits with me and got most of them done while mom, Jennifer and the other ladies did their own projects. It was really fun and being able to craft a bit recharged my batteries. Although mom and I did work on layouts for my nephews’ scrapbook albums from time to time when we could, it was stop and go around me working. She and I didn’t get as many layouts done as I had hoped, but any progress is progress! And if I stop overbooking myself, ahem…
Getting home was an adventure, as the only point among Rochester, Baltimore and Denver that had snow was…Baltimore! Luckily it didn’t delay anything, which was especially appreciated since I already had a FOUR-HOUR layover, ugh. But since my previous trip to Rochester, they redid the whole airport, and not only is it really nice and much larger, they added these gorgeous lights and canopies at the drop-off spot that I could even see as a beautiful rainbow of color as I took off!
So, that was that. It’s good to see family again even if it’s for just a short while and I have to work and it’s crazy.
Not a lot of other stuff happened in January. We had dinner with a couple of different sets of friends, and I had a fun day of scrapbooking at home with new friend Margaret (the partner in crime for Saskatoon). We didn’t even have any Avalanche games to attend!
As a result, I had a lot of down time, during which I concentrated on sorting and printing photos from the rest of 2018 to scrap, playing with my Silhouette die-cutting machine that I haven’t touched in 1.5 years, scrapbooking to try to finish off 2018 in the near future, writing letters to friends, and completing household chores like finally taking down Christmas decorations mid-January since I was gone until the 13th! Oops!
Check out my 2018 scrapbook if you want to see what’s new!