29

I am officially 29!  My birthday yesterday was wonderful.  I got to hang out with friends at Andrea, Sarah, & Josh's fabulous BBQ and I got to hang out with family- Maura, Mike, and Pat last night.

Over the last several days I received many sweet, funny, and cute cards from family and friends.  I even got some awesome presents too!!

I only have time to show one right now...

Matching Aprons!! :o)

I love them and can't wait to use them!  Have a nice week!

Staten Island

Last summer we took the Staten Island ferry for the first time over to SI for a minor league baseball game. (It was for Big Ten night and yes, Pat and I won the 3 legged race around the outfield! haha)  This year we drove over to SI to watch the Staten Island Yankees take on the Hudson River Valley Renegades. 

My mom told me on the phone the other day about how there are currently painted pianos placed all over NYC for anyone to play.  I finally saw my first one last night in SI.  This guy was really talented too:

The baseball game was really fun.  My friend Barry got a group rate for a bunch of tickets - $18 for game entry, all-you-can-eat burgers, cheeseburgers, chicken sandwiches, hotdogs, popcorn, soda, and water, and a free hat.  We were happy campers.

This picture is one Lacie took on her phone. :o)  You can see my new dress from my parents and new earrings above!

Sarah and Polly:

Pat, me, Neil, Lacie:

The Yanks lost the game by quite a bit, but oh well.  Still really fun. 

The night ended with a nice fireworks display.  They evidently do fireworks after each Saturday game.

It got me geared up for the Nashville fireworks next weekend!

Some more Scrappin'

I've been having fun scrapbooking and have a few new pages to share.

I'm having a nice little Saturday so far.  We're heading to a neighbor's BBQ soon and then we're off to Staten Island this evening to see their minor league baseball team play.  Have a great weekend everybody. :o)

Cafe Wha

My college friends Kate and Scott were visiting New York last night for a short trip, before heading to Boston for a wedding.  These two lived in Hyde Park, NY for a year or two post college, and then lived in New York City for a couple years, though they've now been in Chicago for the past two years.  I sure miss having them in the city!! 

One of Kate's favorite things to do in NYC is see the house band play at Cafe Wha.  I'd seen this band on a couple river cruises, but never actually at Cafe Wha.  They always play great hits of the 70s, 80s, and 90s.

They rotate who is the singer and they're all fabulous!

I think this guy was a nice new addition:

Great seeing you two!  We definitely need to make it to Chicago soon.

xoxo

PS I've taken the 12:45 am train home too often lately.  Here's to avoiding that for a while.  :o)

Hello

Just a quick note checking in with my blog buddies.  How are y'all?  I'm good - surviving the week!

Slow and steady on the scrapbooking. :o)

 

Found Photos

I have a lot of photos that I took before the blog and I'd like to share some of them with you every once in a while.

These are pictures from a hike called "Stairway to Heaven" which crosses paths with the Appalachian Trail in New Jersey.  So for all you Jersey haters, look it's a gorgeous place.  :o)  I'd love to go find this hike again!

August 2006

Wild Winnie

Winnie was attacking an empty paper towel roll the other day.  I found it pretty funny.

A couple photos look like she was hugging it...not the case.

Poor kitty found herself trapped in the hall closet for part of Saturday and into Sunday...oops!  She is fine of course, thankfully.

Book club was so much fun last night.  Lacie had gotten us some great food in her neighborhood - Vietnamese sandwiches and pork dumplings. Yum!  Simone is hosting next and she gave us three great choices which we are voting on now.  (If you're curious: Alias Grace, Invisible Monsters, Housekeeping.)

Have a merry Monday!

Father's Day

Happy Father's Day to the best dad ever.  You really are the best! :)

Let's see, I'm about to head to book club (driving into city, this is rare) at Lacie's so I made some more Coffee Toffee Bars this afternoon.  I also started to watch the miniseries The Thornbirds.  It was one of my favorite Book Club picks and the movie is pretty good so far.  Maura and I also did a good bit of weeding in the front yard earlier today.  Gosh that can be tiring and never ending.

Yesterday I did some Scrappin' too!

I hope everyone has had a nice weekend and Happy Father's Day!

Bonsai

What a nice desk addition. (not mine)
TGIF!!

Bonus Bogguss

We had two late nights in a row this week, and thus no blogging the past couple days. 

Tuesday night: Pat and I joined Barry and Ele for a show at City Winery.  We bought the tickets to see a very talented singer, Suzy Bogguss.  My parents had one of her CDs when I was a kid and we listened to it ALL the time.  A new singer songwriter, Sahara Smith, opened the show.  She was good.  And then Jim Lauderdale preformed after Sahara.  I'd seen him once before in Nashville at a Red Cross Benefit.  He played solo this time and was great.  I think he would have happily kept on singing all night and not given up the stage to Suzy.  Suzy sure put on a great show.  It's amazing how you can forget all about a song and then hear it again years later and know all the words.  Loving the stage, she was still playing after midnight when we decided we better leave.  If we missed the 12:45 train, then we'd have no way to get home.  We only missed a few songs (luckily Barry kept me posted).   

Wednesday night:  Pat and I joined Dave and Dia for a fun night.  Dia planned the evening several months ago as a birthday present for Dave.  We met up for a bite to eat at The Smith restaurant on Third Avenue.  It was amazing, we all agreed!  To start we all shared beer-battered fried string beans and mac n cheese, and then I had shrimp and grits.  Wow, such comfort food!  I will definitely be going back to that place.  After dinner we walked over to Webster Hall to see a new-to-me band, Blitzen Trapper.  We caught some of the opening band, The Moondoggies which were good too. 

So, we saw two great shows in a row, both very different scenes!  The first one was sit-down, enjoy some wine.  The second one was a cram in there and stand up kinda place.  (yeah, I like the sit down one more)  I think I could have gotten Yankees tickets tonight through work, but I was thrilled to just come home and relax on the couch after these two late nights in a row. 

Almost the weekend! :)  What is everyone up to?

Photo from Wikipedia.

Photo of the day

NYSE

First Attempt

Pat's first attempt at smoking on the Big Green Egg was a success!  It was on the grill for about 6 hours and Pat decided it could have used more time.  (but it had to come off because we needed to eat!)

It never quite got to that "fall off the bone" state, but it was still very tasty.  Five of us ate off it last night.

And tonight four of us had the leftovers.  I pulled it all apart and mixed it up with some bbq sauce.  Served up with some cornbread, yum yum.

Pat will definitely be doing this again soon, sounds good to me.

Today has been a chill day at home.  We had planned to go to the beach, but the weather kept us away.  Good choice since it rained really hard this afternoon. 

PS I changed up the blog a little bit.  How do you like the larger photos?  I hope they turned out okay.  Let me know if it presents any problems.  Thanks!

Big Green Egg

The BGE makes it's debut today!  After searching several grocery stores, Pat finally located a bone-in pork shoulder (aka Boston Butt). 

He created a dry rub and gave it a nice coating.

We're used to using gas grills, so a charcoal grill is different for us.  Pat got it going pretty easily.

Winnie was very interested and curious.

While Pat was busy getting that going, I have been doing some laundry, catching up on email/google reader and picking flowers.

Winnie's keeping watch and I'm crossing my fingers this turns out well. 

Pat is keeping the BGE at right around 250 degrees.  I'll take some more pictures of the meat tonight.  Have a great Saturday!