SPRING

in our yard

I took the camera out on Sunday and took a few photos around the yard. I love this time of the year when the trees are filling out and everything is becoming green. Of course my allergies are in freakin hyper mode, but that is what pills are for :). I haven't planted anything this spring (yet) so I just took pictures of trees/bushes and flowers that we already have.....

This squirrel was running for cover... I guess the lady with the camera was to scary for him to keep looking for his dinner on the ground

Look at all of the pollen... this is what is killing my allergies right now
One of my partners in crime

I missed getting the flowers by a few days or two... but I like the little "fingers"

This picture cracks me up! He was eating a stick, so his mouth was all distorted

Oh What a Night



Last Saturday night was our good friends, Chris and Lindsay's, couples wedding shower. Jim and I along with a few other people were the hosts of the party. Of course I took this as an opportunity to cook for everybody :) Ashley and Jason hosted the party at their house as well as decorated, and Jim was in charge of the drinks. I have to say we pulled off a pretty damn fun party!!! Both of their families were in attendance as well as most of our friends. I didn't get any pictures of the porch, but we had lined their back yard with tiki torches.

The cute couple

I stuck with food that people could easily eat as well as food that would be okay if we left it out.

I made...

• herb cream cheese topped with dill cucumbers on a crostini
• sauteed mushrooms (with red wine and thyme) and goat cheese on a crostini
• pepperchini and feta dip- with crackers and pita chips
• Chiptole Honey chicken meat balls
• Puff pastry filled with sweetened cream cheese and fruit
• Smore's cookies

I was happy with everything that I made, and I was happy that I made the food in time and had it transported over to the party house and on the table by party time!

Me, Lindsay and Ashley... in Ashley's jungle oasis transformed living room

Jenn, me, Lindsay, Ashley and Tammy

Chris and Lindsay

Whitney, Chris and Chris (there were a lot of Chris' at the party :) )

Melissa (Chris' sister), her son Ethan, and Chris

Lindsay and Chris with her family

Eric, Tyson, Jason, Chris, Nick and Jim...

The Groom and the Groomsmen

Michelle, me, Lindsay, Ashley, and Melissa...

The Bride and the bridesmaids (minus one that couldn't make it to the party)

The guys at the party

The girls at the party

Jason and Ashley

Jason and Ashley- goofy.

We got a little goofy towards the end of the night, and after most of the adults had left the party

John and Tammy

John and Tammy- goofy

Hubster and I

Oh my... we really have fun when it is time to be goofy

Me with my hula wig

End of the night... Jenn, Tammy, Me and Lindsay

New York City!!!

(this is also going to be known as the longest post ever!! I did my best to edit the photos and only add my favorites, but I had so many and I know I left off quite a few photos that I liked! :) )

Lindsay, Ashley and I went to NYC for Lindsay's bachelorette party! We originally wanted some place that we sunny, but in March those type of places were limited. Plus we didn't want to get stuck in a city that had tons of people in it for spring break. I love New York and I'll always jump at the chance to visit there. Neither of the girls had been before, so they were super excited.

We had a plan of what to do each day so they could see everything that they wanted to. But our plans were slightly altered when it poured all day on Saturday. I'm not even close to kidding when I say it did not stop raining all day. The rain put a damper on our plans, but we made the best of it!!

Time Square

We woke up SUPER early on Saturday morning to go wait in line to see if we could get stand by tickets for the Saturday Night Live show that night. We all knew it would be a long shot but it was worth a try. NBC started to hand out the standby tickets at 7am, but we got there at 5:30am to make sure we got a good place in line. So we hailed a cab, got over there and waited in line, in the rain when it was about 38 degrees. It. Was. Miserable. Around 6:30 a Chock Full of Nuts van pulled up and gave us a free coffee and a bagel. That little pick me up was nice! Eventually they started to hand out tickets and we ended up being 59,60, and 61. I wasn't feeling good about our chances. Basically tickets are given out before the season begins and us poor saps that don't have tickets get our stand by tickets and HOPE that those ticket holders don't' show up. We were hoping that the rain would have kept some people away, but almost everybody showed up. I don't think more than 10 people from the standby line made it into the show. Oh well... we had a fun time!

Ashley, Lindsay and I

Oh well.. maybe we'll get in next time!

