487 Miles One Way

All the way to Toronto, Canada, just to see the Yankees lose. How disappointing. It was a great trip, after the delay, everything went great. Here's my trip through photos, as you all know I love pictures!

The beginning of our trip...7:30pm

 Crossing the border into Canada at 2am. Oddly enough there were tons of people on the road once we crossed over. It seemed like it was only 9pm there with the amount of people driving around.

 Yep, we were in Toronto, the sign proves it.

 We stopped because we saw a cool bridge, turns out we started walking on the Trans Canada Trail. It's the longest trail in the world, which crosses through all of Canada.

 We then continued on into downtown Toronto. You can see the CN Tower.

 The Rogers Centre is where the Blue Jays play.

 And here it is!

 This is some French arch.

 The government building. We just happened to drive passed it.

 Chancho needed me to take a picture of this car. Their license plate was hanging by rope from the back windshield wiper.

 We chose to go to the Metro Toronto Zoo for our sight seeing adventure. This was my favorite picture from there.

 They had a shark petting tank. Too bad there weren't any sharks. They lied. They only had sting rays. We paid $3 to pet sting rays.

 Finally, game time. This was a statue that they had outside of the Rogers Centre. Thought it looked cool.

 Inside the stadium at 7pm. The first time inside of a dome for a baseball game.

During the 7th inning stretch they had the "fastest grounds cleaning crew" come racing out onto the field. It was pretty interesting to see.

 We drank. We drank a lot for $9.75 a cup.

 After the Yankees lost, we headed out and found this place that gave you half off your meal with a game ticket.

 Saturday morning we were supposed to head back. However, we ran into a hotel staff member who informed us that the Yankee game was at 1pm instead of 7pm like we had thought. Chancho automatically looked at me and said "We're going." So off we went to the second game of the series. This is the view of the Rogers Centre with the dome open during the day.

 As you can tell the CN Tower is right next to the stadium. We thought about going to it, but it was pretty expensive. Plus the game went into 14 innings, only for them to lose.

 6pm Saturday we crossed the border back into the USA.

It really was a good time. It was very very clean there. We didn't see any liter any where. I would not suggest getting a hot dog from a street vendor. They are nothing like the hot dogs from NYC. I almost barfed all over the side walk after my first bite. We got back in the wee morning hours of Sunday just in time to sleep a few hours before work. Now we're back into the grind of things for a few months before our next vacation.  That's all folks!

Still counting down

Still here. Just as predicted. I swear all of our vacations/trips always start late because of some NYPD thing. Today's reason being that there is a strike. A simple strike is what is stopping us from leaving. He was sent out early this morning and was supposed to be relieved around 4ish. It is now well pass 4pm. His relief came in at 3, but they still haven't showed up to their posts yet. This morning he told me that he had a friend that would be able to come take his spot if he needed to leave early, so I thought oh hey this would be the perfect time for him to call in that friend. Nope. His friend left for the day. So there he sits waiting for the second batch of officers. No news as to when they'll show up.
As a result of this, I won't be able to see my friends from college as I had hoped for, but that's okay. We'll be getting in much, much later than expected, but that's okay. We'll be driving all night, in the dark, but that's okay. I have been able to pack my bag. I've showered. I've even cleaned the bathroom. I have charged both my cell phone and camera's batteries. I watched the entire Yankee game (which they won). I have even made plans for babysitting Buster next week. It has been productive, I mean that is the only thing that I can turn this day into without becoming miserable and holding resentment.
This just in: The men on strike have made it to their final staging area. I am assuming that they will be wrapping up after a few speeches. I'm thinking another 2 hours before Chancho can head on home. Yay! a sign of something good!

