FL Trip and The Luckiest Man Alive

Since I started work in October 2012 there was little hope of my getting any time off for Thanksgiving in November 2012 so Katie and I booked a trip to Florida for January 2013 to do a make-up Thanksgiving that would coincide with mom's birthday!  I worked until three on Friday afternoon and then took a bus down to NYC.  Katie and I were on a 6am flight Saturday out of LGA, needless to say we landed looking pretty haggard.  Mom picked us up and drove us directly to Clearwater Beach where we had a picnic lunch of tuna noodle casserole and soaked up the sun for the rest of the day:

The next day we met up with Fred for another beach day at Honeymoon Island State Park in Dunedin:

Our vacation was cut short when Katie received a phone call that Sheldon had been admitted to the Cardiac ICU at New York Presbyterian's Weill Cornell Medical Center after suffering a cardiac arrest at the gym.  We drove from the beach directly back to the airport and took the next flight back the NYC.  Dad and Julie picked up Katie and I and drove us to the hospital where Chuck was keeping Sheldon company (Sheldon's parents were out of town as well and couldn't make it back until the following day).  We later learned that Sheldon had a previously undiagnosed genetic disease, called Brugada Syndrome, that had caused his heart to go into ventricular fibrillation.  Luckily he was at the gym so that he was found immediately by people trained to give CPR and use a defibrillator - this likely saved his life.  Mom flew in the next day and we spent the remainder of our vacation at Cornell keeping Sheldon company and loosing to Chuck at the card game Wizard. 

XC Skiing

In addition to a Ski Sundown we have a park near us, called Winding Trails, that has a pretty extensive set of cross-country ski trails.  I had the day off today and Chuck had to work so I convinced Debbie (Chuck's mom) to come check out Winding Trails with me.  We rented skis, took a lesson and only wiped out a couple times ;)

CT Whale

Last night we went to watch the CT Whale (a feeder team for the New York Rangers) play hockey at the XL Center in Hartford!  We got invited by our new friends Phillip and Carrie.  Phil went to BC, he and Chuck met about a month ago at a BC meet-up.  It turns out that Phil and Carrie live about a block from us and we have had a great time getting to know them these past few weeks!

L to R: Paige, Carrie, Chuck, Phillip

Ski Sundown

My new year's resolution is to start posting again!  Chuck and I have decided that we are going to put a solid effort into skiing this winter so we bought gear and signed up for lessons at a local mountain called Ski Sundown that is about 30 minutes from our apartment.  We have both skied a few times before (on vacations) but we have plans to take a trip to Vail in February with Jason and Dani so we don't want to be rusty.  Today was our second lesson and we did a couple black runs!