This was the big ass storm that stayed over the city for all of Saturday

I bought these rain boots on Saturday, and it was the best purchase! I was like a kid again, able to jump into puddles and have fun. Sure my jeans were soaked from the knee up, but my feet were dry :)

At H&M

Jimmy's Corner

This was a long and narrow bar that was full of people. We managed to find a table and shared it with a couple that was visiting from England. We spent a few hours talking to them, it was neat to hear what they thought of the US (it was their first visit).

Ashley, Lindsay, Will, Natalie and me

We ate dinner at a little Italian place on our first night. We were walking back to the hotel to shower and change but the guy in the hat convinced us to come in and try their food. Of course they talked a big game saying they would give us the best table and that we wouldn't find better Italian food in town. We caved and gave it a try and we were pretty happy. I ordered the gnocchi with a bolognese sauce and it was wonderful. The gnocchi was so light and almost fluffy. One of my friends ordered the lasagna (which was good, but full of Italian sausage which I'm not a huge fan of) and another friend ordered the Carbonara, which was really tasty. Overall I would give the restaurant a 4 out of 5 stars, food was good, wine pours were huge, and the staff and owner really made us feel special. The owner spent some time with us explaining that he is the one that makes the pasta and gnocchi every day and that he has owned the restaurant for 25 years.

Fun shot.... I won't tell you that I was going number 1 :) but I was :)

My boss asked if I would take Flat Stanley with me on my trip. Her niece is participating in the school project to see where Flat Stanley can travel during a school year. Due to the rain I didn't get as many shots with him as I would like, but I did get this one with him and the subway.

On Friday before I met up with my friends, I went to the American Museum of Natural History. I haven't visited there before and I loved it! So much great information, I could have spent hours and hours there. I was drawn to the earthquake display since there have been so many earth quakes going on. In the picture below, the areas that are red are where earth quakes have hit, which is the same area where the earth's plates and fault lines are. On that day, there were about 30 little earth quakes that happened that day.... Amazing, I had no idea.

I can spend hours in the marine section of any museum. This display of the whale was awesome. It was the first thing you saw when you walked into the room.

Roar! :)

Upper East Side near the museum

I stopped in at Lansky's for this ginormous sandwich... brisket, cheddar and coleslaw. It was fantastic but really hard to eat :)

St. Patricks Cathedral

I love visiting this church. The detail and history draw me in every time.

Subway
Battling the storm- taking a break along a side of the building. If you just walked a few feet to the other side, it was like a different world of rain and wind. This side of the building was somewhat calm and without the rain

In front of Rockefeller Center. It is hard to see but my umbrella was turned inside out by the wind. It happened about 20-30 times that day and ended up breaking my poor umbrella.

McGee's Pub

We came across this pub by accident but it is the pub that was used to base the bar in the TV show "How I Met Your Mother". I could really see the similarities, it was a great little Irish bar.

Ashley and Lindsay

On Monday morning we went over to the Today show taping to see who was there. They had Jason Priestly co-hosting with Hoda and then Jeff Daniels was on the show.
This is the only picture that I have with one of us in the shot.... if you look on the right of the photo you'll see a figure in a black jacket with her mouth wide open, probably screaming or laughing.... that is Lindsay :) She is so damn tall that she jumped a little and cleared everybody :) We got a bout of the giggles after this, lots of fun.

Lindsay, me and Ashley

Lindsay and I in Time Square

Grand Central Station

Empire State Building

Luckily it stopped raining on Sunday night, so we headed up the Empire State Building. It was at twilight, and the city was just beautiful.

Central Park

It just wouldn't be a trip to NYC without getting a hot dog from a street vendor :)

Battery Park

This sphere was displayed in the courtyard near the World Trade Center. It managed to survive when the towers fell. It is now displayed in Battery Park.

World Trade Center Memorial

Artist sketching

There has been a lot of construction since the last time I have visted Ground Zero.

I was putting in Ashley's hair extensions (didn't you know that I was a hair stylist?!?!? Me either :) when I got the urge to play around with her extensions. It is a little hard to see, but I'm... Ummm... pretending that her extensions are an extension of my.... Um..... pubic hair :) The picture is kind of dark, but I just had to share with you

Thanks for taking the time to view my photos!!!