Highlights:

• Happening upon dog agility trials – they were having so much fun!
• Reading Norton Juster’s The Phantom Tollbooth to Aurora and Ozzie
• Disneyland! (until the end when I started to get cranky)
• Hanging out with Naama and Greg, and meeting Lena for the first time.
• Dim Sum
• Hanging out in Joel’s front porch
• Going to Extraordinary Desserts!

I took over 1000 pictures that week. I don’t know how, but I’ve managed to cull their numbers back down to 170. My favorites are below. You can see all of them at the Gallery for the California trip. Below are my favorites.

Okay, so this post is a little late, but at least I’m getting pictures from Christmas and New Years up on the site. If you head on over to the 2009 Holiday Gallery, you’ll see three sets of pictures. The first is us (me, really) decorating our small, crooked, table top tree. His name was Gil and he was very cute!

The second set is from our trip to Midland, MI to see Chad’s parents (and other family) for Christmas. I would just like to share that when we left Virginia on the 23rd, there was more snow on the ground than we had landing in Michigan. And then it had to go and rain on Christmas! In Michigan! So much for my white Christmas. Ah well. For Christmas dinner, I made garlic prime rib, blue cheese mashed potatoes, sauteed mushrooms, Yorkshire pudding, and a salad with pear and carmelized onion. Beth made a fantastic eggnog cake for dessert – all in all, it was a delicious Christmas. =)

The final set of pictures is from New Years Eve. Alin, Christina, King, Nif, Michelle, Mike, Chad and I all got gussied up and headed out to the Willard Intercontinental for a great big party and had a great time. You can also check out the professional photos here, if you’re interested (our crazy prom photo is 5131 and 5132).

Finally, since I know some people are interested, I’m currently 56 out of 63 on the Consular Register. I’ll get there one of these days!

And by the way – I’ve added some new links on the left. Check them out!

On the way there we stopped at a diner in Bordentown, NJ called Mastoris. There was just too much lunch for us to eat, but it was pretty good. While we were there, I showed him the tickets for the evening – to a taping of The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. Chad and I are fans of Jon’s show and interview style, so I made sure to get tickets back in February.

It took a little winding around New York traffic to make it to our hotel. I got a really good rate for The Muse Hotel right outside of Times Square, and the hotel was very nice as well as perfectly located. After check in we headed straight to wait on line for the show. We were there for about two hours before they let us in, and while it was pouring down sheets of rain, we stood under the awning and stayed dry.

Once we got into the studio (after going through the metal detectors), Chad and I lucked out and got front row seats by the side of the studio where the guests walk in from. The warm up comedian was pretty funny, and a lot of people in the audience that day seemed to be local. Then Jon came out and answered a few questions from the crowd, including Chad’s question. Chad wanted to know if there had ever been a news story that got them so angry they couldn’t make fun of it. Jon called Chad “dude,” then told him that a lot of stories make him angry, but making light of these serious situations was cathartic, and comedy.

The show that night featured segments from Wyatt Cenac and Larry Wilmore, both were funny. Then there was a 20 minute conversation between Jon and Mike Huckabee about abortion. To be honest, it was a little bit draining, and Chad and I came out of the show a bit dazed by it. All in all, we enjoyed ourselves. If you want to watch the show, you can do so here, just keep in mind that they had to edit the Huckabee conversation due to time constraints, though I don’t know why it’s broken into 3 parts:
The Full Episode
Huckabee Interview Part 1
Huckabee Interview Part 2
Huckabee Interview Part 3

Dinner that night was at a place called Hummus Kitchen, and it was awesome. We got two sampler platters and an awesome drink with mint, lemon and arak. The dessert was the best though. Their knaffe was amazing, I’ve never had better. The filo was perfectly crispy and the cheese was perfectly soft.

We did a lot of walking in New York, my feet hurt for days afterwords. That night we walked down 6th ave and over to Broadway, which they have partially closed off as a pedestrian thoroughfare. The next day we headed up to central park and walked around for a while, then back down madison and to our hotel, where, while getting dressed for dinner, Chad correctly guessed what we would be doing as our after dinner activity. We were going to see the Coraline musical. If you want to read more about the musical, you can read the article about it published in Variety. Otherwise, just know that the story is from an author we both like (Neil Gaiman), and the music is by one of Chad’s favorite musicians (Stephin Merritt). The show is only playing in New York, and Chad thought he’d never get a chance to see it. That’s why I bought our second row tickets the day they were available for sale. Also, I am very good at keeping secrets. Coraline was Chad’s favorite part of the trip, and mine too.

On our way out of New York we stopped to have breakfast at Charlie’s Family’s Hole in the Wall. I will only say this (because my wrists are aching): our breakfast was excellent.

It rained on our way out of New York, mainly because it had rained the entire week before. We had a good time, and Chad had a happy birthday, but though New York is a fun place to visit, we were happy to get home.

I’ll be in San Diego from October 4-12. Chad flies in to join me on the 9th. Yaaay!

2. If it is a full flight, I love the exit row, but in full flights, I always end up seated next to a very large man…

3. If I knit, the large man sitting next to me will always want to talk about it.

4. I should have brought more yarn.

5. 24 hour business trips stink. I want to go home.

This weekend, I’ll have to get some passport pictures printed up so I can get my passport updated with my new last name.