Kate's Birthday Celebrations

So what else happened this summer you may ask? Kate turned.... well the number isn't important, Kate had a birthday!  And we had a three-day long celebration. 

First for the actual birthday - Thursday, July 12th - Kate planned an all-girls celebration in the West Village.  Rooftop drinks, Sushi Samba, and cocktails at the speakeasy Little Branch.  When Chris surprised us all by emerging from work before dinner, he of course joined the girls-night out!

Rooftop bubbles and cupcakes

Blowing out the candle on Brittain's West Village rooftop

Brittany, Mel, and Kate with tiny little crabs

Brittany, Brittain, Kate, Mel

Ending the night at Little Branch: Kate, Mel, Gabby, Brittany, Brittain

The next night the celebration was a romantic dinner for the two of us at Dovetail.  It was delicious!  Highly recommended. Kate snapped a little picture of one of her truffle-filled dishes.

Saturday, was the main celebration, a champagne and neon-colored themed birthday celebration on our rooftop. It was so relaxing and great to catch up with friends over champagne and macaroons. As the night passed on we headed to one of Kate's favorite neighborhood spots, Slightly Oliver's, for cocktails and dinner. So glad everyone made it out!  We didn't get too many pictures because we were too busy having fun!

Kate and our favorite champagne that we brought over from Paris

Chris enjoying the view before the party got started

Ending the night at Slightly Oliver's: Liz, Courtney, Kate, Melissa, Jess

Summer 2012 Recap: Visitors, Weddings, Broadway

As the leaves are changing, the weather is cooling, and football is gearing up, I've realized we haven't posted all summer!  Here's a brief recap of our summer (and maybe a little bit of a recap for spring!).

Visitors:
In April, Chris' Aunt Pat came to NYC for a work trip, decided to extend her trip, invite her daughter, Sandy, and spend some time with us! We toured downtown and went to see the Lion King the musical.  The show was great and the costumes were amazing - definitely recommended if you're a fan of Disney's version of the Lion King.

Sandy, Chris, and Pat in South Street Seaport

We are so lucky that many of our friends and family come to NY for work, it gives us an excuse to meet up!  Kate's sister Sarah continues to travel to NY for work.  And this summer, our friend Les from LA also traveled to NY for work.  We took advantage and met up for dinner and drinks. (We missed you Lauren!)

Kate, Chris, Les, Fred

Our friend Katie also made it to NY for work.  This just happened to be the same week of the Tony Awards, which is filmed on the Upper West Side. Since Kate and Katie are big Broadway fans, we made sure to check out the red carpet.  We didn't really get any pictures but we did have some great celebrity sightings.

This summer, Kate's childhood friend Jennifer dropped in for sushi during her summer trip to Connecticut. CT is a short train ride away from NYC and we were thrilled to meet up with her!  BTW: if you're ever looking for sushi in NY, try Momoya in Chelsea - it's our favorite!

Jennifer and Kate... and our delicious sushi rolls!

Theatre:
We also took in a Broadway show this summer.  Chris is a fan of the TV show The Big Bang Theory so when we heard that Jim Parsons (who plays Sheldon in The Big Bang Theory) was appearing in Harvey we knew we had to check it out.  It was so funny; we really enjoyed it!  Plus, it was in the most beautiful, iconic theatre - Studio 54.

Weddings:
In May we knew two lovely couples who tied the knot!  Kate traveled to Iowa for her cousin Tyler's wedding to Tara.  It was a beautiful day for an outdoor wedding and a great excuse for Kate to visit her family.

Tara and Tyler

Kate's grandparents: Jane and Chuck

For memorial day weekend, Chris' ex-roommate of three years, Cesar, married our sweet friend Courtney in Vail, CO.  We traveled with our good friends Fred and Liz out to CO and back for a four-day weekend of celebration. Chris was a groomsmen which made the weekend extra special.  It was a blast to say the least and we couldn't be happier for Cesar and Courtney!

The beautiful drive from Denver to Vail

Courtney and Cesar

Fred and Liz

 

Kate and Chris at the rehearsal dinner

Speaking of weddings, we've continued to plan our upcoming wedding.  We've booked both a band and a photographer - two of the more important decisions in the wedding-planning process!  Kate had a difficult time choosing a photographer so we decided to have two engagement shoots to test them out.  We highly recommend this because after the shoot and seeing the photos, it was very clear who was the best fit for us!  Here's two of our favorite pictures from the photographer we hired: Guy Heart. If you're friends with us on Facebook, you've probably already seen the rest!

Ameri-versary:
A few of our friends were not born in the U.S. and so the day they obtained their U.S. citizenship is quite special to them.  Celebrating the U.S. on the 4th of July is simply not enough; we often celebrate the day they became an American!  Our friend Anu (originally from the U.K.), had such a celebration this summer - a BBQ on her apartment's outdoor deck.

