And it begins today......

the start of what hopefully will be THE year - the year the Jets finally claim the title of Superbowl Champions!!! In what Michael has called the longest offseason yet, there has been much anticipation of the 2010 season. With an amazing last season, a new stadium this year and a spot on the HBO show Hard Knocks, Jets fans are more pumped up and hopeful this year than ever before.

In honor of today's first preseason game between the Jets and Giants which will also be the first NFL game in the new stadium, I thought I would blog about our first visit to the stadium: Draft Day 2010 on April 22, 2010.

Dad got an invitation to come watch the draft at the Stadium and we all jumped at the opportunity to go watch the draft with other Jets fans in the new stadium and more importantly, to have the chance to check out our new seats and make sure our PSLs were worth it. It was also great to be in the New Meadowlands Arena and know we will never have to play in "Giants Stadium" again!!

The draft party was hosted by Marty Lyons and Bob Wischusen, the radio commentators for the New York Jets. They talked about the last season, what was expected of this season and discussed the possible draft picks for the Jets. Everyone assembled in the Great Hall but the radio show was on the loudspeakers around the stadium and big screens showed the draft live.

Even some current Jets were on hand to get the crowd excited:

D'Brickashaw Ferguson and Jerricho Cotchery

James Ihedigbo

and others including Tony Richardson and Nick Mangold. All fans n attendance were given Draft Day t-shirts which I attempted to get autographed by the players but after getting kicked a few times in line and being told by Nick Mangold "No touchy touchy" when I tapped him to get his attention, I decided to give up. Got a few though...

Since the Jets didn't pick until the 29th selection, we all took turns walking around checking out the field from the 50 yard line and even snuck around the stanchions to go sit in our seats. I was a little worried about the seats (that the field goal post would obstruct our view) but I have to say, they are amazing!!!

The picture quality on the big screens is amazing and it is great to finally be able to see them from our seats. The sound from the speakers was also terrific and very loud and I can only imagine how loud that place is going to be on game day - can't wait to hear it!!

After exploring the stadium and the concession stand, it was finally time for the Jets to pick. With the 29th pick of the draft:

In light of Darrell Revis' holdout, Kyle Wilson could end up being a great pick for the Jets. Who knows, by the end of the year, there may be a party to celebrate "Wilson Island".

It has been a few months since the draft, training camp is now over, and the time is here. Only a few hours until preseason kick-off and I feel thirsty already, lol

Venetian Shores

(from July 17)

This weekend we were invited to join my friend Rita and her daughter, Katie, for a trip to the beach. I almost didn't go because I really was not sure if it would be too much with both kids by myself (Jay was working), but decided to go and figured I could always leave if I couldn't handle it. Well, I am so glad we went because we all had a great time!!! After convincing the parking attendant that we should get in for free because our kids were so cute, we parked the car and told the kids that they had to eat lunch before they could go in the water. Well, getting them to eat was no easy task especially since they say the sprayground on the way in. What is a "sprayground" you might ask. THIS is a sprayground!

- a humongous sprinkler park that the boys that was the greatest place ever. They spent hours climbing, splashing and running around checking everything out. Dylan was hilarious because he wanted to do everything the older kids were doing and spent most of the day completely content to be playing by himself.

People kept commenting that they couldn't believe he wasn't afraid of the water and on more than one occasion, I found him putting his face right in the line of fire of a sprinkler and cracking up laughing.

Ryan equally wanted to play on the beach and in the sprinkler area and pretty much wanted to do whatever Katie did.

Running around and having fun sure does get tiring though and there is no better place to take a rest than a pool puddle.

Thanks so much Rita and the W family for a great day - I hope that we can do it again soon.

Mikey likes it...

the saying should totally be changed to "Dylan likes it" because man, this boy can eat!! Dylan will pretty much eat anything we put in front of him. On rare occasions when he doesn't want to eat, he is pretty sneaky about getting rid of his food: he hides it in between his leg and his high chair or puts his hands behind his head and drops it behind him. Generally though, he loves to eat and is also very protective of his food and doesn't like to share it AT ALL - notice the 4 donuts in 2 hands?

Dylan loves his munchkins (or munkshons as Ryan calls them) and gets more of them than he should, but he is the same way with fruit too, especially grapes, blueberries and peaches. Actually, he is the same way with any food you give him. We recently went to a concert in the park and I got Ryan a snack because he ate all of his chicken at dinner (Ryan is not a good meat-eater and says chicken make him "vomits"). Because Dylan was eyeing the cookie like a lion eyes a steak, I felt bad and bought him one too. I think he was pretty happy about it:
I didn't get one for myself but I wanted to have a little taste so I tried to take a piece of Dylan's. Big mistake.....

so I gave it back...

Lesson learned: Don't mess with a boy and his cookie! Look at that belly!!!! Love it

Spiderboy Ryan

I am so behind on the blog, I am not really even sure where to begin. How about a superhero story?? Ryan has been obsessed with superheros lately - he loves playing with his superhero action figures, reading books about them and constantly begs me to make up stories about Batman, Superman and the rest of the Superfriends. I am sure you can imagine his excitement then when we went to a birthday party today and Ryan found out the face painter at the party could turn him in to ...

