Turning 26

We celebrated my birthday with our friends by going to a Wine & Chocolate Appetizer Pairing event at Stone Pillar Winery by our house.  I wasn't sure what to expect because I thought the food was going to be really sweet since the theme was chocolate, but it was actually pretty good.  Here was the menu:

1. Chorizo Chocolate Tapas with Traminette Wine
2. Brisket with Savory Chocolate BBQ with a Cabernet Sauvignon Wine
3. Cocoa Rubbed Chicken Skewers with Mole Sauce with a Chambourcin Wine
4. Cocoa Glazed Sweet Potato Medallions with Hofftoberfest Wine
5. Chocolate Rosemary Fondue with Zucchini with Redneck Rose Wine
6. Flourless Chocolate Hazelnut Cake with Norton Wine
7. Chocolate Pomegranate Clusters with Joceaux Wine

We weren't sure at first if we should invite our friends because of the food selection and the weather was in the 50's for the evening.  It turned out better than I expected.  We loved the Chorizo and the desserts.  We were all crammed in the wine tasting house, so we decided not to stay long, and we had people back over to our house to play games.  I made a pumpkin spice latte crockpot recipe that was cooking while we were gone, and everyone seemed to enjoy that.

On Sunday, we relaxed around the house.  Chase and Abby always seem to be so tired on Sunday evenings as well.  This is the only night that Chase will curl up and lay by us.  As soon as Greg got up, both changed their positions and laid on me.  We love our kids!

Monday was my actual birthday, and I went to work and had meetings all day.  I always tell myself that I'm going to take off for my birthday, and it hasn't happened yet.  My last meeting was up until 5 PM, so I couldn't even get out of there early.

Greg and I had plans to ride our bikes up to Spin Pizza for dinner.  They opened up a new location that's around a 30 minute bike ride from our house using the Stream Way trail that goes a really long distance.  I had no idea that Greg was surprising me with a gift, but I teared up when he delayed the start of our bike ride to tell me that he had a present for me.  He got me an Timex Ironman Run Trainer watch that tracks GPS, speed and distance with a heart rate monitor!  I think he's really just tired of me going running without my phone, so now he can track me down.  I'm excited about the heart rate monitor because now I can prove to him that I can't go as fast as him or he will give me a heart attack.  Ha!

Anyway, we went out to the garage to pump up our bike tires, and he says he has another gift!  He also bought the pedals with the cage on the top so we can get some speed on the upswing of the pedal.  I really wanted this for my triathlon, but we couldn't find it at the time (ok, let's be honest, I only looked at one place the night before the race).

At Spin Pizza, you can bring in your own wine and they have only a $1 uncorking fee.  Greg decided to bring a bottle since it was a celebration.  On the way back we took the sidewalks along the roads since it was dark.  Greg's bike chain kept falling off, and I couldn't help myself but laugh hysterically.  He wasn't too happy, but we made it home in 45 minutes, so it wasn't an issue.  I told him that I was laughing at him because of the way he looked on his bike because he was riding cautious.  Let me paint the picture in your head.  Greg has on black tennis shoes, white socks, swishy Adidas pants that up puffed up from the wind blowing on them and exposing his white socks.  Then, he is riding upright on a road bike, where he is typically hunched over, and the chain would get stuck and he would pedal with his legs out as if he was riding a horse.  Gosh it was funny, and I told him that I would draw him a picture of himself so he could laugh with me, and I still haven't done it.  He did eventually laugh, so the night wasn't ruined.

It was a great birthday to say the least.  We will all have to take you to Spin Pizza some time.  We love that place. 

 

New York: Sunday & Monday

On Sunday, Mackie was going to take us running through Central Park, which was really cool and only about a quarter mile from her apartment. I wish I would have taken more pictures, but I didn't stop during the run to do so. At all times there were at least 20 people around you working out and running as well. We felt like we were running in a 5K.  It was nice to see this part of New York. Although, I didn't like running through the city to get to Central Park. I felt dirty breathing in the air that smelled awful of trash.