Quote of the Day:“The secret of health for both mind and body is not to mourn for the past, worry about the future, or anticipate troubles, but to live in the present moment wisely and earnestly.”  
- Buddha

Listening to: "Found Out About You" by Gin Blossoms

600 lbs lighter

I've got less than 24 hours before I'll be heading off towards Canada. We leave tomorrow after Chancho gets out of work. We all know that an exact time is near impossible to receive from him so we're just playing it by ear for when we leave. However, we would like to be on the road, the latest, by 3pm. I have a feeling that we'll be leaving more towards 4 or 5. That's just a hunch that I have. I'm really hoping to stop in Buffalo to see my old roommates, but I think it might be too short notice for us to get anything together in time. Another thing that we'll just have to wing. If everything goes as planned, or close to as possible I'll be in Canada by 11pm. Wooohooo! We'll spend the night in our hotel, then depending on how we're feeling, Friday we'll take the tour of the CN Tower and then go to the Yankee v. Blue Jay game at night. Saturday, I'm thinking we can go to the zoo before heading home. Or we can switch the days for the CN Tower and the zoo. I'd just like to do some sight-seeing before we come back. We both have work on Sunday so we have to be back by at least Saturday night. I'm pretty pumped for it.
In other news, I think our house lost about 600 lbs today. We donated a shit load of "treasures" to a local church for a tag sale. I really love that someone's shit is another man's treasure. It makes it a lot easier in getting rid of stuff that we don't use anymore. In all honesty I never thought I would see some of it go. It has been in this house for 35+ years. My mother is a closet hoarder. She can't let go of anything and has the excuse of  "I could need this in the future." Well by the time you'll need it it'll be so out dated that you'll have to buy a new one anyway! I understand her thinking, but I am the type of person that can't stand clutter and that's all that we have in this house. If it were organized, that would be another thing, but it's NOT! My mother used to sell Longaberger Baskets from home while we were still too young to go to school, so we have tons and tons of baskets around our house. We have an entire room and half an attic full of baskets. So if anyone would want to purchase a basket, please contact me! Then we have all of the stuff that just isn't used anymore because we've out grown it or it's from my parents childhood and they just haven't dumped it yet. It's a true disaster. Today though, we sent a SUV and a pick up truck worth of stuff over to the church and we have our front porch filled with stuff waiting for their truck to come pick up. I'm very proud of her for actually taking the time to go through it all and finally say good-bye.
This weekend is my sister and BIL's 1 year anniversary. I can't believe it's been a year already since they got married. How quickly time flies. They're spending the weekend in Atlantic City. Then the following weekend we'll be celebrating Father's Day since my parents will be on a cruise during the real Father's Day. We'll be having a BBQ at my parents house. It will be the first time we have all gotten together since Christmas. Definitely over due.

Quote of the Day: "You can't always control the circumstances in life, but you can control your attitude toward those circumstances." -Alexander Lockhart 
Listening to: "Carry Out" by Timbaland ft Justin Timberlake

Anticipation

I can't hold it in any longer. I'm bursting at the seems. This weekend is opening weekend for the Yankees and really baseball in general. I get out at 10:30AM on Thursday starting my long weekend. Chancho gets out around 2pm on Thursday and doesn't have to be back to work until Tues. (same as me).
Saturday we'll be spending the day at my Uncle's house in CT celebrating Easter. This will be the first Easter that I am home for since 4 years ago. I had spent the last 4 Easters up at school with my roommate who graciously adopted me into her family for Easter dinner and some Easter egg coloring. What's great about this year, is that we'll be spending it with my entire family, which means that my sister, her husband, my brother and his wife will all be attending. The rumor going around is that there's going to be an Easter egg hunt, with cash in the eggs and a surprise gift to the one who wins the most eggs. I have a feeling this may get dangerous, the youngest one participating in the hunt is 19, and we're all competitive...imagine for yourself the 10 of us racing around a backyard searching for eggs, pushing and yanking on one another. Should be a good time.

Then...Sunday early, and I mean around 5am, Chancho and I make the trek to Boston. I really want to go to the Aquarium. My sister said it was something I couldn't pass up. I'm not really sure what else to do there, but something will probably come up. Sunday should be a cloudy 68* and go down to 48* for game time. Monday will most likely be rain, but if we're going to the aquarium, then that will be fine. We'll just need to find something to do outside on Sunday. I've got my outfit all picked out and I'm slowly pumping myself up. I'm not gonna lie, I am really nervous about the fans and all the heckling, but after talking with a bunch of people who have been to Fenway, they said that Philly fans are definitely worse. I've been to Philly sooooo I think I'll be able to handle em! Bring it on! I'll throw back a few beers and try to enjoy myself.

It'll be a great way to enter April. Half way through the month I should have one of my roommates visiting me. I haven't seen her since May and I miss our daily lunches so we'll be going out for lunch and probably sight seeing around the city. She's an organization addict which means I'll be showing her the Container Store. She'll probably wind up having to buy another suit case to take back all the things she buys!

