Merry Chirstmas to All!!!!

We wanted to wish everyone a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! We hope everyone has a great Christmas and a fantastic 2010!!!!!!!

A Magical Year!

Well, today marks our 1 year anniversary! Wow.. time just flies.. it feels like yesterday that we were sending out wedding invitations... Sheila and I had some plans for our 1 year, but with all the traveling we have done in the last month with family and weddings, we decided to take it easy and stay local. We decided to go do one of the things we enjoy the most, shopping at IKEA. So we strolled around the mega-store looking at all the fun stuff. Made a few purchases, a pink hippo for little sophie and some fabric to re-cover our ottoman. Then we went out for dinner, we went to La Fontana in downtown Nyack. This is the other place we had considered doing our reception at because of their tasty food and beautiful hudson river view. Sheila with a delicious and I mean DEL-I-CIOUS!!!!! pasta dish and myself with a double stack of pork chops, which i was unable to finish... it was a fun, romantic candle lit dinner. Sheila handed me a gift bag, with a white mug that had "#1 hubby" written in sharpie marker all over it... filled with 4 Reese's BigCup. What I didn't notice and Sheila had to point out to me a few minutes later where the little white pieces of paper taped to the bottom of each peanut butter cup. So I opened the first one and find a pair of airplane seat numbers, then a flight number, time and date, and on the last one I discovered we are going to Tampa!! Later that evening we had plans to go to the movies as we were on a classic "dinner and a movie" date.. however it was getting late so we decided to go from the 42 foot screen at the theatres to the 42 inch tv in our living room. And we watched "Confessions of a Shopaholic" and called it a night.

A new pair of Soccer Cleats!

Being Argentine Independence Day... I treated myself to a classic Argentine gift.... soccer cleats... well i bought them almost two weeks ago, but forgot them upstate at the McCaffrey's house. I'm just posting them on Independence Day! 9 de Julio!!!!

So my reason for posting this post in particular is not only to let you know about our life but also to see how long my cleats last... As of lately, i've been doing pretty good (now that i've stopped playing soccer everyday and switched to a more "older" person schedule of 3 times a week), my cleats have gone from a 6 month life span to TWO YEARS!!!! So when my cleats finally bust open again like my last pair I can go back and see how long they lasted!

For those of you soccer enthusiasts... they are diadora cleats.. made out of fine kangaroo leather. And that's about all i know about them... I found them at Dick's Sporting Goods.. 60% off.. from $99.99 to $39.99... can't get a much better deal that that!

Spiegels visit the Grames in NYC!

After the Spiegel's(a.k.a Justin, Crystal and Sophie) visited with Justin's and Crystal's family in upstate NY, they made their trip back down to Tampa, FL; but first stopped to see the McGrames' here in NYC for the 4th of July weekend.

They arrived Thursday evening and we went out for some real NY pizza...then walked around downtown Nyack and enjoyed the nice sunny weather...we went home to play with Sophie before it was her bedtime...

Friday we went into the city and met up with our friends Billy and Stacey who were on holiday in NYC for the 4th, had some lunch with them in Greenwich Village and then chauffered Sophie around the city while she napped. We enjoyed some shopping at Whole Foods and then jumped on the Staten Island ferry for a free tour of the NYC. We walked around Battery Park and bartered for some Dolce&Gabana purses for Sheila and Crystal.. The ladies did very well... 2 purses for $15 each. Not too shabby... especially when they started out at $45 each.

On Saturday we were so tired from walking around New York City the previous day that we pretty much hung around the apartment and relaxed. We took a mid-day nap and then the ladies went out to shop for some nice jewelry pieces for their jewelry making hobby. Justin and David babysat Sophie and played some video games... We meant to go swimming but the weather had other plans for us... so we just watched some TV, some fireworks and enjoyed some time together.

Later that night, or early next morning I should say came time for them to head out... 3 a.m. came around they pulled out to make their long voyage from NYC to Tampa. They arrived safely by 9:30pm... that's only 19 hours later... and I heard Justin drove practically the entire way. Amazing. We had a blast with them and we were REALLY REALLY sad to see the 3 of them go.

The Coke Can Fiasco

I have a tendency recently to forget about stuff... maybe i should start taking my ginko biloba pills already.... anyway, to give you a little background story... around Christmas time when we were visiting some friends in Florida, they put a drink in the freezer to cool it off for me... and Billy said, "I put this in here for you, so do forget about it!" Well the night went on and soon it was time to leave... halfway back to Justin and Crystal's house we get a phone call from Billy sarcastically asking if we forgot something... none of us thought we left anything there until he mentioned the Soda in the freezer... "ooops" I said. So Billy, being the nice guy he is, didn't make a big deal about it and cleaned it up. Now I just hear the occassional teasing every now and then.

