Old friends are best

I took a quick trip to Florida last weekend to visit some old (not in age though!) friends and their growing families for a few days. It's an amazing thing when friends that you've known for more than 15 years start having babies!

I stayed in Winter Garden, FL (near Orlando) with Jen and Greg and their 13-month-old little boy Tyler. Jen, Tyler, and I went to Disney World on my first day.

It was so fun to take Tyler on classic rides like Pirates of the Caribbean and It's a Small World. We got to meet lots of characters too!

Ty especially loves Mickey and Minnie...go figure! I think Mickey and Minnie liked him too! 

Waiting in line for his first carousel ride...standing like a big boy!

 And waiting for the parade on Main Street USA...

On Saturday and Sunday, we hung out with Amy, Jon, and their latest adorable addition Megan, who is 4 months old.

She's a spitting image of her mother, and we had fun getting acquainted! All in all it was a great trip. Not only was it sunny and 70, but it was so nice to spend time with some great friends. Thanks Jen and Amy!

The best mirror is an old friend. ~George Herbert

I end with a little video I took of Tyler and me playing trucks. If anything, it's got to make you smile!

The aftermath

The snow stopped Wednesday evening, but it seems like that was just the beginning! The city remained shut down all day Thursday, again with suspended mail, public transportation, city hall, schools, universities, etc. My company was closed for the second day in a row (and Wednesday was the first time in 25 years that they closed!).

I went for a couple of walks today and was able to take some pictures of the streets around my neighborhood. Here's a shot of my block. Note the tree limb that has 1) crushed a couple cars, and 2) made the street impassable.

 It was a beautiful, sunny day in the neighborhood, and as long as you didn't spend too much time fixating on the damage and the slush, it was rather enjoyable to be outside!

 

  

And yet another road blocked by a fallen tree. This one miraculously fell in the 2-foot gap between two cars. Lucky!

 

You can see my building in the distance (pointy top w/a light at the top). I guess I'm actually going to have to show up there tomorrow...and I get to walk the whole way!

Snowmaggedon

We had a huge snowstorm the week before Christmas that dumped about 2 feet of snow on Philly. I've lived here for 5 winters now, and that was by far the biggest storm I had seen in the city! (See blog post It looks a lot like Christmas.) And now, in the past week, we've had two more huge snow storms.

Call it Snowmaggedon, call it Apocalypse Snow...whatever you want to call it, it's been messy! The first storm dumped 28 inches in Center City over the weekend. The view outside our door...

And my car, which I thankfully haven't needed yet.

So that was Saturday/Sunday. Tuesday comes along, and we have another blizzard warning in effect for 4pm Tuesday until midnight on Wednesday. Say what? All schools, government offices, postal services, stores, and public transportation shut down. Not to mention that the highways were all closed, and Mayor Nutter said that anyone who was "non-essential" was to stay put. The police even told the local news crews, who were reporting from various local towns, to get going...ha!

I got cabin fever and decided to spend some time outside. This is a shot of our patio while it was still snowing. The black rim in the background is our table...

Check out that grill mound!

And I thought I would try my hand at making a snowman...it's been a long time! I was probably a tween playing with the Hollander boys the last time I made one...

This evening the official announcement was made that this is the snowiest winter in Philadelphia history (70.3 inches so far this season). I could swear that Glenn "Hurricane" Schwartz (local meteorologist) got choked up on the news when he said, "No matter how old you are, you probably will never experience a winter like this in your lifetime, again." Tear.

Survey says...

I am thrilled to report that my survey revealed that I have at least 7 readers! Ha! And only one of them reads my blog out of pity. Fab! See my smiling face?

It's not much, but it's enough to keep me posting...for now at least. Imagine how happy I'd be if, say, 20 people read my blog. Too exciting to even consider for now. Please note the mild sarcasm. :)

Rock chalk Jayhawk!

Brad recently got a little taste of home when we attended the Kansas v. Temple basketball game. They played on Temple's campus January 2 — because it was winter break, there were hardly any students and (we could swear) more KU fans than Temple! Notice Brad with his arms up in the back row...

Apparently there are very active northeast KU alumni associations, and Brad's friend Alex (whom he went to high school with in Winfield, KS — and who coincidentally is going to school out here) was able to get tickets through one of them. In our little section of the Liacouras Center, Brad was hanging with at least 3 other Winfield-ians. Or -ites? Either way, it seemed unusual considering we were in the middle of Philly! Brad and Alex at the game...

The best part? I got to see the Waving Wheat (albeit on a much smaller scale than at the home games) firsthand! (If you don't know what this is, click here and see the "Traditions" section.)

Note: While there is someone waving a baby in this video (wait until about 7 seconds into it), I don't believe that's part of the tradition...

Holiday recap

We had a lovely holiday this year — nothing new or unusual — just good old tradition! You may recall that my dad had an unexpected quadruple bypass in 2008, just a few days before Christmas. So normal Christmas = great!

Even though no one else saw it, Brad and I got our first Christmas tree together. It made the apartment smell great! We were sad to see it go.

And, of course, there were lots of cookies — a la Danielle. Except I forgot to put carrot noses on the snowmen until it was too late...hindsight is 20/20, right?

One holiday tradition that has stuck with my family for a long time is Christmas breakfast with the Hollanders. During our traditional breakfast, Charlie (my dad) cooks, mimosas are made and consumed (although the kids weren't always allowed to have those!), napkin rings are stuck in our eye sockets (long story), and a family photograph is taken.

Recent additions to Christmas breakfast include: Bubba (dog), Jasmine (dog), and Brad (human). Meet Jasmine (Susan's dog) and Brad...

See Jasmine and Bubba...could they be any different?

And of course, the annual Hollander/Mittermaier photo taken using the tripod...

When did everybody get so tall? Well, almost everybody! It's such a gift to have friends who feel like family! And another wonderful year comes and goes...

It looks a lot like Christmas!

This weekend we're enjoying our first big snow storm in a while (I remember complaining the past two winters that we never got any "real" snow). It's been snowing pretty consistently for about 12 hours, and it's expected to continue through the night into tomorrow morning. The first picture was taken this afternoon; I took another shot about 4 hours later, and you can barely find our table!

 

 

We went out for a walk this afternoon to get food and play a little along the way. It was beautiful outside! It wasn't too cold, and the snow was light/powdery.

In the end, we ended up with what we were after...food!

Some pictures from the next day/week...the first one is a pic from our front stoop. Thanks to Philadelphia being broke, no plowing on our street! The second is a pic of a bike in Center City that was buried in snow. How funny that people shoveled all around it...The third pic is of a store right next to the bike. Those were some beautiful icicles!