SPIDERMAN!!! Ryan was thrilled with the way his face came out and insisted everyone at the party call him "Spiterman" and would not answer to Ryan. He also insisted that we keep the makeup on until Jay got home from work 4 hours later and asked me every 10 minutes for the first 2 hours "How does my face look? do I still look like Spiterman? If my face comes off, I won't be Spiterman anymore"

As we were walking home, we talked about the party, how much fun we had and how much Ryan really looked like a superhero. When I looked over at Ryan, I realized he had stopped dead in his tracks, had a look of horror on his face and was staring at his hands. I said "Ryan, are you ok? what is wrong?" and started to get really nervouse because he looked pretty crazy. His answer?? "OH MY GOODNESS. Somepin is coming out of my switches. There are some webs coming out of my switches and I REALLY AM Spiterman. Uh oh, look over there, down the street. I see Catwoman over there. You see her? She is stealing all the jews. You see them mommy? you see all the Jews?" LOL. After I quickly canvased the area to make sure that there was nobody in earshot (there was and they were cracking up laughing), I asked Ryan what he was talking about. It took a while but I finally figured out that he was calling his wrists his "switches" and was pretending that webs come out to catch catwoman and the jewels (not jews) that she was stealing. I absolutely love Ryan's imagination and creativity but I think going forward, maybe I will encourage Catwoman to steal something else, haha

After a little "building climbing", catching some bad guys with his webs, and setting a trap for Catwoman who conveniently hid in the stroller with Dylan, I thought it was time to move inside before the rest of the neighborhood got trapped by Spiderman's webs or called security.

Ryan, you are the cutest and funniest Spiderman ever!!

Memorial Day Weekend 2010

I love long weekends and what a great weekend this was! We had close to perfect weather all weekend and had a great time hanging out with the family. Aunt Erika and Uncle Richie decided to make a last minute trip up to NY on Saturday and we couldn't have been more excited to hang out with them! We spent the day on Saturday at Grandma and Papa's house having a barbecue, trying to build things out of "Better Blocks" (i think we need to give those to Richie since he was the only one that made anything halfway decent) and playing with some sparklers that Erika and Richie brought.

We even sang Happy Birthday to Grandma a few weeks late although I am not sure why Grandma got one candle in a cookie for her birthday while Ryan got 8 candles in his "half-birthday" cake.

I always say this the day after Erika and Richie leave but I miss them already and really wish that they lived closer. I had so much fun telling stories and laughing with them until my stomach hurt on Saturday night after the kids went to sleep.

Sunday morning, we headed over to Omi and Poppy's house for another barbecue. Since it was pretty warm by 9 am, we decided to fill up the kids pool so that it would have time to warm up by the afternoon. I don't think the bottom of the pool was covered with water before Dylan climbed in, clothes and all, and Ryan stripped down and jumped in too.

The water was ice cold and I am not sure how the kids could stand it but they had a ton of fun - there are no pictures of Ryan because he insisted on swimming in his underwear. The boys played for about two hours in the pool - driving their cars through the water, splashing each other and just jumping in and out, or in Dylan's case diving in and out. Once it seemed like they were getting cold, we dried them off and they went to go play on the swings.

Even though they were busting out of the seat, they were cracking up laughing and holding on to each other like best buddies. When I went to take them both out, Ryan said "I am just going to 'lax in my swing by myself now" so we took Dylan inside for a nap, gave Ryan a neck pillow and 5 minutes later......

we found Ryan like this. He slept like that for about 45 minutes until his neck pillow fell off and then he came inside and went back to sleep on the couch. While the kids napped, Omi and I challenged Poppy and Jay to some Sequence and I am happy to say the ladies were victorious!! Overall, it was a very relaxing day which culminated in Dylan getting another haircut. His hair grows very quickly and sometimes the sides look crazy. Jay has been asking me for a long time if we could cut it with the clippers and I have always said no. Poppy has always done a great job cutting Dylan's hair but because Dylan doesn't really sit still, it is really hard to cut it with scissors. I finally gave in on the buzzers this weekend and I have to admit - it was much easier, faster and I think that it came out great! Thanks Uncle Brian.

We woke up to another day of a cloudless sky on Monday and decided to see if we could get tickets to the Yankees game. Stubhub didn't fail us and we got some cheap seats in the upper deck and headed down to the stadium for Dylan's very first Yankees game.

The Yankees played the Indians and as the Yanks took the field and Andy Pettitte took the mound, Dylan was in total awe - the stadium was loud, the field was bright and we brought food a plenty - there was enough going on to keep him distracted, occupied and happy for the first 5 innings.

Ryan on the other hand, did not care at all about the game and would not still. Every 5 seconds, he was "very very thirsty", "very very hungry" or wanted to sit where Dylan was sitting.

Around the 5th inning, he was on the verge of falling asleep and sat on my lap for the next two innings. Both boys though did get up to sing YMCA and Take Me Out to the Ball Game.

Going in to the 7th inning, the score was 2-1 and then A-Rod hit a Grand Slam followed by a homer by Cano. As you can imagine, the crowd went wild.

By the end of the 7th, the score was 8-1 Yankees, the kids were pretty cranky and we were all hot so we figured we would head home and beat the crowds. Ryan fell asleep on the subway before we hit 125th street, Dylan fell asleep in his high chair while eating his dinner and the Yankees won the game 11-2.

This was a great weekend to kick off the summer and hopefully the rest of the summer will bring more fantastic times - Happy Memorial Day