Months later.... almost 6 months later to the day... we were up in Rochester for Sarah's Wedding (Sheila's longtime childhood friend) and also visiting Sheila's family and Justin/Crystal and Sophie who flew up for some quality family time... So it was getting pretty hot out and no cold drinks... so before I started getting ready for Sarah's wedding I put a Coke in the Freezer and figured I would have a nice cold drink to take with me right before I went to the wedding. So after an hour of sitting around and 10 min. of getting ready for the wedding.. I rushed out... Didn't even think about the Coke... never crossed my mind until that night when we pulled into the driveway and Justin came out to meet us and with a big smile asked: "did you forget something?"

Then a little red flashing Coke sign went off in my head... "oops!" (& to quote a classic tv character: "Did I do thaaaat?") So they left it for me to clean up and I decided to take pictures and blog about it....

Everyday is a Rainy Day in NY!

Well if you live in the northeast, you know that we've been plagued by a monsoon for the last month... with very little sunshine and enough rain to drive Noah to the brink of madness... o.k. maybe not that bad... but we've gotten a lot of rain. At work we play soccer every Monday, Wednesday and Friday during lunch for about 1 hour and 1/2. sometimes 2 when the weather is nice.. They encourage us to get out of the office and those excel spreadsheet.... well our field has basically been drenched to the point where it no longer wants to soak up water...So for the last few weeks its been rather... muddy. So after this last weekends rain showers, we knew we were in for a nice drizzly, mud splashing, slip n' slide type game, and wouldn't you know my cleat pretty much decided it had seen enough water as well and decided to jump ship... fortunately we have showers here at work just for this reason...

So that's my little story for the day... soon we will be heading upstate to rochester where one of Sheila's best friends is getting married and older sister Crystal and baby Sophie are visiting the family so we will be spending some time with the before they come visit us on the 4th of July as they make their way back to Tampa, FL.

The Fireplace Project

One of the many things we enjoy is collecting items people will be throwing out and fixing them up, making them ours.... One man's trash is another man's treasure right... so Sheila's work was throwing out this feax fireplace they used in an display... so we snagged it, painted it a nice gray color(it used to be this ugly out-dated birchy wood color).

Picked up some candle holders and next thing you know we have a nice cozy feeling to our apartment... Sorry, i forgot to take some before pictures... but I promise one day I'll take some pictures or give you a guided video tour of our apt. since its been almost a year now that we've lived there..

A New Hobby for the McGrames'

Sheila is a very creative woman and like her dad she likes to keep herself busy with projects... so why not mix her love of jewelry and projects together. Our friend Rachel and Myself had to be the models for the new jewelry line... So if you see some scruff in there, its not a hairy woman!

Sheila has started to create jewelry for herself and friends. David has helped out a bit as well, creating a bracelet and earrings... But Sheila has done most of the work in the design and creativity of the items... One friend liked her creations so much she offered to have Sheila's jewelry displayed/sold at a beauty salon where she works.

So here are some pictures of her creations so far... nothings for sale yet... but you can submit a request if you want...Sheila does it more out of enjoyment than to try and sell them... but if you have an idea or a picture, email us at mcgrames@gmail.com and i'll submit an order for you! =0)

Our New Toy

Well a few months ago a co-worker in a different dept. went home to Europe for Christmas and ended up with a new job, not returning to the U.S. (His research grant expired in May, so he had to look for a new job anyway), he recently came back to the U.S. for the long weekend to pack up, get rid/sell his belongings and take what he could back to Europe with him. One thing we always discussed besides soccer was video games, and so he said he had a PS3 he was planning on getting rid whenever he came to pack his stuff up, so naturally, being the geeky-techy gamer I am, i showed interest. I brought it up with Sheila and she told me to sell some stuff on eBay and we might be able to buy it from him... scraped up a bunch of old items i no longer used and made some quick money... One day, I see my office door slightly open and a PS3 box starts sliding through the door... i started laughing, we caught up a bit... and found out he just wanted $100 for it, since he had purchased it for his son who decided he wanted to keep the Xbox360 they had purchased as well, He was looking to just get rid of the console. The PS3 doubles as a Blu-Ray player, so at $100 that is way cheaper than any Blu-Ray player on the market so i gladly relieved him of his PS3 and now its our new toy/Blu-Ray player.. Fun times....

Memorial Day "Camping" weekend.

Well we decided to go camping on Memorial Day weekend, our friend Rachel was born on May 25th and she is a big outdoorsy type person but by the time we got our act together and went to reserve a camp site, they were all booked... the only thing left was a cabin, in POOR condition. Literally said that on the website when we went to book the camp site. Here is Tina and her husband Joe and birthday girl Rachel, who happened to have a cold and fever that weekend. Nice way to spend your birthday, but it was a nice time. Despite still being a little cold and most of the entertainment being closed since the state park had just opened that weekend, no canoes, kayaks, innertubes or row boats available. I can't seem to find the majority of the pictures(which there weren't too many) but once I do, i'll add a bunch to the bottom..