Bittersweet Goodbye

Its been a looooong time since I last posted and I was actually considering just shutting down my blog but as I read through the posts it was so wonderful to have those memories recorded. There were pictures I didn't even remember taking, in particular pictures with a sweet friend of mine who passed away. I decided to keep the blog...and then life got really crazy!

Here's a short synopsis -
1. Decided to volunteer in Africa
2. Quit my job
3. Packed up all my stuff and moved out of my apartment
4. Left NYC to drop Rosie in Arkansas
5. Flew to Africa

This all happened in a little over a month, maybe two. For most of the time I felt like I was running around like a crazy person. I had always thought that I was a planner but apparently that was only in comparison to John :)

If you know me, you know that I had been talking about leaving NYC for a while but couldn't ever decide where to move. Somewhere along the way I got tired of trying to figure everything out and came to the conclusion that instead I would just take it one step at a time. I knew that a transition between cities would be a great time to travel/volunteer and why not take the chance when you have one, so here I am currently in Africa!

Its all been so overwhelming and intense but also surreal; to get to travel for two whole months is pretty much a dream come true! Anyway, I'll have more to post about Africa but I wanted to put a few pictures up of my apartment just so I had them to look back on.

My apartment was such a sanctuary for me in what has turned out to be an incredible journey. If I could say thank you to NYC I would, it will always be a very special place for me. Its where my life once fell apart but I learned how to put it back together and stand on my own and for that I am very proud.

Labor Day Visitor

Labor Day weekend John's brother Justin came down from Boston for a visit. We love having visitors and had a jam packed weekend full of fun. Saturday we went to the Intrepid Museum which was really cool!

The Intrepid was an aircraft carrier during several wars and then became the recovery vessel for NASA. It's huge and has tons of really neat stuff as part of the museum.

The newest addition to the museum is the Space Shuttle Enterprise which just arrived this summer. Fun fact, the Enterprise is actually named after the Enterprise in Star Trek. Apparently there was quite a letter writing campaign to President Ford and the name was changed from Constitution :)

Since it was a game day we had to show our Razorback pride!

And then we started goofing off :)

After we exhausted ourselves at the Intrepid we made our way over to the Arkansas bar to watch the game. And to make a long day even longer we went to see an interactive play after that! Sunday we were all so tired we just hung out at the apartment and played Settlers of Catan  :)

The Big 3-0

So I turned 30 this year and I was really not looking forward to it. The weeks leading up to the big day I was certain I was going to have a melt down! I have been going through some rough stuff in my personal life and turning 30 seemed like the perfect opportunity to just lose it. Instead my amazing friends and family went above and beyond to make me feel so special :)

My birthday was on a Friday so I started the day with flowers on my desk from the girls at work.

Then we all went out to lunch, someplace Southern of course :)

After work John and I went to Ruth's Chris for my favorite kind of steak, the kind soaked in butter :) John kept trying to play it off like he didn't have plans for after dinner. In reality he had somehow managed to get us tickets to "The Book of Mormon"! He kept it a secret until we actually turned to walk into the theater. He said we were going to see "Phantom of the Opera" so that's where I thought we were walking. He then turned into the theater for "The Book of Mormon" and my mouth dropped open :)

The next day we went to a birthday party for my friend's one year old son. It was such a cute party and it happened to be on a rooftop in Brooklyn so it made for a perfect day. I made the smash cake for the birthday boy and then my friends surprised me with a cake of my own :)

After the baby festivities all the adults went out for drinks. It turned into an epic evening of drinking and dancing, something I probably haven't done since college :) I spent all of Sunday recovering from an awesome birthday weekend and then got ready for even more celebrating the next week!

My sweet friends from Little Rock coordinated with another friend who lives here to take me out for a manicure and dinner. Who doesn't love a manicure but then dinner at Dos Caminos on top of that! They even brought us champagne and birthday dessert :)

The next night a bunch of us all went out for drinks again. This time some of the girls that couldn't go out before got to join us. I think I did more drinking celebrating my 30th birthday than I did for my 21st birthday!

The next morning we got up and packed to go to the beach for a week with my family....awesome 30th birthday if I do say so myself :)

Whirlwind Weekend

Last weekend was jam packed with all kinds of fun. Saturday night John and I went on a Hudson River cruise to end a tech conference he had just participated in and then Sunday I co-hosted a baby shower for one of my sweet friends, Susy.

The river cruise started at sunset and was on a beautiful new yacht. Lots of food and drinks, a nice breeze and a great view, lots of fun!

Out of sheer luck we got to end our cruise watching fireworks over the Statue of Liberty :)

All of my free time outside of the river cruise was spent preparing for the baby shower. I, like usual, have a tendency to go a little overboard when crafts are involved :)

Our theme for the baby shower was really just navy and yellow, we thought anything preppy would be great since the shower was hosted by two girls from Arkansas for our other friend from Arkansas! The yellow chevron fabric was my favorite, I even painted little yellow chevron chalkboard frames (or at least I tried, after two I realized that was really hard and so the others got a different pattern) :) 

 Susy got lots of great gifts at the shower which is awesome, she's due in August and I'm soooo excited!

 All the Arkansas girls :)

It was a super fun weekend but I was definitely a little tired afterwards. It didn't help that work was insane that week too. Now I just have to get through two more days of work before John and I are off to Puerto Rico for a much needed vacay!

Upstate NY

This past weekend we took the train about an hour upstate to Sleepy Hollow to tour the Rockefeller estate. The house is called Kykuit which means something like "lookout" in Dutch. Its perched way up above the town and has amazing views!

