Kyle and I are sooooo bad at blogging...this is terrible. The entire fall semester went by without us doing A THING about this. I half-heartedly tried to blog a couple times, but...pretty much failed. Anyway! Some of the highlights and a quick summary: I went part-time in school, and was frantically trying to do all I could for my dissertation, but it was stressing me out really badly. So in December, I decided (along with my advisor) that maybe I would hold off the law job search so that I could focus SOLELY on my dissertation after the bar exam (from July-November) and hopefully graduate with the Ph.D. in December 2012. In the meantime, teach a couple of undergrad classes and maybe do some part-time work with a firm I worked at while I was at UB. Law classes in the fall pretty much wiped me out...I chose some awful classes, because I thought I HAD to take them. I should have taken the approach of taking classes that I would enjoy, which I'm doing this semester, THANK GOD. I started this semester back at the business immigration firm, and will be starting back up with the Public Defender's Office. Besides classes, I'm focusing on enjoying my classes and the mediation competition in Paris in February :) Very eventful semester is coming up, with a lot of traveling like last semester, except this semester it'll all be international :)
So- here goes....
In August, Alison came from England to stay with me for two weeks. She was doing a clinical rotation in Bethesda, so it was pretty perfect! We crammed in a lot of things in the time she was here, since I was working full-time at the firm, and she had her schedule as well. One night, we went spelunking through the Monuments at night, and if you've never been down there at night, DO IT. It is beautiful when it's lit up. Alison managed to rope in some Secret Service men to hang out with us in front of the White House, as only she can haha.
Alison and I in front of the Washington Monument
September: Our good friend Bianca came down to DC to visit, and stayed with me over Labor Day weekend, which was really nice and fun. It was still hot in DC, and we got to check out the MLK memorial. A couple weeks later, Kyle and I flew out to Chicago for Hillary and Michael's wedding! It was BEAUTIFUL. Very unique, quirky, cute, creative, and had so many individual touches on it that you KNEW it was their wedding. Here's a picture of their sendoff, which tells you immediately that it was a very special wedding indeed:
Radio Flyer Wagon :) Big-people version
SUCH a fun wedding. We had a blast, and we got to go to a White Sox game after the wedding (GREAT seats), and just spent a really good long weekend in Chicago. Love the city.
White Sox game with Kyle's parents!
October: October was a pretty eventful month as well. I went up to Buffalo once, and we got to see the Lion King musical. I was scared that it was going to be awful, because...come on, how are animals going to be portrayed onstage? But it was pretty awesome, and they did a job well done. The week before, I flew out to San Francisco (home!) to run the Nike Women's Half Marathon. Robin met me out there, and we survived. Barely. I don't think I have EVER EVER EVER been in so much pain my entire life. I don't think it was the 13.1 miles, but rather the extreme hills from miles 6-10. My friend Raymond was tracking us to estimate when to pick us up, and from miles 1-6, we were trekking along pretty steadily, but from 6-10 it was BAD. The hills were pretty much 90 degree angles, both up and down. From 11-13 it was steady, but the hills took a toll. Regardless, Robin and I finished, and we got our Tiffany necklaces as our finishing medal...from a San Francisco fireman :)
Firemen of San Francisco giving us that little blue box.
What a fun weekend with Robin!
As you can see, that was a real highlight (the necklace, not the running). It was also really nice to be home. I hadn't been in San Francisco since our wedding (June 2010), so it was good to see a lot of great friends :) October is also the month of Halloween!!!! :) Kyle came down for Halloween weekend, and I had a BLAST dressing him up. People have been telling me off-hand that Kyle reminds them of "that guy" from Glee...aka BLAINE WARBLER. Hey, I'm ok with that. Blaine is good looking, Kyle is good-looking..it works. SO. I made Kyle the Warbler Academy blazer, and some really nice mom sent me the Dalton Academy patch, and I dressed as Lea Michelle. Come to think of it, I probably should have gone as a female warbler, but oh well. It worked out pretty well. Here is a great pic of us:
Kyle kinda looks like Blaine. It's a little eerie.
