Sunday, January 24, 2010

AHL All-Star Skills Competition and Game

In case you haven’t figured it out yet, we’re big hockey fans!  When we found out the AHL (American Hockey League) was hosting the annual All-Star Game in Portland we knew we had to go!

The All-Star Competition selects the best up-and coming AHL players for the skills competition the first night and the game the next night.  One team is all the players born in Canada (Team Canada) and the other is players born anywhere else in the world (Planet USA).  This year, three of the Pirates players were selected.  Nathan Gerbe and Mike Weber played for Planet USA and Tyler Ennis played for Canada.  Gerbe and Ennis have already been called up to the NHL play a few games for the Buffalo Sabers this year.  I’m sure it’s only a matter of time before they are there for good!

So, the first night was the skills competition.  Team Canada won 18-12.  New AHL records were set for the fastest skate and the fastest slap shot.

Nearly all of the mascots from the 29 AHL teams were there and almost all of them came to visit Kaitlyn.  We don’t have any pictures of her with them.  She liked them… from afar.  Apparently they are scary up close, even if they were just trying to play peek-a-boo with her!   She burst into tears once, tried to hide behind me a few times, and stared warily at the rest.

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Kaitlyn and I watching the Skills Competition…

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All of the All-Stars in their team jerseys…

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Tyler Ennis signing autographs…

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Kevin and Kaitlyn with the Calder Cup (the AHL’s version of the Stanley Cup)

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The next night was the actual game.  Team Canada won 10-9 in a shootout.  It was the quietest game I have ever been to.  No penalties, no boarding, and no fights.  During the intermission, the mascots took to the ice for their own hockey game!

 

Kaitlyn and I rocking our pig-tails at the game…

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Planet USA during the National Anthem…

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The mascots during their hockey game (the green parrot in the middle is Crackers, one of the Pirates’ mascots)…

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Team Canada after they won…

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Both teams after the game…

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At the Awards Ceremony after the game, Tyler Ennis was named MVP!  Go Pirates!!!

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Friday, January 22, 2010

Snow!

Once again I am behind on posting.  Apparently my New Years Resolution should have been to stay up-to-date on the blog!

All the big storms kept missing us, but we finally got some snow a few weeks ago.  We thought we’d take Kaitlyn out to play in it for the first time.  Kaitlyn didn’t know what to make of it.  She just stood there and wouldn’t even bend over to touch it…

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Friday, January 1, 2010

Boston Trip

Wednesday we headed down to Boston for Kaitlyn’s first Bruins game (it was her first trip to Boston too).  I was brave and actually drove rather than taking the train or bus.  I was a little worried that I’d have a stress-induced heart attack driving down there, but it wasn’t too bad.  We got down there late morning and parked the car at our hotel.  Then hoped the T over to the Museum of Science.  Kaitlyn loved looking at everything, but we were mainly there for the Harry Potter Exhibition.  It is a temporary exhibit and it’s only there until February.  They had a ton of props from the movies like Harry’s broom, the Tri-Wizard Tournament cup, Ron and Harry’s trunks, their beds from the dormitories, and costumes worn by all the characters.  Unfortunately, photography wasn’t allowed, but it was a very cool exhibit!

That evening we headed over to the TD Garden for the Bruins game.  We would have preferred going to the Winter Classic today, but we had a ton of fun just the same!  Kaitlyn’s always a hit whenever we go to hockey games.  She loves them, so she bounces up and down, claps, waves to the players and anyone who will make eye contact with her.  I have a bit of a thing for Zdeno Chara, #33.  Kevin knows he’s my “boyfriend” (Mom, you’d like him to0, he’s from Slovakia.  He’s actually been picked for the Slovak Olympic Hockey Team!).  I made it my mission to make sure I got a couple of pictures of him. 

They played the Atlanta Thrashers and won 4-0!

It took a lot of work to get this picture!

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Most of them turned out like this…

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Tuukka Rask, the goalie, was named one of the three stars of the game.  Each of the “stars” gave away their game stick to one of the kids in the audience.Imported Photos 00657

On Friday, rather than heading straight home, we went over to Faneuil Hall and Quincy Market.  Then headed over to the North End for cannolis from Mike’s Pastry.  Yum!

Here’s me and Kaitlyn walking over to the North End.  The bridge way in the distance behind us is part of the infamous Big Dig.  The park to our right and behind us is part of the greenway that was created after the elevated interstate was knocked down.  I-93 is now a big tunnel under us.  The TD Garden is to the left of the bridge back there too…

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Here’s Kevin and Kaitlyn with the Old North Church (of one if by land, two if by sea fame) behind them.  As you can see, Kaitlyn was still tired from the game the night before.  It had also just started snowing so that was our cue to start heading back to Portland.

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We got back to Portland that afternoon and headed over to the Portland Pirates game.  We lost (boo)!  But they had a pretty cool indoor fireworks display following the game for the kids.  Kaitlyn loved it!  Afterwards we headed over to On the Border for Kevin’s birthday dinner.  Kaitlyn was definitely worn out.  She slept until 10 this morning!

Happy New Year!

Merry Christmas!

We hope everyone had a great Christmas.  We started out our Christmas by going to Midnight Mass.  In the morning, I made some Blueberry pancakes and then we opened our presents.  Kaitlyn was so cute.  Every time she tore a piece of wrapping paper off, she would hand it to me before she would rip off any more.

Unfortunately, later that night we also ended up in the ER.  Kaitlyn woke up with what we suspected was a case of Pink Eye in her right eye.  We talked to the on-call pediatrician and were told that as long as it didn’t seem to be bothering her it could wait and we didn’t need to bring her in.  By the evening, however, it had spread to her left eye and her right eye was starting to get puffy.  So, we brought her into Maine Medical Center.  I consider it our Christmas Miracle that we were in and out of the ER in about 40 minutes.  We literally walked right in.  Most of that 40 minutes was waiting for her prescription from the hospital’s pharmacy.  She’s still on the antibiotics for the next couple of days, but she looks much better now. 

Here’s our Christmas photos.  I’ll try to get Kevin to download the videos later this weekend…

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The M&M candy cane wasn’t hers, but she loved the noise it made…Imported Photos 00635

 

I love this picture!  She looks kind of possessed!Imported Photos 00634

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And here’s a few of Kaitlyn playing with some of her new things the next day…

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