Life Lately May 2022

I can sum up the month of May in three words: hockey, testing, and Ozark.

Hockey: The Stanley Cup playoffs began on May 2 and three of the four teams I cheer for made the playoffs. Every night, there were exciting games to watch, but unfortunately, none of my teams made it out of the first round. All three of the series went to a game 7 and all three of my teams lost. Extremely disappointing. I've had to shift my allegiance to the Avalanche, one of C's favorite teams, which I don't mind at all because I don't care for any of the other remaining teams, but honestly, it's just not the same as cheering for a team you love!

Testing: Ah, spring, the season of state testing. Once our testing started, I proctored tests every single day with the exception of one morning when I had an appointment and wasn't at school. It's very tiring to do that day after day after day! We only have another week to go and I will be relieved when we are finally done!

Ozark: When we were in Puerto Rico at the beginning of the month, it rained for most of our time there so I started watching Ozark. C had watched the first 3.5 seasons already, but hadn't seen the second half of the fourth season which had just been released, so he rewatched as I watched it for the first time. I quickly became obsessed with the show because I've loved Jason Bateman since he played the best friend on Silver Spoons in the 1980s. I had worried that his role as a money launderer involved with a drug cartel would make me like him less, but the opposite happened – I really loved him in Ozark. I finished the whole series in three weeks, and if you haven't seen it, I highly recommend it. It's dark, but compelling, and the acting is superb.

After going to Puerto Rico at the beginning of the month for C's birthday, we also went to a concert at the Kennedy Center, which was really fantastic – it was a collection of Disney Princess songs and four Broadway stars who played some of the roles in the musicals, including Susan Egan, performed with the National Symphony Orchestra. I absolutely loved it! We have tickets to another show there next month and I'm already looking forward to it!

Perhaps the most noteworthy thing is that after 18+ months, my mom moved back in with us! I'm so grateful to B1 and S1 for taking such amazing care of her while she was living near them and I will continue to be vigilant about keeping germs at bay to the best of my ability so that I don't inadvertently make her sick. C is working from home, so gives me peace of mind to know he's there if she needs anything during the day when I'm at school.

We wrapped up the month with my birthday; although it was a school day, I was completely spoiled by my friends! Lunch and gifts and love! Then C and I went to St. Louis to finish off our baseball stadiums checklist and we just love driving trips in general, so the long weekend was super fun!

one of the third grade teachers made
these cute shirts for the entire team and
included me, so we wore these on
third grade test days

One of my favorite things about the show
is that the opening features four symbols,
all of which somehow represent the letters
Z-A-R-K inside of the O!
And every episode has different symbols!
SO CLEVER!

I loved these two throughout the entire series!

Our niece made C a birthday card
and told him that she put clovers on it
"because you're Irish!"
Oh my heart!

illustration of me from a student for
Teacher Appreciation Day

rainbow roses for Mother's Day...
my first without a four-legged friend
since 1998

a surprise gift from one of my all-time
favorite students who is now 16!

Dachshunds and rainbows...so perfect!

how have my godkids
gotten so tall?!?

best part of a road trip...
finding a Tim Hortons along the way

a friend recommended this ice cream
place and this specific flavor
last year when we went to Kentucky,
and it was so good that we went out of our way
to stop there again on our way to St. Louis

White Castle has Impossible Sliders
and they are amazing!

Picked up some awesome donuts
at Pharaoh's Donuts in St. Louis
and one of the employees was also from
Virginia and his parents live 20 minutes from us!
What a small world!

TUMS

proudly made in STL since 1930

my favorite human

Happy Tails to you!

MLB Stadium #42!

As I've shared many times, back in 2004, we finished our travel checklist of going to a baseball game in each of the 30 MLB ballparks. While it was a big deal to us when we finally accomplished our goal, by the time we got to the last one, which happened to be San Francisco Giants, there were already some stadiums that had been replaced! Since then, we've been playing catch up sporadically when it's been convenient for us to go to a game in a new ballpark, but getting to these new stadiums certainly hasn't been at the top of our travel plans.

When we were planning what to do on our big road trip last summer, we had six new ballparks left to visit. It wasn't possible to get to all six on that trip simply due to scheduling and logistics, but we did get to three: the Cincinnati Reds, the Texas Rangers, and the Atlanta Braves. That left us with three, so we decided to try to get to them during this school year. We went to see a Minnesota Twins game this past September and then a Miami Marlins game last month, which left us with just one to go.

Today we went to a St. Louis Cardinals game, who we saw play in their previous stadium more than twenty years ago when we lived in Chicago. Their "new" stadium opened in 2006, but we've not had a chance to get to it until today!