I wish this rain would go away already! But it's making me in the mood to organize, so I'm off to do that.

Listening to: "Will You Be There" by Michael Jackson

Time Away

There's been a big Elephant in the room lately and that is the upcoming vacation that Chancho will be taking in May. In May he'll be visiting family in Peru for 2 weeks. Originally it was going to be for the entire month, but he's cut it down to 2. This has been in the works for several months now, but little has been said. I would love to go with him, but the money bully has me backed into a corner and I can't afford it. I think I've come to terms with it and have occupied myself with some new ways to stay in contact with Chancho while he is going to be away.  So far we've looked into getting a special package with Verizon Wireless for his phone and there wasn't anything available. We'll be using regular calling cards to stay in contact. I am going to need a little more than just email and phone contact so I have also been searching for different types of video chatting. We used Skype while I was away at school and that worked great, but he won't have a webcam while there. He is stuck with an internet cafe. Therefore, I have looked into using ooVoo. It's just a different version of a web chatting system, but it allows you to video call with someone who doesn't have the program downloaded on their computer, which would work out well for an internet cafe type situation.
I also am looking into taking a long weekend up to school to visit friends to keep myself busy. If that fails, then I'll just have to find something else around here to do. Maybe actually redoing my room! Ha. Anyways, I'm not too concerned about it. It will be like I'm off at school again, except with less communication. It will be the longest we've gone without talking or seeing one another in a year. We've become very spoiled. At least I have plenty of time to prepare myself.
Anyone have any other ways of communicating while their loved ones are far away?


Listening to:  "When I Said I Would" by Whitney Duncan
Quote of the Day: "Don’t sweat the small stuff"

Change of Pace

Chancho worked a new shift today. He started today at 3pm and will get out at 11:35pm, but he is doing 3 hours of overtime to add onto it. The reason behind the shift change was that they needed someone to do patrol. He volunteered with one of his partners and they began their day with a transport of 2 males and his detail for the night involves all of Van Cortland park. Now the good news is that he'll have a daytour Tuesday and Wednesday and on Thursday he's taking a class at the police academy for community sensitivity which gets him home around 4pm. This would be a great upcoming week, but I have the overnight shifts at my job. So we will have about 3-4 hours in between our shifts to see one another. I feel that there is a mini vacation in order for us to catch up with one another. He received his vacation voucher for donating his car, so maybe that can be used up. I'd love to visit California or Florida to get some warm weather and I heard that if you volunteer with some organization you can get a free pass to Disney Land or Disney World. It would work out great if we could combine the two to make a great vacation.

On a side note, I need to work in time to bake some apple pies. I have all of these apples still sitting there staring at me. I'm going to have to suck it up and just do it one of these days. I don't want the apples to go bad.

The Yankee game was amazing as usual. We sat up in the grandstands along the 1st base line next to the foul pole. It was freezing, absolutely freezing out. I had on 7 layers and still managed to be cold. If we wind up going to the world series, I am going to bring a comforter with me to stay warm. Towards the end of the game there was a rowdy fan that was getting a little out of control in the annoying sense and got kicked out for a brief moment. Well his friends didn't like that too much and came back and started causing some ruckus. A few things were thrown, a beer bottle landed in the row behind us as guys were holding the rambunctious guys back from hitting one another. I just wanted to watch the game, but I was a bit afraid of something hitting me from behind. The Yankees won 4-1! Hopefully tonight's game goes as smoothly! I'll be out with coworkers going to another gay bar, hopefully the game will be on there so I can keep track.

Quote of the Day: "I don't make you feel special. I just remind you that you are special." - David F. Sims

