A WILD time in Philly

Oooohhhhhh...it's HOCKEY TIME!

So glad Rob was able to take in the game with us...it's always fun to see him while he's out on the East Coast!
I mean, look at that crew...how fantastic are we?!?!
However...one of these things is not like the other...I'm not really sure how that Flyers fan
was able to sneak into the photo or how he managed to commandeer a ride to the game :-)

Had to try the Crabfries from Chickie's & Pete's...mmmmm!
They were definitely demolished before the puck dropped
(mostly thanks to yours truly) so I had to insert a stock photo of
'em to share with you...they were delish!!!

There he is again!
Jen, I'm pretty sure he must have been holding my beer
while I was snapping photos...I had no control of him once
we went to our seats though!

Referee chit-chat and/or pre-game cheer...1, 2, 3...go refs!

Love the guy in the corner with the "You'll Choke" sign...LOL!

I have to say, I was diggin' Bryzgalov's vintage-styled pads...AWESOME!

A whole suite of Wild dad's in the house...intently watching their boys.

Just in case you feel like breaking out a few disco moves while you're at the game.  

Nothing like a good little squabble...I think the ref just wants a hug!

This guy has a pretty important job...

Thanks for the tickets Kels & Mike...we had a fabulous time!!!

Fun Patrol...who knew!?!?

Catwoman, too!  Woah...
 Seriously though, who put's CATWOMAN on the back of their Flyers jersey??
Some kind of joke that I'm just not getting...

The Flyers Ice Girls...and the exact words of the 40-something woman sitting next to us...
Ice girls, I didn't know they had ice girls!
(a little bit of time passes...)
My favorite part of hockey...the fighting!  My second favorite part of hockey...the ice girls!
I'm putting that on my Facebook status...(as she types away on some sort of Droid-type device)
Yup...ice girls!  (snaps a photo and turns to her girlfriend) Don't worry honey, they don't hold a candle to you, though...
She definitely didn't stop talking about the ice girls the rest of the night.  

Look what the Fun Patrol brought us!  Our row won food $$ to a local Philadelphia casino.  Winners!

The sight lines at the Wells Fargo Center were not exactly spectacular
(probably partially because the place is also used for 76ers games--the lower level seating is very shallow)
and the the SEAMS on the boards definitely ended up in the majority of my photos!
Guess I've totally been spoiled all these years watching games at the X!

The one and only Wild goal of the night...yeah boys!
Too many goals by the boys in orange though.  We ended up 4 short :-/

The netting in this place was never-ending...and white!

More white netting...

One of these days I'm going to get a nice, big smile out of McSurdy...

Mike was busy drooling over the bubble hockey machines scattered throughout the arena!

We had a fantastic time at the game, even though it would have been nice to see the Wild put a few more in the back of the net.  It would have been great to see KOIVU out on the ice too, but he was out with an upper body injury (insert sadface here).  As always, I would have enjoyed a little Oh, Canada! too...but I guess I'll have to save that for a trip to Toronto :-)  Kelsey Andreen and Mike Grosse...I think you guys take the cake for exciting and awesometastic birthday presents!! Thanks so much for making it possible for the two of us to see the Wild in the city of brotherly love, we had a blast!!!

Wild Fans, it's Time to Drop the Puck...

Tonight.  Making the trek to Philadelphia to see the Wild take on the Flyers.  Woohoo!  This girl (and guy) haven't seen the puck drop live, in person, and up close in quite some time.  I mean, NHL Gamecenter has been keeping us in the loop, but that's nothing compared to the real thing.  Needless to say, we're pretty excited :-) Shout out to Kelsey and Mike for the great combination birthday present for Mike and me...THANKS, THANKS, THANKS...we're sure to enjoy!  (Oh, and we might just sneak a cheesesteak in, too!)  Don't worry, I'll try to take lots of photos to share with you later in the week.    

Coffee local.

I know I've told you before about the fantastically lovely new coffee roaster in our neighborhood.  Little Amps.  We (and I say that loosely, because I'm pretty sure this includes anyone in the immediate vicinity of Olde Uptown and/or Harrisburg) love with the place.  Or it's possible that Mike and I have turned into [slight] coffee snobs as we've grown up over the years.  What do you expect when you have a mom who's a coffee goddess?  I'm hooked on good coffee.  It's so nice to be able to walk down the street and grab some delicious HOT coffee (or other coffee-like beverage of your choice) and some equally as fabulous, fresh-baked sandwiches, cookies, and all sorts of other goodies hand-baked and packaged with love...yummmm.  Fresh.  Local.  Caffeine.

