Winter Classic at Wrigley Field

"DETROIT SUCKS"

"DETROIT SUCKS"

"DETROIT SUCKS".

Yeah, imagine sitting in a freezer hearing that chant for about 4 hours straight, and that's the short version of how Derrick and I spent New Years Day.

Long version:

Derrick and I were lucky enough to get tickets to the 2nd annual Winter Classic on New Years Day, and first time ever at a baseball stadium. After a looooooong night of celebrating on new years eve, we boarded a plane to Chicago early the next morning. It was cool seeing quite a few Red Wing jerseys at the airport. At least we weren't the only idiots doing this. When our plane got in, it was pretty easy getting to Wrigley Field. It was a short train and bus ride from the airport. When we got there, about 2 hours before face-off, there were already a ton of people. This is when the "Detroit sucks" chants started, and continued until the Red Wings took a 4-3 lead.

Before the game, we walked around Wrigleyville for a little while, where the NHL had their Fanfest going on, with live music, interactive games, and a beer/food tent. We thought it was cold, but it wasn't close to how much colder it was gonna get later.

When we finally walked into Wrigley Field and to our seats (top of the bleachers directly below the scoreboard), we realized that we were gonna freeze our butts off. The wind was strong, and the blackhawk fans hated Detroit. It was awesome! We won 6-4 of course (the final score shows in the picture above, and if you look real carefully, you can see me and Derrick in the picture.

Kaz'ademy Awards

Another fun thing we did over the holiday was attend a birthday party for a good friend of ours. Since it was a formal attire "red carpet" event, we got all dressed up . . . Ed got to wear his Filipino tux from our wedding and I wore the bridesmaid outfit from the wedding I was in last summer. Our friends have a lot of casino games in their basement, which was super neat. They had poker, blackjack, roulette, and craps. We spent most of our time at the craps table, which was fun to learn how to play. Ed especially enjoyed dealing blackjack for a while later in the evening. We had a great time!

Christmas Morning

This year my family decided to not spend as much money on each other, but instead to give some money to people who need it . . . but my mom could still not resist having a lot of presents for us to open. It was fun. We opened things like homemade applesauce, granola, and cookie dough, and, let's face it, these things are better than anything you could buy at the store! We opened ornaments, socks, a puzzle, and even a homemade game called "Island Golf" to be played with beer bottle caps and various obstacles on the kitchen island that my parents made for Ed and John, my brother-in-law. We had a great Christmas morning this year!

Ed and I had our own "Christmas morning" a few days later at home where we exchanged gifts from each other. I got a bunch of really yummy chocolate from godiva, and Ed got a ticket to the Michigan/Mich. State b-ball game. We both got awesome ornaments from each other this year: a silver Scion xB and a Trenitalia train with all our stops from our Italy trip written on it.

White Elephant Christmas

We had a great Christmas season this year. I had a great two weeks off of work, while Ed worked almost the whole time, but we still both were able to spend a lot of time with our family and friends.

We participated in several white elephant gift exchanges this year, and I think we fared pretty well . . .

survivor game and laser tag guns . . . how much better can you get!



At the next party, Ed received some educational books from Time Life, the Aztecs, Egyptians, and Pompeii. Our friends were trying to sell these books at a garage sale for $3 each . . . no wonder we are now stuck with them! I got a video game controller for the computer, which Ed appreciated. Another one of our friends got the Newlywed game, which we all attempted to play. We realized it was not as fun to play once you are married for a while . . . you can see Ed below looking stressed while trying to figure out how to answer the question. We finally decided to stop the game after several arguements broke out among the couples, and tension and awkwardness began to fill the room. Of course, Ed and I were not one of those couples . . .

At the Maitland family Christmas, we gave away some pretty awful gifts that many people were not happy about (my sister was especially not happy with the horrible smelling men's cologne.) But we received a 3-D puzzle and some hot chocolate! Yum! We all participated in putting our new 3-D snowman together. Several of us almost threw the thing across the room before actually finishing it. (It was a challenge to say the least . . . ) We stuck it out and finally finished him. Unfortunately, we must have failed to follow the exact directions since he was a little disformed when we were all finished.

The other side of the family had a DVD exchange. We started this last year. I made out much better than last year when my Grandpa brought a double feature of The Three Stooges and I got it! This year I got three movies in one featuring Harrison Ford: What Lies Beneath, Patriot Games, and Witness. Nice! Ed got The Hunt for Red October. Not bad. I talked my parents into watching What Lies Beneath with me the next day. We watched it in the middle of the day, but it still definately freaked us all out! Very fun!

We had a great time visiting with our family and friends over Christmas, but we were exhausted after all the visiting, eating, traveling, and eating. (Did I say eating?)