A Virginia Visit!

Many weeks ago (before my trip to Brazil), RyGuy and I traveled down to visit BF Kimmy, my BF-in-law and their daughter Ally! We were so excited to go see them (we haven't seen them since Christmas!) and celebrate Kimmy's 28th Birthday! And it's lucky we went to visit -- they will actually be moving soon because of a new job! We are excited because they will be much closer to us, but we will miss their cute VA home!

As always, below are some pictures for your enjoyment!

Uncle Ry showing Ally how to blow some bubbles!
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Ally liked the bubbles ... but maybe the stick a bit more!
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So cute!
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We spent a great day at the pool! Ally is so cute!
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I think she had a great time! We did!
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Ally trying to play video games with Daddy & Uncle Ry!
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Happy Birthday BF Kimmy!
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Seriously, ridiculously cute!
Can't believe she is ONE already!!
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Can't wait to visit you at your new place, Miss Ally!
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Benefit for Heather!

Our friend Heather was diagnosed with Myelodysplastic Syndrome (MDS) on March 13, 2009. This is a very rare disease, especially for a 26-year-old. Heather is an extremely happy person and has kept a positive attitude as she has undergone many bone biopsies and doctor's appointments! Luckily, Heather can be "cured" with a bone marrow transplant! In preparation for her transplant at the end of June, Heather has also undergone fertility treatments (to freeze embryos, since it is unlikey her eggs will survive the chemotherapy she has to undergo). Needless to say, Heather and her boyfriend Matt (my officemate) have racked up a whole bunch of medical bills already!

What else could we do, but get together a Benefit for Heather? At the local bar, of course! The professors in my department agreed to be "Celebrity" Bartenders and collected lots of tips for Matt & Heather! We had a fabulous turnout and lots of support! I hope Heather looks back on the night and has a good laugh while she's recovering in the hospital!

An amazing turnout! THANKS everyone!
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Dr S. says "Show me your tips!"
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How many tenure-track PhDs does it take to pour me a Diet Coke?
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Dr B. flosses his teeth ... with a thong?!?

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Celebrities always wear their pearls, like Dr C.
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Showing off some postdoc skills
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Dr M. is apparently a D-cup............

.....with manly muscles.
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Dr S. is ready to work ... at Schnooters?
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I was so proud to present Heather & Matt with our contribution!

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Good Luck Heather!

Mom's Day in B-lo!

Ry & I shuffled off to Buffalo over Mother's Day weekend, for no special reason except to visit the family!

We had a great time! My parents, lil bro' & Kel have purchased a new house and Ry & I broke in to check it out! It's awesome and I still can't believe my parents will be moving from our childhood home this summer (but I am very happy for them!)! We also saw Nephew sing in the choir at church and my sis-in-law made an amazing Mother's Day dinner for all of us! Oh, and Nephew gave me plenty of beautiful Mother's Day drawings and paintings and a plant! There's no official "Aunt Sneks Day", so I appreciated the thought! :) Our final visit was to Anna & Gorgeous to visit their new "baby" (AKA, Ziva the dog!)! SO CUTE!!

Can't wait for our next visit to Buffalo in July!

Nephew singing in the choir (he's the littlest guy in front!)!

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Ziva the puppy, biting my knee right after she peed on me!
(What is with creatures peeing on me??)
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Ziva!
(So when is the real baby coming, Anna & George???)
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Take me out to the ball game (part 1)

If you don't know yet, RyGuy loves baseball! He used to play and he loves going to games! (Someday, we'll make it to all of the major league stadiums!)

We started out the baseball season a bit early this year! My good friends Anna and Gorgeous were somehow able to get us $1 tickets to a "preseason" game at NEW YANKEE STADIUM!! I was very excited (being born a Yankees fan) and we got there early to check everything out! It is AWESOME!

Below are some photos we took! THANKS Anna and Gorgeous for coming to visit for the weekend and for a great time!

Here's the field!
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Yum! The 297 calories were delicious! So were the 1236 calories!
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One of the first to use the bathrooms at NEW Yankee Stadium!
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Practice!
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Monument Park was awesome!
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The view from our seats .... at the very top ... the farthest you can be from homeplate and still be in the Stadium!
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Anna & Gorgeous! True Yankees fans!
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A bit chilly! But we had fun!
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28 has hit me hard!

Last week I turned 28! (And my mom called me to remind me that I was old now!)

The weekend before my birthday, Mom, lil' bro and Kel came in to celebrate (Kel's B-day was the week before) and Ry came in too and we drove to AC and gambled away a super fun day! I actually came home with more money than I brought (a first for me!)!

I share my actual birthday with labmate Joe, so, to celebrate, we had a little poker tournament and drank Jamaican Rum. I also got lots of wonderful presents in the mail (Thanks everyone!!!) Good times!