This past weekend, the Patriot News in Harrisburg did a big lifestyle story on Little Amps, which you can read here.  It just so happens that we were enjoying a few coffees on opening day when the photographer from The Patriot stopped in and felt an impromptu photo-session was in store.  It was 8AM on a Saturday morning, so none of us were appropriately dressed or freshened up to pose for photos, but hey...it was fun!  Nothing like some neighborhood kids "acting normal" and pretending there wasn't a photographer in the room.  We follow directions well :-)

Since I've already made this into a longer story than it needs to be...you can probably guess that one of the pictures ended up being used online and in print. That's right, our faces in newsprint.  Mike looks seriously interested in whatever it is that Jake was saying at the time, while Jake looks seriously engaged in staring at his coffee.  Take time to peek through the photos and read the article.  I can assure you that if you and yours take a trip to Harrisburg and spend any amount of time staying with Mike and I, you'll end up sauntering over to Little Amps at least once or twice, I promise.

Photo originally posted on Pennlive.com.
Click to see this and check out the rest of the gallery and see some pretty awesome pics.

  

Crafty beer love, Lancaster style.

So we meet again.  Another long, drawn out set of blog posts...by the time I finish posting pics and stories about Karen and Pat's visit, it'll be about that time that they'll be out for another visit.  Just kidding, I guess that's a bit dramatic.  But...their visit was last year already.  While in Lancaster, we decided to hit up the LBC (Lancaster Brewing Company) as the photos below show for some mid-day food and brew.  Oh yeah, and in case I forgot to mention, the weekend was Karen's whirlwind introduction to the vast world of craft beer :-)

I'm oddly in love with words, signs, and graffiti things painted on brick buildings...

Mmmmm...beeeeeerrrr!  Mike is all smiles, of course :-)

This is fabulous!

Kind of a fun little bar area...the stainless steel stuff you see in the
background are the same containers you see on the left side of the photo below.

It's a cute little brew-pub (if that's the correct term)...and by little, I mean little.
This pic was taken from one end of the brewery, looking toward the other.
The entire right side of the building (both floors) are the gigantic stainless steel brewing devices you see pictured here
Everything to the left of the photo was the restaurant and bar (on the upper level) and
storage of raw brewing ingredients...yes...beer before it becomes yummy in your tummy!
 

We were ever so lucky to take a brewery tour...i.e. like a quick little 10-minute lowdown from the brewmaster himself...
always fun though! We'd had beer from LBC prior to our visit and it's readily available at any of the beer distributors in our area, but the place was so dang small, it left me wondering how exactly all of the beer is made and bottled there.
Mr. Brewmaster answered my question at the very, very end of his tour when he informed the group that NO bottling is done at the Lancaster facility, rather, all of the commercial brewing and bottling is done at a brewery near Wilkes Barre.

I could make a lot of soup in that pot!

We did.  And then some.
Mike's car and the group in the background, getting ready to head home for the afternoon.

A happy Mike...and a stomach full of beer :-)
Oh yeah, we had some pretty banging lunch there, too!

Strawberries falling from the sky.

It's 2012.  Happy New Year!  Our first New Years Eve in the Eastern timezone.  Last night we totally watched a giant strawberry rappel down the side of a hotel.  You heard me right, it was a giant STRAWBERRY!  I can't say that in all of my years I've heard of anything "dropping" other than the iconic crystal ball in Times Square in NYC. Seriously.  Come to think of it, it's the first time in recent memory that we haven't watched the New Years celebration or ball drop on TV in some fashion or another.  Nope, we watched the Harrisburg Strawberry Drop live and in person instead.

We didn't bring our actual camera, so all we were only able to snap a few quick iPhone pics,
which is why you aren't seeing any strawberry close-ups.

NYE Fireworks!

Much to my amazement, as I searched the internet for a photo of said strawberry to share with you, I came across an article enticing central Pennsylvanian's to "Pick their drop".  That's code for--there's apparently a lot of crazy things that drop in this part of the country on NYE--so find a town or municipality near you and go watch something crazy drop from the side of a building.  Here were your choices to ring in 2012: a strawberry, a mini Indy car (not sure how mini we're talking), a pickle (in Dillsburg, PA of course), and a ten-and-a-half foot wrench (in Mechanicsburg, PA so I guess it's fitting).  I also heard on TV the other day something about a large (not sure how large we're talking) bologna dropping somewhere.  To add to the list, apparently missing from this year's celebrations were a giant shoe, a pair of yellow britches, and a sphoctogon...I can deduce what it may have looked like from deciphering the word, but I'm not really sure, quite exactly, what it is or was.  Pure craziness.  But I have to say it's kind of fun that PA is so into things dropping on New Years, cause I get to tell you all about it :-)

For one last 2012 thought, I decided that I have to share this with you, too.  Only because I'm sure we're all going to hear about the end of the world more than enough this year...(cue the frightened gasps and scared faces) a la the Mayan calendar and it's insightful predictions.  A little 2012 humor for us all...

Here's to wishing you and yours a happy, healthy, wholesome, exciting, enjoyable and meaningful 2012-- spend it making all sorts of crazy memories!  CHEERS!!