It was awesome. Bahahhaha. Kyle is such a good sport about all this too :)
November: November got pretty dicey. I peaked out for a good two weeks to go to San Antonio for Lanie's wedding/Thanksgiving with Kyle's family. We actually hadn't been to San Antonio since Christmas 2009, almost two years, so it was really nice to be back in town and with ALL the family in one place at one time (yes, all 6 Pozza kids were in!). Also great? We got to stay with Stacy (Kyle's sister) Haley, and Gracie and Stacy got engaged!!! CanNOT wait for that wedding!!!!!
ALL SIX Pozza kids together in one spot :)
But first, Lanie's wedding...it was SUCH a beautiful wedding. I was a bridesmaid, and the theme was very vintagey-50's-Hill Country Texas-ish. It was amazing. The whole thing was at Barr Mansion, so we drove into Austin for the weekend, and had SUCH a blast. Love love love the girl :) Not to mention she made a GORGEOUS bride.
MVC REUNION. Robin is the last of us to be married!!!
We then drove back to San Antonio, where we were for a good week and a half for Thanksgiving festivities. Played a couple rounds of golf, went to Andrew's movie premiere for Supernatural Activity, and generally just had a wonderful time with the nieces (Addie and Haley) and all the siblings, plus cousins and aunts. It was really good TLC, and Kyle and I certainly enjoyed being in town. Of course, reality set in, and we had to go back to our respective cold places- Buffalo and DC :)
December: Man, December was rough. FINALS. After finals were over, and my break started (Dec. 12), everything went uphill. I did absolutely nothing and it was amazing. I was in Buffalo for a couple days, hung out with Kyle a lot with his office people, which was fun :) and saw a lot of good Buffalo friends. I jetted to NYC the following Monday for 4 days with Lanie and Doug! We stayed at the New Yorker hotel, which, if you look it up, has AMAZING history (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Yorker_Hotel). It's the hotel with the landmark "New Yorker Hotel" sign, and was pretty close to a lot of things. Lanie and I did a bunch of stuff...we went shopping, we walked EVERYWHERE, lunch at the Plaza, the Met, 9/11 memorial, and Serendipity for the frozen hot chocolate. I love New York City, and love it even more with one of my best friends:
Bryant Park
The Met
It was a good 4 days of fun, and I made it back to Buffalo just in time for the holidays. We bought all the necessary presents, packed it up, sent them to San Antonio/San Francisco, and just hung out. Christmas Eve, we went to the Buffalo Bills/Denver Broncos game. I seriously thought it was going to be miserable because of the weather and because the Bills were having an AWFUL second half of the season, but it was unseasonably warm (until the sun dipped behind the stadium...at which point my feet froze), and the Bills CRUSHED the Broncos. It was a GREAT game. We sat behind the opposing bench, and I could just SEE Tebow. ;) Might have focused on that more than the game!
Buffalo Bills game :)
The day after (Christmas!), Kyle and I spent the day together, doing what we love best- being couch potatoes and watching BASKETBALL. You have NO idea how happy I am the NBA is back on and playing. It was depressing the Lakers lost, and seeing Odom in a Mavs jersey was NOT cool, but it is what it is, and hopefully the Lakers can have a good season and stay in the playoffs long enough...The day after Christmas, Kyle and I went to the Sabres game. Since living in Buffalo, I've found that I LOVE hockey. It's exciting, it's fun, and it moves fast.
Sabres game against the Washington Capitals!
The following weekend was New Years Eve, and we went with our good friends Gevork and Ellen to the casino! Rob and Stef met us there, and we had a pretty good time. Kyle won some money (yay!) and we go to play a couple hours' worth of blackjack. It was a really good time. When it came time for midnight to come, Rob was able to lead us to the American Falls, and we were able to count down to the new year at Niagara Falls! It was pretty freakin cool:
Ringing in the new year! Niagara Falls is behind us!
So ringing in the New Year was pretty cool. And the next bit of exciting news----- we're moving into a house!!!! We found a BEAUTIFUL house in Williamsville to rent (well, Snyder really, but border Williamsville), and it's 3 bedrooms, full basement, great front and backyard, and it's been really well taken care of. We're super excited to be living in a house, and we definitely think it's about time for us to move into a house together. It's pretty fitting, considering we'll be living together again starting in May :) I am so looking forward to it.
Our new home :)
