2009 Winter Classic

A few days ago, my family and I went to the 2009 Winter Classic at Wrigley Field on New Years Day. For those that don't know what the Winter Classic is, it is an NHL hockey game that was outdoors at Wrigley Field in Chicago. Both the Chicago Blackhawks and the Detroit Redwing, the team the Blackhawks were hosting, were wearing classic Jerseys that the teams wore many many years ago. Last year, I remember watching the 2008 Winter Classic on television that took place in Buffalo, New York. I kept saying how cool this would be to have in Chicago and sure enough, it was. I was so thrilled when my dad told me that I was going to the Winter Classic. So many people were trying so hard to get tickets but the tickets were very expensive and extremely hard to get since the event took place in Wrigley Field. The winter classic that was in New York, took place in the NFL Stadium which holds much more people. People were so desperate to go to this game that they were even buying tickets on apartment roof tops just to say that they were at this game. The game was a blast and it is something that I will never forget as long as I live, even thought the Blackhawks lost. 

Now, the question is, where will this event be held next year? It will have to be in a cold climate or else it wouldn't be considered a Winter Classic. Will it be in a bigger stadium than Wrigley Field? Why wasn't this event held at Soldier Field where the Bears play? 

50 Degree Weather in December?

Just last week, it was below zero degree temperature in Chicago. Now it is in the 50s. This is absolutely crazy. It it pretty hard to believe that it is currently 54 degrees outside in Wilmette according to weather.com, in late December. I love winter and snow but if it is 50 degrees outside there will be no snow and instead, there will be rain. Winter is suppose to be cold and snowy. Although we have had a ton of snow lately, I love it when the ground is white because that is what winter is all about in my mind. 

Many people have a different opinion on winter. Some people absolutely hate the snow, but I couldn't imagine Christmas with no snow. 

First Thanksgiving

This Thanksgiving, my cousins fiancé from Italy's mother, aunt, and twin brother came into town from Italy to meet a new part of their family and to have Thanksgiving in the States for the first time. As I walked into the door of my aunts house, all i could remember was how excited they were to meet me and how thrilled they were to be with our Italian side of the family for Thanksgiving. They spoke very little English so it was extremely hard to understand what they were saying. They continuously said "Happy Thanksgiving" because they were so overjoyed with excitement. They could not believe all the food that we eat for Thanksgiving. They ate a ton of it anyways! It was by far on of their most exciting experiences because they were so thankful that they could be there and they cannot wait to come back to the States for the wedding in March!

Has anyone ever been to a different country, celebrating a holiday that we don't celebrate here? 

Moms on Facebook

The other day I was on my Facebook looking at one of my friend pictures. I noticed that her mom was "tagged" in one of the pictures from Thanksgiving, meaning that I was able to click on a link to her moms Facebook. I think that it is kind of weird that moms have facebooks because is it mainly a High School, College, and of course a mid-20s type thing. But for a mom in their 40s or 50s? I think it is a bit weird. I have nothing to hide of facebook but I would never want my mom looking at my facebook. 

What do you think about moms having facebooks?

Living with no heart

The other day as I went on my email to check my mail, the homepage had some recent news stories and a specific one caught my eye. The heading said "Teen girl lives 4 months with no heart, leaves hospital." As soon and I read that, I knew I would be interested in this article. I clicked on the link and read the article. I was so interested in this topic i decided to search for another article and found one from ABC. This article is about a 14 year old who was living with no heart for 118 days. She had 2 heart transplants and the doctors decided to do something vary unusual and that was to insert artificial heart pumps which made blood flow through her body. This is absolutely amazing to me. What do you think? Is this a Miracle? 

Culver Academy Uniforms

This past weekend, I was in Culver, Indiana for more hockey games. We played two games at Culver Academy. For those that do not know, Culver Academy is a Military Academy for high school aged students from all over the world. Many of them from Spain. Students who attend this academy, must wear their uniforms at all times except for when they are in their dorm rooms. Girls are allowed to change into jeans on Friday and Saturday nights but not until 7pm. The girls wear navy blue and green plaid skirts with black tights on the bottom and on top they wear white button up collard shirts with navy sweaters on top. Since it was pretty cold last night, most of them we wearing black pea coats as well. The guys we wearing blue military pants that had a navy blue stripe down each leg and on the top, they wore blue button up shirts with maroon sweaters over the shirts and had navy jackets on top. A two digit number of the year the boy was going to graduate was sewn on the left shoulder of the jacket. Every time they guys would walk into the ice rink, they would remove their hats as a sign of respect and they would put them back on as the left the building. It is amazing to me that these students wear these uniforms every single day. Has anyone ever seen these Culver students before?

Pre-game Preparation

After trying many things to get our hockey team prepared for a game, this past weekend in Madison a girl on my team stepped up and had a GREAT idea. The previous weekend my coach had confronted my team about our playing habits, and wanted us to come up with a reason why we had been so inconsistent. In this search for an answer, my team and I had decided that we were going to put a new twist in our pre-game preparation. After our warm up and stretch outside in the parking lot, we decided to try something new. Whitney, the girl who came up with this outstanding idea, told everyone to lay down and close there eyes and asked everyone to turn off there iPods. Since I have played with Whitney before in the past, I had already done this pre-game preparation meditation. As we were laying down with our eyes closed, the first thing she told us to do was think of a color and to think only about that particular color. After about a minute, she told us to stop thinking about that color and told us to think of a sound and only that sound. After about another minute, she told us to think about the color and the sound and only those two things. She then told us to think only of the color and to totally forget about the sound. After that, she told us to stop thinking of the color. As I was laying there with my eyes closed, I was thinking about absolutely nothing. You may not think it but you really can thing about nothing at times and this is exactly was this activity was meant to do. Make you clear your mind and think of nothing. In order for it to work, you have to concentrate really hard and think about only the things the leader tells you to think about. For most people, this worked. Our minds were clear. We went out and played an outstanding game and that is exactly what we wanted. We finally found a Pre-game meditation activity that we will continue to do before we play games.

Has anyone else who plays sports done anything like this to get mentally prepared for a game?