That afternoon we had plans to go to the High Line, but first we made a stop at Dylan's Candy Bar!  Dylan, is Ralph Lauren's daughter, and she has a 3 story candy shop in New York with a bar on the top floor where the drinks are candy flavored.  We felt like kids in this place sitting inside a cupcake to have our candy drinks at 2 PM in the afternoon.  Mackie got a chocolate martini and I had a jolly rancher cocktail.  Greg stuck with a peanut butter and chocolate icecream sundae.

This was entirely made of jelly beans.

The High Line is an area where they made a nice path through the city over what used to be a railroad line. The buildings that we passed along the trail were awesome. We walked through the Chelsea market place and then headed back to Mackie's place to get ready for dinner and a comedy club.

The Sears Tower could be seen from the High Line.

Greg and I have never been to a comedy club, and it was really funny; well, I guess I would say it was a hit and miss. There were some that were really funny, and others that were painful to watch. The only thing we could all do without was the audience interaction with a really annoying family of 15 people.

On Monday we went to the Central Park Zoo because Greg and I typically like to go to zoos on vacation, but this zoo was just awful.  There were probably 10 animals not including the reptiles and birds, and out of those 10, 2 were awake.  Although, I must say that the zoo was pretty cool seeing the city in the background.



Mackie made us...and Greg was not thrilled.  Oh Greggor Bunny!



We went shopping again on our way home and got some coffee.  It killed us the entire week because Mackie didn't have a coffee maker in her apartment.  Late afternoon, we went running back in the High Line area at a trail along the Hudson River. It was even prettier than Central Park. We had dinner down there, and then went back to Mackie's around 8 PM and we were too tired to go out, so we rented 21 Jump Street.

If you look closely, you can see the trail along the Hudson River that we went running on.

We left on Tuesday, and we were just exhausted the rest of the week at work. New York is quite different than the Midwest, and I just couldn't get over walking down the sidewalk with your head down and not saying hi as you passed people along the street or not smiling as a new person got on the Subway. An older couple that has probably lived in New York their entire lives would get on the Subway, and I would think how much more they have probably been exposed to and have accepted than what we will ever encounter in our lives. I love how travelling makes you appreciate your home, but allows you to experience the culture of a new place while you are there. I would go back in a heartbeat, but next time I'm taking an architectural tour!

Visiting New York City

Greg and I recently returned from a vacation to Manhatten, NY, to visit Mackie who moved out there over the summer for a full time position at a fashion design company.  So, not only did we get to experience New York for the first time, but we also were able to visit family and have our very own tour guide.  I couldn't even tell you most things that we saw, but our days consisted of lots of walking, the subway, new places to eat, shopping, and laughing, and we were even able to convince Mackie to go running with us...twice!
 
We arrived on Friday after our flight delayed us a couple hours, so we were just in time to change clothes and go out to Time Square to experience it with all of the lights on.  I'm not sure this was the best place to choose to go first because the streets were full of people, and we had to push our way to get through the crowds.  Mackie didn't work far from Time Square, so we were able to see her work as well. 

Our friends, Jessica and Evan, who are living in Washington DC decided to come up for a day and visit with us.  Their bus got in around midnight on Friday, so we said hello and went to bed for a long day on Saturday.

We wanted to see the World Trade Center Memorial, but we didn't find out until after we got down there that a a pass was required and they only gave out a number of free passes for the day, and they didn't have any left.  All the streets were barricaded off from construction projects around it, but we were able to get pictures of the Freedom Tower that is being built.

If you look at the base of the Freedom Towers, you can see some trees,
and this was as close as we could get to the Memorial.

Next on our list was to see the Statue of Liberty, so we walked quite a distance and passed Battery Park along the way and took a Ferry over to Staten Island that went by Miss Lady Liberty.  The entire day was a little windy, so we were cold on the Ferry.