I then headed to NJ to spend the weekend with my RyGuy! He made me dinner and gave me great presents (including post-it notes with our picture on it! so cool!) and we watched some Harry Potter on BluRay. All awesome!

Of course, because everything was so wonderful, I got sick. Another sinus-type infection with fever and total body aches and sleepless nights and loss of appetite and horrible headache. And now some weird blind spot thing that is apparently an ocular migraine (good times)!

Oh well ... at least my 28th Birthday celebration started out well!!

Merry Christmas (Part 2)

Though Christmas was weeks ago, I feel like Ry & I are just recovering from all of the fun!

The day after Christmas, we shuffled off to Buffalo to spend a week with my family and friends! In addition to the usual tiredness that comes along with a whirlwind trip home, I started off the week recovering from my sinus infection/bad cold. And then, just 30 hours into the trip home, I came down with another horrific cold! I was coughing like crazy and went through 3 boxes of my mom's tissues. Oh, and 2 bottles of mine/Kel's cold medicine. So, I spent the week in a drug-induced haze! But none the less, we managed to squeeze in some good stuff:

• a wonderful night celebration with Anna & Gorgeous, BF Kimmy & her hubby and ADORABLE Ally!, and Feen, his super-cute son, his baby's mama and her two other really sweet kids! Yummy drinks from the awesome margaritaville blender and lots of video games and chatting! I miss everyone already!
• a fun morning with Steph, Katie & Andrew! That Katie grows so quick!
• a fun celebration with the family (mom, dad, lil' bro, Kel, big bro, sis-in-law & Nephew)! They were all nice enough to wait 2 full days before opening Christmas gifts so that Ry and I could celebrate with them! Such fun!
• Ry went to a football game with Gorgeous while I shopped with mom & Kel! I LOVE after christmas deals!
• 2 awesome trips with Nephew: the Aquarium & the Science Museum! Super fun! He is such a little grown-up now (I mean, he's 5!!! Jeez!)
• New Year's Eve with my future husband (just 2 years now!!) and my great mom at the casino having a GREAT time!
• Playing board games with the family -- we enjoyed the Yatzee and Mad Gab that we got for Christmas! Mad Gab is absolutely hysterical!! Kel and I almost peed our pants we were laughing so hard!!
• Dinner at Chili's with the whole family on my lil' bro (to make up for him accidentially giving our christmas gift to my other brother!)!
• An awesome lacrosse game! The family now all has season tickets, and they got us a few seats too!
• And the girls and I finished off the trip with a Bridal Show, which even led to a a few wedding deals (YAY!)! Plus it was so fun to hang out with my mom, sis-in-law, Kel and Anna (we missed you Kimmy!)!

Can you believe we did all that and more? Even with our illnesses?? Crazy! Merry Christmas & Happy New Year everyone!

A few photos ... I think the illness made me less likely to take a picture! Probably too busy coughing or sneezing to get the shot!

A is for Adorable Ally!

Yep, my best friend Kimmy has the cutest kid!

Buffalo, Baptism, Babies & Nephew

The title of this post really is alliterative, as Nephew's name starts with a B also! Oh alliteration!

As per usual, Ry & I had a super fabulous time in Buffalo!

We spent some good times with the folks and the lil' bro & his awesome gf. Lots of yummy Buffalo food and lots of cards (fun new rummy game!)! There's just something great about sitting around the table in the backyard and playing cards with the family! After staying up late (almost midnight!), we all got up at 8am to try to get some Wiis (Nephew's 5th birthday is coming up soon!), but didn't get any (though I think we're up to a combined 4 systems now!!)!

We also spent a beautiful day at the zoo with Nephew, big bro and sis-in-law. It's been years since I went to the Buffalo Zoo (since Nephew was only 2!), so I was excited. It looked great, there was an animal I had never even heard of in the new rainforest exhibit, and I think we all had a super great time! I also got to go to Nephew's house and meet his cute little bunny (named Mojo, after Transformers!)!

And the main event -- the whole reason we drove the 6+ hours home -- the baptism of baby Ally! I forgot to bring my camera, but she was the cutest thing in her beautiful white dress! And she didn't cry at all when the water was poured over her head! And we celebrated with a picnic at a local park. It was great to see everyone -- including little Nolan (see below), the son of our good friend (and my junior prom date!). It was chilly, but I think we all had too much fun to care!
We can't wait for our next visit -- just a few weeks until Nephew's birthday party!

I swear my Nephew will be some sort of scientist someday!
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"Aunt Sneks, why do you always have to take so many photos of me??"
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Baby Nolan is the cutest! He really like pulling my hair!
(I think the drizzle also helped to make my hair look oh-so-cute)

Too much time in the basement men's room ...

It's not what the title leads you to think ...