Busch Stadium is very nice and they've done a beautiful job with the area surrounding it! We had some time before the game to wander around and we were pretty impressed. We've been to St. Louis three times before today: once when we saw the Cardinals in their previous stadium; once when we went as part of a road trip and we did touristy things, including going up inside the Gateway Arch; and once when we went to see the St. Louis Blues play as part of our NHL Arenas travel checklist. It seems to me that the city has put a lot of work into sprucing itself up, because it was much nicer than I'd remembered!

The Cardinals lost to the Brewers 8-0, so not a great result for the hometown fans, but a fun afternoon for us, because we weren't really cheering for either team! Our seats were literally in the last row of the stadium and we had a chain link fence behind us, but for baseball, we've always been perfectly fine sitting in the upper deck because you can enjoy the game from different vantage points.

This brings me to a little brief cost break down. The tickets were only $10 each, and with taxes and fees, we paid a total of $28 for them. An amazing price for sure! The parking cost more ($30), as did the food and drinks ($54) we bought, but we were happy to find seats with a pretty decent view at such a reasonably low price. We were thinking back over the other baseball trips, and we're both pretty sure that's the lowest we've EVER paid for tickets to an MLB game! Contrast that with hockey, our true favorite sport, where we've paid upwards of $400 a seat to go to a game because where you sit makes a gigantic difference in your experience!

The only negative thing I can say about the game is the during the seventh inning stretch, they played "Take Me Out to the Ball Game," which of course is absolutely fine – but when we went to the Cardinals games all those years ago, they played "Meet Me in St. Louis" and all of the fans sang along. It's one of the things that made it a unique and memorable experience and we were looking forward to hearing it today. No such luck!

For now, until one of the baseball teams decides to build a new stadium, we're all caught up on MLB ballparks!

Happy Tails to you!

Puerto Rico 2022

We went to Puerto Rico for a few days to celebrate C's birthday and it's always fantastic to go somewhere we haven't been before!

We flew down on Saturday morning and Southwest made a few announcements about it being a full flight, so when we were boarding, we decided to grab the first two seats that had overhead bin space above them. We were worried about sitting near each other because we were in the B boarding group and there were already passengers on the plane because it was a connecting flight to San Juan. We took two aisle seats one behind the other, happy to be near each other, but if you've read any other of my posts, you know that I am a window seat girl. So me sitting in an aisle seat should tell you how many announcements the gate agents made about it being a full flight. Let me skip to the punchline and report that it was NOT a full flight and the Southwest gate agents lied (a typical tactic to get people to board quickly) and I very much regretted sitting in an aisle seat. When I sit in a window seat, I usually put my sunglasses on, listen to music, and sleep for most of every flight. No one bothers me and that's the way I like it. This is not what happens in an aisle seat, where you are forced to accommodate the two people sitting in the same row with you. In my case, I had a very annoying lady in the middle seat beside me who kept having to get up to dig around in her bag in the overhead bin, to go to the bathroom, to stretch her legs, and so on. She kept trying to chat with me and repeatedly offered me bubble gum, not taking the fact that I was listening to music as a sign that I was not interested in conversation. Three times she CLIMBED OVER ME because I was dozing and she "didn't want to disturb me." Hello?!? I'd rather you wake me up than climb over me in the most awkward manner, stepping on and bumping me in the process! No sense of respecting my personal space! C prefers the aisle seat because he rarely sleeps on any flights and it gives him the option of getting up without disturbing anyone else, but never again will I choose an aisle seat if I can avoid it!

After finally landing, the rest of our day was fairly quiet. We took an uber to our hotel, which was absolutely beautiful and spent Saturday, Sunday, and Monday mostly hanging out because it was cloudy and rainy all three days! Given how lovely the hotel was, I have no complaints whatsoever about this beyond the fact that I couldn't take a ton of pictures due to the overcast weather. I've written before about a vacation vs. a trip, and this was definitely intended to be a vacation, so hanging out at a beautiful hotel with ocean views was perfect for relaxation!

On Monday, the rain let up a bit, so we went into historic Old Town for part of the day, and then on Tuesday, the day we were leaving, the sun came out and I was able to get some nice photos before we checked out at noon to head to the airport. Our flight home was actually full, so we had someone sit between us, but I was thrilled to have a window seat so I could sleep!

It was great to visit Puerto Rico and I know if we'd been able to stay longer and if the weather had been more cooperative, we would have explored more, but it was a great getaway to celebrate my favorite person!

Happy Tails to you!