If you stand in the center of the house you can see all the way through on both sides, its kind of fantastic. The Rockefeller family has an insane art collection but I was more excited by the architecture :)

Below is the view from the front door. We arrived in the driveway and it was like a little piece of heaven for me; a gorgeous view, fountains with the sound of running water, and greenery everywhere!!!

And it got even better when we go to the back of the house, the best view yet, overlooking the Hudson River. Its like a painting!

The house was insane inside but we weren't allowed to take pictures. We were allowed to take pictures in the carriage house though. It currently houses some of the old carriages and then a mini car museum.

One of the carriages was specifically for Winthrop Rockefeller, who was governor of Arkansas. I told our tour guide where we were originally from and she got excited because she had never met anyone from Arkansas :)

We also did a little exploring in Sleepy Hollow. Below is a picture of an old farm house that has been preserved.

We checked out the Sleepy Hollow cemetery and saw Washington Irving's grave site. There are apparently quite a few famous people buried here but for the most part we just walked around and enjoyed the quiet :)

 

Memorial Day Weekend

For those of you not familiar with what John's up to these days, he's crazy busy with his very own start up which is awesome......but......it means he didn't even know Monday was a holiday, soooo I went to Long Island with some friends. The original intent was to go fishing but my friend and I just ended up chilling out on the beach while the boys fished from the beach.

I haven't really experienced much of the beaches up here since my skin does not love the sun so much. We were on the North Shore which apparently is more rocky but I thought it was great. I've never seen so many shells all over the beach!

And of course, you can't be on the water in the NE without seeing sailboats.

The day turned out to be pretty great but it certainly did not start out that way. On my way to my friend's apartment I tripped on an uneven piece of sidewalk and sliced my toe open :( It was probably the most I have ever bled in my life! I know that sounds dramatic but seriously, I cut my big toe and there was so much blood in my flip flop that it started bubbling up in between all of my other toes. Probably way too much info, sorry! I considered stopping to take a picture but I was walking around lost trying to find my friend's apartment so it didn't quite make the list of priorities.

Anyway, I did get a picture of the sadness once we made it to the beach. This was my attempt to keep sand out of my open gash. Yes, I wrapped part of a trash bag around my toe :)

The rest of the weekend was pretty uneventful after that, ran a few errands, slept in late and saw the new Men in Black. Good weekend overall, now I can't believe June is here!

Cherry Blossom Saga

After not having much luck in DC, my quest to see cherry blossoms continued last weekend when I went to the Brooklyn Botanical Gardens. I finally got to see them en masse and they were fantastic! 

There were several different varieties but the big fluffy white/light pink ones were my favorite :)

My friend Susy was nice enough to brave her allergies and go with me. She helped me document my cherry blossom experience :)

There weren't many flowers blooming but almost all of the trees were in bloom, the lilac smelled amazing!

Another one of my favorite trees, the Japenese Magnolia, so pretty :)

Pretty much the only flowers in bloom were the tulips. Somehow everything blooming seemed to be color coordinated, all nice shades of pink, purple and white.

The weather happened to be great which made for a pretty perfect day at the botanical gardens, I think this may need to be a yearly tradition :)

Weekend with the Family

John's family came in from Orlando last weekend. I kind of forgot that it was St. Patrick's day and that we would be dealing with the craziness that brings. Luckily we were able to stay out of most of it. I made sure we weren't going to be any where near the parade or so I thought, apparently there was a little mini parade on our street!

I was really concerned with taking the family around the city because pretty much everyone starts drinking at 9am on St. Patrick's day. We didn't see anything too bad but just to let you know how nuts the city gets for St. Patrick's day, there was a guy walking around with a goat!

We had a jam packed weekend which is always fun! Saturday we went to the Tenement museum which is a guided tour that takes you through what it would have been like to live in the late 1800's and early 1900's in NYC. They have several different tours and John and I have done quite a few of them, they are always really neat.

Saturday night we all went to see Broadway shows. Some of us saw "Death of a Salesman" with Phillip Seymour Hoffman and then the others saw "How to Succeed in Business" with Nick Jonas. The shows were great and I think everyone enjoyed what they saw :)

We had beautiful weather all weekend so on Sunday we got sandwiches from Eisenberg's, one of the famous delis in NY and took them to the High Line park for a picnic.

John and I are big fans of the High Line but we hadn't been in a while. It was a little barren since most of the plants get cut back for the winter but they were starting to come back, can't wait to go back again this summer :)

The last night everyone was in town we went to try S'mac which is a restaurant that only serves macaroni and cheese! Anna, John's sister saw it on the travel channel or food network and so we had to try it. Glad we did because it was awesome!!! John and I shared the sampler which was eight different kinds of mac-n-cheese. They ranged from the standard 4-cheese to Cajun to one that even had figs!

Its always fun to host friends and family and play tour guide, it gives us a chance to show off our favorite places and even learn about new ones :)

The Orchid Show

Last weekend John and I went to the orchid show at the NY Botanical Garden and it was so much fun! It was a special event on Saturday night so they had music and drinks in the conservatory for the show.

The gardens are in the Bronx so it was a bit of an adventure to get up there, but totally worth it, there were flowers everywhere!

The orchids were gorgeous and there were tons of varieties, lots of which I had never seen before.

 Off topic there was a gardenia tree. I've never seen a gardenia so big and it smelled amazing!!!

Hanging out with John and surrounded by flowers, I was a happy girl :)

 We even took an orchid home. John picked this one out, its called a "Dancing Lady" orchid because the flowers look like ladies with big skirts.