My scientific laboratory is acutally in the men's room in the basement of the science building.

And, really, a converted bathroom/locker room/shower room without windows (and thus outside light) is ideal for a fish laboratory.

But lately, I have spent far too much time there!

This semester I am not teaching and I am my advisor's research assistant (or ... as I like to say .. I'm my advisor's bitch).

Most graduate students would be thrilled to avoid teaching and get to spend all of their time in the lab! And I am.

It's just a lot of time in a hot (92 degrees) room, alone, with only a couple hundred fish to talk to. And I need to be there at "dawn", which means I have to be to work and ready to collect data at 7am. And, because the rest of my depatment does not function before noon, most meetings are after 4pm, so I rarely get home before 5:30 (more like 6). Thus, the 10 or 11 hour days are starting to take their toll ...

So today I found myself especially cranky. And maybe not 100% nice to everyone. And maybe I just need to get out of the men's room ...

Good thing Ry & I are headed to the B-lo for Baby Ally's baptism! Yay for a whole weekend away from work filled with family and friends (including a visit to the zoo with my awesome Nephew!!!)!!

Nephew & Every Step

Have I mentioned Nephew lately?


He's not even 5 yet and he's already doing some good in the world!

On September 13th, Nephew is doing the Every Step -- The walk for universal newborn screening -- sponsored by the Hunter's Hope Foundation.

If you're a non-Buffalonian and are unfamiliar with the Hunter's Hope Foundation, it is in honor of Hunter Kelly, the son of Buffalo Bills quarterback Jim Kelly. Hunter was born with a horrible disease that affected all of his neurons and nerves. If he had been properly diagnosed as a baby, he would have been able to receive a transplant and his hopes of survival would have increased tremendously. Unfortunately, Hunter Kelly was repeatedly misdiagnosed. The Kelly family is now working to enact laws that will require all newborns in the US to be screened for diseases that can be treated. They have already worked to pass laws in NY State and the Every Step Walk will raise funds for more legislation, research, and care for babies and their families!

As it was the "Year of the Baby", I hope that some of you could take a few minutes to sponsor Nephew in honor of all of the newborns! Just $5 will really make a difference!

To donate, just click HERE, then click the SPONSORSHIP tab, then SPONSOR NOW!, then fill out the fields with Nephew's name, his team (Savings Safari Team) and then all of your information and click away! I just did it and it only took 2 minutes!!

Thanks friends for being so generous!!!!

I'm in love with a girl ...

Ry & I had such a wonderful time this past weekend visiting little Ally in VA!! We were so excited to meet her and are so happy to have a new little "niece"! It's fun to be "Aunt" and "Uncle"!

It was great to just hang out with BF Kimmy, her hubby, Anna & Gorgeous too! We play cards, watched some olympics and even took Ally to her very first fair!! Check out the video below to see me realize one of my dreams in life -- riding a mechanical bull!!!!!!

I'm just so happy for BF Kimmy & my BF-in-law! They have the cutest daughter and she is just so happy! I can't wait to see you all again in B-lo in a few weeks!!!

Cutie Baby Ally!

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RyGuy and Ally ... Isn't the expression great?
She's all "Really??! You're letting Uncle RyGuy hold me?"
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I just wanted to take her home with us!!
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So much fun at the fair!
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Ally's enjoying her first pig races!!!
(My first pig races too!)
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So excited!! I actually rode the bull!
(Anna did too, but I figured I should only humiliate myself with a blog video!)

Can't wait to meet her!

Just another day or so until I FINALLY meet BF Baby Ally!!

Just look at this photo of her! Can you blame me for being so excited??
(and not only is she so friggin' cute, but she's also wearing the fish dress I sent her!)

Oh, and I am excited to see BF Kimmy, BF-in-law, and the newly married Anna & Gorgeous too!

YAY for super-fun, non-working weekends!!!!!!

Congratulations Mr. & Mrs.!

And they've finally done it!

Anna & George got married!

So much fun was had by all!
Definitely up there in the top 5 most fun weddings of all time!
More details to come!

I wish you both the very best!
May you live happily ever after!

Welcome BF Baby!!!!

Alyssa Lynn, 6-28-08, 6lbs 13oz!

My best friend Kimmy and her husband (my therefore, best-friend-in-law) had their baby in the very early hours of Saturday morning (I have never been more excited to get a 4am phone call!!!!!)! Just 2 hours after celebrating their 5th wedding anniversary!

I just knew it was going to be a girl (they didn't find out the sex until she was born, which I think is the super coolest thing)!

And I am so excited to have a little girl to take to the zoo and on the carousel and go Target shopping with me & her mom! I can't wait to meet her!

(And I'll post more pictures when I get them!)

Congratulations
BF Kimmy & BF-in-law!!