Woodford State Park

Great news! Camping was a huge success with Chancho. He has deemed it his favorite hobby now and wants to go back again soon. We talked about a fall camping trip. We traveled to Woodford State Park in Bennington, Vermont and set up camp on Thursday. It was a little stressful for me at times because I had to explain everything and make all of the decisions, but I'm taking it as a learning experience for myself. After setting up camp we took a "hike" around the reservoir. It was a loop that went around it. It was a good first hike for Chancho. We weren't able to make a fire the first night because the wood was soaked through and wouldn't light, which was very disappointing to Chancho, that was the one thing he wanted out of the trip. Friday we woke up and made our breakfast and then decided to go for a hike. We made it to the trail and about 5 minutes into it we heard thunder and the woods started to get really dark so we had to head back to the campground. The storm wasn't quite at the campground yet so Chancho suggested we take the kayaks out on the water so that's what we did and just in time because as we were finishing up it started to pour. The clouds opened up and let our tarp and tent have it. The tarp we had set up over our picnic table collapsed on us. Our tent leaked. I was miserable and Chancho lay in the tent snoring away like a freight train. My best friend since 4th grade made the trip up and stayed for the night with her boyfriend. The rain thankfully cleared up for us to make a fire and we were able to have a relaxing evening. Saturday we packed up in the rain and were home in time for the Yankee game. Overall this was a good first trip. We bonded a lot and now have found an activity that I think we will enjoy doing in the future.

My vacation is over and I sadly had to be up for work at 4am this morning. Chancho still has one more day left of his vacation. He's busy running errands. I hate returning to work after such a great vacation. It should make it easier, but it really only makes it worse knowing that you don't get another great vacation until next year.

I leave you once again with a picture from our trip - the view of the reservoir from our hike:

Woody Hill

Sadly I am home from our vacation in Rhode Island. It was just fantastic! I didn't want to leave. I kept asking if we could afford to stay another night, but our wallets wouldn't allow it. We arrived early afternoon at Woody Hill Bed and Breakfast, on one of the hottest days of the year. We dropped our stuff off in our room, the Family Room, which is the biggest of the 3 choices. We didn't really need that room, but it did have a deck and a private bath, so it was a good choice. Ellen, the hostess, gave us a tour of the house and then led us down to the private pool. We swam and sunbathed all afternoon. Once the sun went down we ventured off to go find some dinner. We figured we would head over to Stop and Shop and pick up some chicken because there was a grill available for us to use, so that's what we did for dinner.
We made a lovely little dinner for 2. Then we decided to drive towards the beaches to check out where we would be spending the rest of our time. It turns out that there is a little bit of a night life there, with mini golf, bars, go-karts, and plenty of restaurants. After that we headed back to Woody Hill and even though there was a TV we decided to play card games instead. I was able to win every game we played, however Chancho was a good sport and continued to play.
We were up early for breakfast at 8am with complimentary continental breakfast made by Ellen. She joined us and chatted with us about where we were from, what we were planning on doing and of course offered us her help in anyway. She showed us a map of all the different beaches and gave us the pros and cons to each one. We decided on going the distance to Watch Hill beach. They really robbed us of our money in parking ($15!!) but we walked around to the tip of the peninsula to get onto the beach instead of paying another $12 for the beach pass. It was just gorgeous. The water was a bit cold, but still warm enough to go in. We were also early enough to get our pick of sand. The sand itself was so soft! I could walk on that all day long. The only bad part was that because it was soft, it was lighter than the other corser sand so it was easily blown by the wind. We picked the hottest day of the year, a blazing 92 degrees, but with the wind it didn't seem too bad. I actually fell asleep for a while and woke up with many people surrounding us. After the beach, we stopped in at a local ice cream shop and grabbed some frozen lemonade and ice tea.

Chancho didn't have enough sun so when we got back to Woody Hill we went straight to the pool. I layed out and covered my face, it was turning into a tomato. Ellen stopped by to see how we were doing and when we asked her of her suggestions for dinner she gave us a few options so we checked them out. The first one we stopped at was the Up River Cafe, it was a little too expensive for us so we went with the second option, which was 84 High Street. Let me tell you, it was the best food I have had in a long time. It was delicious. We started out with an appetizer of crab cakes. I had the Chicken -n-chokes, which is chicken and artichoke hearts mixed with penne pasta. Sooo good. Chancho of course had the New York Strip Steak. He never goes with anything unusual in fear of not liking it. However we do have a rule that with every meal that he eats with me, he must try something new. Most of the times, he likes it. It's a good way to broaden his horizens and to be fair whenever he has something that is new to me, I have to try it. He's peruvian, so this comes up often. Finally, for dessert, we had the turtle cheesecake, which put me into a food coma. It was ridiculously good. A really great food experience all around.