This was called an "Urban Farm".  We thought the sticks looked cool
and maybe thought the purpose was to keep people and animals out.

It was kind of crazy seeing herds of people going onto the ferry.

There was a pirate ship touring the Statue of Liberty.

After that we traveled over to Soho to have lunch and go shopping.  We had lunch at a crepe place where they had lunch crepes and those with chocolate and fruit for dessert.  They were pretty good, so I want to try making them sometime for lunch.  There were some new clothing stores in Soho that Mackie likes that are different from those around here.  We waited in a dressing room line at one of the places for a half hour and left the store only spending around $50.  Needless to say it wore us out and we went back to Mackie's to relax and drink some margaritas made from wine before we went out to dinner.

For dinner we ended up going to an Asian restaurant, and they gave us the private room in the back.  I don't know why they thought we would be too loud sitting around those in the front of the restaurant, but we didn't mind.  Greg and Evan celebrated with some Sake bombs and us girls stuck to our fruity girly drinks.  We went back to Mackie's place and decided to play Charades... It was a blast, and I wish I had pictures of us acting out, Mrs. Doubtfire, Jack Sparrow and Martha Stewart.

Mackie never took her shot, she just wanted to look cool in the picture and smile... just kidding.

We said goodbye to Jessica and Evan early on Sunday, and slept in for a few more hours.  It was so nice seeing them and we were happy they could join us and be part of our family weekend. 

Building Our Fence

Greg and I have wanted a fence since the day that we moved in.  Well, maybe I wanted a fence a little more than Greg because I am the one who typically gets up before him in the morning and home from work before him, so I am the one who is typically letting Abby out.  Even though we would like to think Abby is a well-behaved dog, it would be so nice not to have to watch her in the backyard or use her electric collar all the time.

Both of our neighbors have fences; one has wood and the other has black aluminum.  We decided to go with the black aluminum because we didn't want the maintenance of a wood fence.  We had a couple companies give us quotes for the back and two front sides, and it was way more than what we thought it would cost, so Greg went to Lowes and purchased the material and decided to install it himself.

The fence material was delivered on a Friday in a nice, little box that they set on our back porch.  We had plans to work on it the entire weekend, and hopefully knock it out in a couple days.

We started on Saturday having Greg cut off another row of limbs from the trees in our backyard as I picked up pine cones and dug up all of our dead plants and pulled weeds.  Jeremy showed up early in the afternoon and he and Greg went to go pick up an auger that we rented. Greg mapped out the holes that he had to dig, and they got to it.  The ground was so dry from the drought this summer, that we had to soak many of them just to get to the 2' depth that was needed.  Then, there were areas with clay dirt that wouldn't soak in the water and would be close to impossible to pull up the auger from out of the ground.  That's where I had to jump in to help the boys.

Both of them ended up with bruises on their thighs from supporting the arms of the auger.

Needless to say, they were pretty tired...

It was a long day to say the least, and Greg woke up showing flu-like symptoms the next day.  I forced him out of bed and told him to get back to it!  We were both so sick that following week from the allergies of being outdoors.  Greg could barely breathed from being so stuffed up at night, and I was running a fever for a few days.  We decided to give it a break for a while.

Every time Greg would work on the fence he would always bring out all of his tools and set the fence parts across the yard, and then typically only get to one section.  So, at the end of the day, we would spend so much time just picking up all the parts and pieces and setting them up closer to the house.  I finally convinced him this was not productive.

Greg would be working until 9:30pm some evenings.

Greg worked on the fence by himself most of the time and had help from his friend, Derek, a few times and eventually the fence was finished.  It took around 6 weeks to complete at our own pace and overall it saved around $1,200.  Greg thinks it was worth it and has the motivation to do our own sprinkler system.
 
Overall, the fence looks wonderful.  Abby is getting used to it, but she still is so used to being let out to do her business and come back inside, so she often just sits on the steps at our back door and watches the outdoors.