« October 2013 | Main | December 2013 »
Friday, November 29, 2013
Thanksgiving and Montreal
Happy Thanksgiving (a day late) and hello from Montreal. :)
We had a nice Thanksgiving dinner at the Hopkins Inn with Mike's sister, niece and nephew. Plus our English friend Robin accompanied us as well. Since he doesn't have any family over here and Thanksgiving isn't really something he celebrates anyway it was fun to invite him along. Had a delicious meal as always. I ordered the Wiener Schnitzel and enjoyed the usual Thanksgiving side dishes (mashed potatoes, stuffing, cranberry sauce, sweet potatoes, turnips, onions & peas) alongside it. For dessert I got my usual Toblerone sundae. To die for. :)
Today we went into work for a few hours and then headed up to Canada. Spending the next 2 nights here in Montreal. Tonight we are walking into Old Montreal to have dinner at Les 3 Brasseurs, one of our favorite restaurants. And tomorrow we are taking a day trip to Quebec City to go to the Christmas market there. There is snow on the ground here and it's FREEZING so it definitely feels like winter here. :) Nice to be away from work for a couple of days, even though it's just a short trip.
Yesterday before we headed out to dinner I packaged up all my gifts that need to be mailed across the globe. Now just need to find the time to get to the post office, maybe Tuesday or Wednesday. :)
Mail Update: On the way up wrote letters to: Charles/TN, Carmen/Malta and Emilia/Finland. They will be mailed Monday when we are back in the US. Received letters still owe a response to: Nina/WA, Jessica/DE and Celia/MA.
Posted by Hanna at 04:21 PM in Food and Drink, Holidays, Travel | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Monday, November 25, 2013
Christmas mail ... already
And it's already this time of the year again, time to write Christmas cards. :) I finished my batch of international cards this Sunday. Will probably mail them right around December 2 after Thanksgiving. But at least they are done.
I still need to write my domestic ones and will probably do that one of the nights this week. Also need to package up my holiday gifts that need to be shipped all over the globe. I love having friends in so many different places but it definitely makes the holiday season quite a bit more hectic than it normally would be.
Last week was another crazy busy week at work. Lost power for a bit (very annoying) plus preparation for Thanksgiving and also a refresher training on payroll since I will have to cover that in early December. So busy, busy.
Was off on the weekend though which was nice. Saturday we slept in and then went to the movies to see "Delivery Man". A Vince Vaughn comedy, nothing overly spectacular but all in all a fun afternoon. Hung out at Two Steps with some friends afterwards.
Yesterday we went grocery shopping, then I spent the afternoon writing my cards and at night we had some cheese & crackers while catching up on our recorded TV. All in all a relaxed weekend.
Mail Update: Received letters still owe a response to: Nina/WA, Charles/TN, Emilia/Finland and Carmen/Malta.
Posted by Hanna at 08:26 AM in Cats, Holidays | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Sunday, November 17, 2013
Move, Trip planning and more
Another week gone by rather quickly. Where is this year going? Right now we are at the Yard House in Yonkers, at Ridge Hill, a fancy outdoor shopping mall. Everything is decorated christmassy including a big Christmas tree in the main square and Christmas music is being piped out over the outdoor speakers. It's just too much and still too early for me. I am just not in a holiday mood yet. It honestly seems to happen sooner and sooner every year. It used to be that the cut off was Thanksgiving and the day after Thanksgiving the holiday decorations went up. Now the cut off seems to be Halloween and November 1st everything changes. It's just too soon.
Anyway, we are at the Yard House right now and thanks to their wi-fi and my new Chromebook I am able to update my blog. Yay. :)
Kristina (Mike's sister) and Erik (nephew) moved out this weekend. They have been staying with us for 2 years so it will be kind of weird to have the house just to ourselves again. Time flies by so fast. They only moved three streets over, about 2 miles, so it's not all that far.
