Tuesday, April 26, 2011

New York: Part 2


On Monday, we continued our bus tour but this time we did the uptown portion of the tour.


Here are my uptown touristy shots...the apple store is all glass and you can see right through it. Very cool.


We had lunch at the Carnegie Deli where they serve these grossly enormous sandwiches.


I had signed up in February for tickets to The Late Show with David Letterman and they called us in April and we got into the taping. It was very exciting because (somehow) D and I were selected to be among the 20 to 30 "cool" people that got to sit in the first two rows. We ended up in the front row directly in front of Dave's desk. His guest that night (though the taping was at 3:30) was Alec Baldwin and some random music guest that no one had heard of.


At Rockefeller Center enjoying some delicious cupcakes from Magnolia's bakery

For dinner that night we went to Red Rooster in Harlem. It is Marcus Samuelsson's (of top chef masters fame) new restaurant. It was definitely the coolest/trendiest place that we went....ie we had to wait forever for our table even though we had reservations.

But the wait was clearly worth it, as I got to get my picture taken (by his daughter) with Chevy Chase. So funny - he was wearing a baseball hat but took it off for the picture.


Tuesday was super rainy and dreary. We had planned to go to the Statue of Liberty that day, but we apparently missed getting a ticket that would actually let you go into the statue. So since it was raining and we did not want to be all huddled up on a ferry to look at the outside of the statue, we turned around and headed back up toward Central Park and the museums there. We did not get in a car during our whole trip - we did only subway and walking. We were very proud of ourselves.


On the way to the museums, we came upon this little place for lunch. Wonderful food and drinks. During this trip D decided that he loved cappuccinos.


We went to the Guggenheim museum. Is it bad that I always think of Men In Black whenever I see the museum?



Dinner that night was at Carmine's. Food was good, but it was definitely our least favorite of the trip.


Then we went to see Rock of Ages...super fun Broadway show featuring all the best 80's rock music! It was very entertaining but did not seem very Broadway-ish.


Wednesday we took the train home. Everyone was in one piece! We brought the girls these little shirts and a stuffed green (girl) M&M that they love! Thank heavens that D insisted that we get them the same M&M. I wanted to get one yellow one. Brooke is currently anti-yellow. They have named them Emmie and Emma.

Monday, April 25, 2011

New York: Part 1

April 9 - 13th, D and I took a trip to New York City! My dad and D's dad came up to watch the girls. It was wonderful to get away and do some sightseeing - though it should be noted, that New York in April is still not warm. Here is our trip in pictures.


We took the train up. Very fun and relaxing (and cheap!) way to travel. Disclaimer now: I took almost all of the pictures of the two of us, so please ignore my arm in the pictures and feel free to be impressed with my abilities!


D outside our hotel - which he was not a fan of. It was a small boutique hotel (read: did not have a bar or lounge which D did not enjoy). Our room was TINY. Seriously was a rectangle and was as wide as a queen sized bed. Not an exaggeration.


Saturday, our first night there, we had dinner at Tolouche - a Mexican restaurant- and then saw Wicked at the Gershwin Theatre. This is a picture of me drinking a blueberry margarita - delish! We really enjoyed Wicked a lot.



Sunday, we started the day with a run (a very slow run) in Central Park. D was pretty geeked up about it cause he was getting to run in Central Park and it was the first time we had ever run together. It was cute. (These pics are from my phone and I don't know how to make them bigger)

We spent the rest of the day touring around downtown/lower Manhattan on one of those hop on, hop off tours. It was cold on top of that bus! I am pretty sure that we kept Starbucks in business during our trip - we ate breakfast there everyday and had numerous drinks throughout the day to keep warm.

My tourist-y pictures of the major sights.

We ate lunch at Lombardi's in Little Italy. They supposedly are the first pizza restaurant in the US. It was so delicious. One of the best things we ate.


We walked about half-way across the Brooklyn Bridge.

Dinner that night was at one of Mario Batali's restaurants, Babbo. It was super yummy Italian food.

After dinner that night we went up to the top of the Empire State's Building. It was so pretty to see the city all lit up at night. Unfortunately it was so windy that you really only wanted to stand on 2 of the 4 sides!

This is now so long that I am going to split our trip into numerous posts!

Movie Morning

My friend Lanette just finished remodeling her basement and now it is this beautiful giant playroom - complete with a projector for movies...can you tell I am just a little bit jealous? Anyway, she had a playdate for the kiddos to watch a movie at her house. The kids were super cute sitting and watching the movie - as long as they had popcorn to munch on. As the popcorn ran out, so did the attention span of the kids. Brooke and Audrey were basically the only 2 to make it all the way through the movie. I was so proud.

Wednesday, April 20, 2011

Bear Bus

My friend Arria is the master at saving money and she found a deal to have a Bear Bus come to a playdate so that the kiddos could make a teddy bear. It was adorable - though extremely fast! Apparently 3 year olds like to work quickly and without slow careful consideration of choices.

Hopping on the bus. There were 8 kids making the animals.

Attacking the poor lady with all of their choices

The finished products: Oinky and Purple Bear Stuffy (not to be confused with a small green bear who is also named Stuffy) Not sure it is visible, but they also picked out little shirts for the animals.