The Yankee game was on so when we got back to Woody Hill, we found a radio and listened to a few innings before we passed out. Woke up again for breakfast and unfortunately left to come home again. Over all this was such a pleasant experience. Ellen was just terrific, I cannot get over how great she was. She was there to help us with anything we needed. The house was beautiful and nicely kept, along with the pool. She even had a cat named Jenny who was very friendly. The house itself is literally 2 miles away from beaches and it's secluded enough to take you away to a secluded sanctuary. We decided that this is a place that we want to make part of our traditional summer trips. It was everything we wanted. So without a doubt, I would recommend this place a hundred times over. It is even open in the winter and for special occasions like a wedding.

Now, it's time to start packing for our camping trip. We leave tomorrow morning. Chancho is out getting his oil changed and picking up some last minute items from our list. I hope all goes well with this trip, and no rain! I'll update, when we get back on Saturday. I leave you with one last picture from the beach:

Vacation

Officially on vacation. Chancho is too. He came home from an overnight at 11:45am this morning and slept while I worked til 5pm. We've been busy doing last minute errands to prepare for our trips. Tomorrow we head to Rhode Island to celebrate our anniversary. I'm looking forward to this more than anything! Then Thursday morning we leave for Vermont. Notice the change of location. We had a our friends back out of camping. I took it upon myself to encourage Chancho to still go camping. I gave him a map of a few campgrounds and he picked out one in Vermont! I of course had to look it over to make sure it met all of my criteria for camping. If there was water (creek/river/lake), hiking trails, trees, and lots campsites to choose from. It met all of those and so we're going! It did take me a long time to settle down from being beyond pissed off at our friends for canceling, and I still am mad, but it is what it is so I'll just deal with it. I should have known that something would have gone wrong. I tend to just go with the flow and don't let things bother me, but this for some reason has really bothered me. Hopefully this is a blessing in disguise.

I am off for the week and I will be sure to post pictures and update about how our lovely week together goes!

Never Enough Time

There is always that feeling of there never being enough time in the day. We had a wonderful time yesterday. Some good and some not so good. The good involved drinking, partying and spending the night together. All of which is not something that happens very often.

I'll start with that Chancho got out at 3pm instead of 7pm. Either of which I would have been thrilled about because with his usual shift he gets home by 1am. We were able to have lunch and dinner together like a normal couple. We stopped off at the liquor store and because it was a Wed. there was a law enforcement discount....a lousy $2 and change. It didn't even cover tax. Why even bother saying there is a discount?? Senior citizens got a bigger discount! Doesn't that seem strange? I'm not going to go and continue to complain, because we all know that police officers get discounts when there shouldn't be any discounts to begin with so I guess it all works out in some way.

In the course of the night I once again had a hard knock of reality. Chancho informed me while we were discussing going out to clubs that he was not allowed to go to a few places under the orders of his superiors. Which, in all honesty, is not a huge deal, but it does make me realize that even though I'd like to think that he can do whatever he wants, he can't. It all comes down to those few officers that cannot keep their guns away and can't control themselves while they are out that it ruins it for others. It had me thinking about how if the group of my friends wanted to go to the places that he can't go to, that would be added to the list of "do it alone". I'm trying my best not to struggle with that concept. I never was one to need someone to do things with me, but growing up in a household where I constantly saw my mother going to things without her husband and dragging me along instead, I never wanted that for me. One of the things that keeps me from running in the other direction is that I know his shift won't always be crappy hours and the higher up he gets in the force the better chances he has in recieving the days that he wants off. He also isn't my dad who constantly shields himself from the public. It's not anything that I can't learn to live with and I'm already learning.

We are both countingdown the days until our vacation. We are in desperate need of alone time and a breather from him worrying about work. Due to the both of us struggling financially b/c of student loans and the high insurance bills we don't get to have the leisure lifestyle that we'd like. So this vacation will be very nice, even if it does put us down in our savings. I say it will be worth it. He has been working overtime shifts and doing paid details on his days off. Which only means less time for us. A 2 day gettaway in Rhode Island by the beach in a bed and breakfast is something to keep us going. 2 weeks away now! :) Then after we get back from that. We go camping. A double date camping trip if you will. It will be the first time Chancho will be camping. I'm pretty excited to show him how fun it can be. The campground is near the beach as well so that will keep him occupied if nothing else does.

Now only for these 2 weeks to hurry up so I can truly relax!