In other news we currently have two short 2-night trips planned that I am really looking forward to. The weekend after Thanksgiving (Fr-Sun) we are heading to Canada (Montreal with a day trip to Quebec City) and over New Year's we booked the same Bed & Breakfast on Cape Cod where we also stayed last year. So yay for some fun getaways. :) Kristina or Erik most likely will be staying at the house when we are gone so the cats have someone to feed them and play with.
Mail Update: A letter went out on Thursday to: Jessica/DE. Received letters still owe a response to: Nina/WA, Charles/TN, Emilia/Finland and Carmen/Malta.
Posted by Hanna at 03:38 PM in Food and Drink, Holidays | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Sunday, November 10, 2013
Ollie, Elton John and more
Another weekend off which was definitely nice. Slept in on both days, which was even nicer. :)
Mid-week we had a vet appointment with Ollie. We suspected that he might have an UTI (urinary tract infection) as he was peeing on the bed, which he normally never does. So off to the vet we went. They took his blood to test everything else since he has the kidney issues. That actually came back with positive results where his kidneys seem to be functioning slightly better, probably due to the medication and special food he is on. He is showing a tad of anemia, which is probably a side effect of the kidney problems, and unfortunately not something that can be treated. But right now it's just a minor concern.
They couldn't get a urine sample from him since he decided to pee all over me in the car on the ride to the vet so of course had an empty bladder once we got there. So they kept him for the day but even at the end of the day when I called and checked up on him they still couldn't get a sample. So he had to stay overnight but luckily by the morning they were able to get the sample. The results have been back since then too and he does have a bit of an UTI so he is now on a 20-day antibiotic treatment for it. Luckily giving him pills is easy these days, as he loves the pill pocket treats where you can hide the pills inside. Thank god. :)
So that was my excitement for most of the week. Worrying about Ollie, bringing him there, picking him up etc. In more fun news we got to see Elton John in concert on Friday in Bridgeport. When the tickets had gone on sale originally they sold out pretty much immediately. So we waited and checked StubHub every so often. Eventually the tickets did go down, as people were afraid they wouldn't sell them probably. We ended up getting our tickets for face value so no loss there. The show was amazing. He played for over 3 hours.
Let's see, what else? Yesterday we slept in, picked up Ollie's antibiotics at the vet and then went to the movies to see "About Time". I really liked the movie, same person who created "Notting Hill", "Four Weddings & A Funeral" and "Love Actually" so same feel to the movie. Afterwards we hung out at Two Steps for a while.
Today more sleeping in and in a bit we are off to the White Horse Pub in Marbledale for brunch. Yummy place.
Mail Update: Received letters still owe a response to: Nina/WA, Charles/TN, Jessica/DE, Emilia/Finland and Carmen/Malta.Posted by Hanna at 12:33 PM in Film, Food and Drink, Performances, Pets | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Sunday, November 03, 2013
Halloween
And November already. Time flies. Thursday was Halloween and since it was Thursday it was also trivia night at Two Steps. So they had a combined trivia Halloween night with drink specials and extra cash prizes. Lots of people in costumes as well. I didn't go too crazy. Shannon helped me with my cat make-up and lent me her cat ears and voila = instant cat. :)
Not too much else going on really. Work's busy as always and it will just get busier as we are heading towards Thanksgiving and Christmas/New Year's now. Oh well, same as every year so we will make it through one way or another.
Had the weekend off and yesterday we went to see "Carrie" at the movies, then headed to Norwalk to check out the Nola Oyster Bar. Pretty tasty place.
We also turned our clocks back here in the US this weekend, a week after Europe. I was happy with the extra hour of sleep but I won't be happy later when it gets dark even earlier than it already did. Although I might be happy tomorrow morning when it gets lighter earlier than it did but of course that won't last. I hate having to get up when it's dark and cold outside. Well oh well.
Really don't have anything important to say this time around it seems so I will keep this short and sweet and stop here. Maybe more interesting stuff next time. :)
Mail Update: Received letters still owe a response to: Nina/WA, Charles/TN, Jessica/DE, Emilia/Finland and Carmen/Malta.
Posted by Hanna at 11:30 AM in Food and Drink, Holidays | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack