Summer in the City

The country too.

Lame.  In my defense this old blog has been a bit neglected this summer, and I'm a little rusty when it comes to creating post titles.

We really were in the city this past weekend which I'll blab on about in a minute, but before the city there was the country.

England.

No we weren't there this weekend, but some friends we met while living across the pond trekked all the way to the Garden State for a visit. They're from Canada although he's originally from New Zealand, but we were all together in New Jersey for a fun few days.

Is anyone confused?

They arrived Thursday afternoon, and we managed to sit on the patio for a while after dinner, which was the only night we got to have a fire. I will refrain from commenting on the weather.

Friday was actually a good day to spend outdoors, because it was overcast and the rain and humidity didn't arrive until later in the day.

Oops, I mentioned the weather.

It was nice enough to have breakfast al fresco, which is my favorite way to dine. Afterwards we drove up to Highpoint and stood on top of the world.

Okay, we were only on top of New Jersey, but still the views are lovely.

We drove back to Tinytown for lunch and our friends got a glimpse of the sweet side of NJ wildlife-

If that were my tree I might not find this quite so sweet, but it wasn't so yes, it's sweet.

Saturday we spent the day in the city. It was raining when we left the house, but we forged ahead anyway, and the sun came out by the time we'd crossed the bridge. We were headed to the Met and normally you can just hop across the park, but Mariah Carey was having a concert that evening and there was no crossing the park.

Just ask these guys.

We had already attempted to go through, and did I mention the humidity?  I know I said I wouldn't, but walking around Central Park on a humid July day is not for sissies. We finally gave up and hailed a taxi.

Do people say 'hail a taxi' anymore?

We made it to the
 air conditioning
Metropolitan Museum of Art, and spent a few leisurely hours wandering the halls there. Absolutely one of my favorite museums in the world.

Afterwards we 'hailed' another taxi and headed all the way down 5th to Eataly. I've mentioned this spot on my blog before (here), but just know if you love all things Italian in the food and wine department you'll want to see it for yourself. It's a combination shop and dine experience, and we started in the cheese restaurant with a meat and cheese plate that was positively fantastico!

We eventually moved over to their seafood restaurant Il Pesce, and shared frutti di mer, fritto misto 'alla Ligure', and one ginormous, yet perfectly cooked flounder.

Course no trip to the Big Apple is complete without a stop in Times Square-

We went up to the lounge in the Marriott Marquis, and had a birds eye view of all the goings on down below. This view included a million and one different things, even a bride and her Marine groom.

As is always the case with weekends, this one went by way too fast. Once upon a time we sat at one another's kitchen tables in a village across the sea. We shared meals, sorted through stacks of pottery together, and compared notes on raising teenage daughters. We even put our car on the train and ended up in the picturesque seaside town of Le Touqet France one March weekend a lifetime ago.

The first year hubs and I were back in the states we made the drive north to their charming home on Prince Edward Island where we dined on mussels and lobster, and I stepped back into my childhood and the days of Anne of Green Gables.

So thankful for friends, that while the geographical distance may be great...

...the heart distance is always just a beat away.

A is for Assorted Stuff

Yeah, not very original, but I have to start somewhere, and that somewhere has to start with letter A.

Today marks the beginning of the April A-Z challenge. You'll find details here, but essentially participants post every day (except Sundays) during the month of April, using the alphabet as their guide. If you're visiting from the challenge today, thanks so much for stopping by! Let me know you were here, and I'll come say hello. Also, a great big thank you to the originator of the April challenge, Arlee Bird...our amazingly, awesome A-Z anchorman!

I've played along the past two years and enjoyed the discipline of writing every day, and also the idea of working a theme around each letter. You don't have to have a theme, but I know me and I need the jumping off point a theme provides.

So I have a theme.
Sort of.

I'll share more about that tomorrow (Letter B), but for today I'm going to recap my Easter weekend.  There are a lot of reasons why I blog, but first and foremost is to have a record in words and pictures of life as it happens. Or happened. If you're new here you should know this blog tends to wander wherever it wants.

Where was I going today? Oh yeah, Easter! See why I need a theme?

First of all, may I just say the weather was glorious on Friday and Saturday both, and sunshine and blue skies definitely make a good weekend great.

I trekked to the airport to collect Daugther2 at noon on Friday. Then we all trekked back out in that direction early evening to collect Daughter1 from Amtrak before heading into 'the city'.  Whenever I say 'the city' I mean NYC because it's 'the city'.

Traffic at rush hour was an absolute nightmare, and we literally inched our way to the tunnel and across the river. It was worth it though, to spend the evening catching up with old friends from England.  The  couple we lived beside the entire six years we were there happened to be in town, so we heard news of our village, our neighborhood, and our house. sniff, sniff.

They said the new owners have taken out some of the original features to give it a more modern feel (the house oozed charm!) and they filled in the koi pond, and don't really care about the garden other than to keep it neat.

How could you not care about this garden?

In spite of that sad news we had a wonderful evening and they have the loveliest accents which we could listen to all day long. The four of us are in serious need of a trip back so I've put that on my to-do list.

Once something goes on your to-do list it has to get done, right?

Saturday was too pretty not to get outside so we spent a couple of hours walking around a local nature preserve.  

Somebody had a birthday this weekend, and she needed to chase squirrels and stalk birds to mark the occasion.  

She also needed a Ritas ice cream because everybody does when its their birthday.

Sunshine, old dogs who think they're not, and daughters in the house....I honestly can't think of anything nicer. Except maybe cupcakes. Sunshine, sweet pups, daughters and cupcakes.

Daughter2 baked these for Easter dessert...chocolate pound cake with white chocolate cream cheese icing topped with toasted coconut. So good!

My girls might be in their 20's, but we also dyed eggs because there are some traditions you just don't mess with.

Daughter2 informed us Disney was playing some of their classics this weekend, so after dinner we piled on the couch to watch The Lion King.

Did you know that film was released in 1994?
Did you know googling that made us all feel a little bit old?

You were sweet 1994.

Easter.
Not snowing and only a lot little bit breezy.

Things I love about Easter-I love my whole family on the same pew, the Hallelujah chorus, and the message of hope we are reminded of on Easter Sunday.

I also love being in the kitchen with my girls. They both love to cook, and we always have fun making holiday meals together. I find cooking with children, no matter their age, to be a bonding experience. The conversations we have in the kitchen are similar to the kind we had back in the day of school runs and many minutes a day spent in the car as we drove to dance or music lessons.

Words happen.

They flow in an easy way when you're together in the kitchen, and you get a little glimpse inside their head. I still have good talks with my own mom in her kitchen.

Daughter1 had to catch the train back to DC Sunday evening, and it's always hard to bring the weekend to a close. Daughter2 is home for a few more days so we have plans for gabbing, shopping, lunching, and more gabbing.  We gab.

I hope you had a happy Easter weekend too, and now that I'm caught up it's time to dive into the A-Z for reals. Tomorrow I'll reveal my theme.

Today I'll work on coming up with one.  Ha-just kidding.
But only sort of.

Bright Lights Big City

We drove into the city Wednesday afternoon and guess what? We weren't the only ones. We inched our way thru the Lincoln Tunnel and were only nearly squashed between two very large trucks once or five times as we made our way over to Rockefeller Plaza. Whew...it was good to be parked. Really really good.

We have friends from the UK who relocated back to the US about the same time we did and they have access to some lovely apartments right in Rockefeller Plaza which they kindly allowed us to use for a couple of days. Oh the view y'all.

Why yes that is the steeple to St. Patrick's Cathedral right outside our living room window. And here's the cute little kitchen...not that I was cooking.

Wait, I did make coffee every morning.

And this is what we saw every time we walked out the front door of our building...

We were on the 24th floor and from our bedroom window we could see the crowds standing outside the Today Show. I've decided I need an apartment in Manhattan and I especially like this one across the sky(?) from us...

This apartment has it's own sweet little pool on the rooftop opposite St. Patricks. My daughter pointed out that everyone who lives above you would be watching you swim but I'm pretty sure I could live with that.

Once we were settled into our apartment (I know it isn't technically ours but let's pretend okay) we walked over to the Museum of Modern Art. I love meandering thru art museums and I love all sorts of art. And sometimes when I'm in a museum of modern art I find myself asking 'what is art'? I mean we did see Van Gogh's Starry Night...it's beautiful and haunting and also annoying to my kids that I must sing Don McClean's Starry Starry Night for the remainder of the afternoon. We saw Monet's Water Lilies which makes me long for the French countryside...sigh.

We also saw this...

My daughter the 'artiste' patiently explained to me that this type of work was a reaction to the period prior and is a statement of sorts...okay. Hey, I taught kindergarten and I can appreciate a well painted block of color or three as much as the next person.

Wednesday evening our friends arrived and they were staying in the apt. across the hall. Neighbors...how fun! When you opened the door to their apt you were greeted with a spectacular view of the Empire State Building all lit up in its Christmas colors...

Our friends pup wasn't too impressed.

We ventured out amongst the masses Wednesday evening. Actually it's pretty hard to avoid the masses if you're in NYC over the New Year holiday unless of course you're in a lovely apt. 24 floors above them but I digress. We window shopped and people watched and had a wonderful Italian dinner in a fantastic little spot. Oh and we may have taken more pictures of the tree. I mean how can you not?

Thursday we woke up early and by we I of course mean hubs and I...the kids had to be rousted out of bed at 11. We sipped our coffee with the city all around and we agreed that we could live in an apt. like this one without too much difficulty.

It was really chilly on Thursday and it was also snowing/raining a little bit so we headed over to the Expo Center to see the Titanic exhibit. It happens to sit right beside a Da Vinci exhibit so we saw that too. We made our way s-low-ly thru Times Square because really you couldn't hurry...there were people ya know. We went back to our apt and looked out the windows some more because did I mention it was on the 24th floor over Rockefeller Plaza? Plus we needed a little rest since I'm a wimp and wouldn't make it til midnight if I didn't have a cat nap.

Our friends had booked dinner for all of us at a wonderful Brazilian restaurant which was technically only about four blocks from our hotel but oops, we needed to cross Times Square and that is a whole lot easier said than done after 3 PM on New Year's Eve. Unless of course you have NY City's finest give you a personal escort right thru the middle of the million people in Times Square.

Oh yes we did. This picture isn't the best but we were walking and I didn't want to get left behind the barricade. And let me just state for the record...the NYC police were some of the nicest, most helpful, friendliest people we've ever run across. This whole Times Square thing is one gigantic headache I'm sure but they did not lose their sense of humor and really they just made our night. We essentially needed to cross one block and then walk a bit to get to the restaurant but the road was blocked and nobody was getting thru. A wonderful policeman said he'd be happy to help us and he essentially escorted us thru the barricade and right thru the middle of the Times Square crowd before handing us off to another officer who walked us the rest of the way to the restaurant. The people in Times Square are actually systematically penned...kinda like sheep...each pen holds 2000 people and when one is full they close it up using police barricades and open the next pen and on and on down the street. It is highly highly organized...there were over 15,000 NYC policemen on the square and that is not counting the federal officers mixed in with the crowd. Every sewer is searched and sealed, there were helicopters and metal detectors...it's absolutely amazing and impressive and you just have to appreciate the NYC police department. They are awesome.

And if you've never been to one of these Brazilian steak houses you really must. Unless of course you're a vegetarian because that wouldn't be good at all...these Brazilian steak houses are seriously all about the meat. There was an incredible salad bar which you could totally fill up on but the maitre d warned us to save room for the meat. They put a coaster at each place that's red on one side and green on the other and will just keep on bringing you meat until you flip that coaster to red.

And they bring it all tableside and carve it right on to your plate...prime rib, sirloin, sausages, chicken, pork tenderloin, turkey wrapped in bacon, bbq ribs, and on and on and on....thank goodness I've got the detox book and my new juicer waiting for me at home!

We were able to get a taxi after dinner and had to take the long way round to get back to our apt. but we managed. We watched the ball drop and then had a champagne toast to the new year and good friends and the NY City Police force.

We woke up in our apartment on the first day of the new year (okay so it's not really our apt.) and we sipped coffee and loved the views and packed up to head home. Back to the countryside where we really live.

We may not be 24 stories above an amazing city but it's pretty nice here too.

Happy 2010!