Anu serving delicious BBQ

Chris, Fred, Bharani, Brandon

We can't fit our whole summer into one blog post so there's more to come: Kate's three-day birthday celebration, exploring some of NY's history, and traveling to Maine to celebrate our anniversary.  But, we'll leave you with a few pictures of our spring and summer in the city.  You'll see we spend most of our time taking in the parks.

The view from a friend's family BBQ on Long Island

Central Park

Central Park

Riverside Park

Cool old cab parked outside of our apartment

Entertainment while we wait for the subway

February & March Recap: Babies, wedding planning, good restaurants

Now that our work hours have really started to pick up, we're not blogging as regularly as we would like. So here's another "recap" blog to summarize the highlights of the last two months.

Babies:
Spring 2012 seems to be a popular time for babies - at least in our group of friends.  Chris' college friend Brandon, and his wife Courtney had baby Corben.  Kate's sorority sister Erin and her husband Craig had baby Avery.  And Kate's childhood friend Tracey and her husband Mike are expecting baby Mark in a two short weeks.  This spring we've also learned that Kate's college friend Holly is expecting twins later this year.  We're so happy for our friends and their growing families.  We hope we can visit them to meet their sweet babies.

Wedding Planning:
We've made some major progress with our wedding planning.  Since we returned from our trip, we had been searching for venues.  We've actually had our venue picked out since November but finally decided on a date and signed the contract in February.  Our wedding will take place on October 12 of 2013 at the Roosevelt Hotel in NYC.  It's a beautiful, vintage hotel which is perfect for the "old NY" feeling we want at our wedding.

Taking full advantage of our long engagement, we've started interviewing photographers and researching music options.  Instead of having to choose a vendor by their availability, we can choose the one we really want and book them before anyone else can.  And, because Chris already has his mind set on having our rehearsal dinner at his favorite steak restaurant in NY, we'll probably book that before we even officially ask people to be in our wedding!  A little out of order but if you can book early, why wouldn't you.

Restaurants:
We never really considered ourselves foodies before moving to NY but as you probably all know by now, NY has some of the best restaurants in the world.  And the variety of food available is amazing.  Indian, Ethiopian, French, Cuban, American, there's even Texas-style barbecue restaurants up here.  Sadly, there's no Tex-Mex, the one food NY is missing.  There's always new restaurants opening up.  It's been said you can eat out at a different restaurant for every meal and never have to go to the same one twice. Anyways, this spring we've really gotten into trying out new restaurants on the weekends.  For anyone out there who lives in NY, is visiting NY, and loves good restaurants... this is for you.

Russian Tea Room - this was were we went for Valentines Day this year.  And since that was a Tuesday, it was nice that the Russian Tea Room  is a few short blocks from our offices.  The food was amazing but very pricey.  If you go, walk around and see all the decor.  It's truly a beautiful restaurant.

Alouette - An amazing French restaurant in our neighborhood that we discovered this spring. Delicious escargot and duck in a lounge setting only the French can do.  The downstairs area of the restaurant turned into a cocktail lounge, DJ and all at night.  So after dinner, we headed downstairs for a cocktail before walking home. Would definitely recommend this place!

Picnic Market & Cafe - another amazing French restaurant about 20 blocks north of our apartment.  Much more casual than Alouette with a German twist.  We went here with our friends Elle and Nate (Nate works with Chris and also went to Columbia for business school).  Elle and Kate both had the duck here while Nate and Chris opted for the German-style sausage.  We also started with escargot and foie gras.  This place is small but we'd recommend this place as well.

Fish - This is the place to go for inexpensive seafood in the West Village.  Where else do you get 6 oysters and a glass of wine for $8?  Or a whole lobster with two sides for $20?  Because of the delicious food for such a good price, the wait can be long and they don't take reservations.  We've already been here multiple times after our friends introduced us to this little jewel.

After the meal.  Lobster, crab, oysters in a bucket.

Black Duck - This is where we went last night with friends Cesar and Courtney.  The name sounds like it's a Chinese or French restaurant but it's actually Pan-American.  Good fish, good duck, good live jazz music.  We love live music of any kind so we really enjoyed this place.  It's small so reservations are recommended. After dinner, we walked down the street to Flute for a glass of champagne. But one glass turned into many and we woke up with headaches this morning.

Courtney and Kate at Flute

This spring we've had many weeks of beautiful 50-60 degrees weather.  So whenever possible we've been dining on patios, on our rooftop and our friend's rooftops.  Recently the weather has returned to the 40's but warm weather is on it's way so there's much more rooftopping in our near future.

January Recap: Birthdays, Work & Visitors

January was full of birthday celebrations, out-of-town guests and new changes in our professional lives. First, big news in Kate's professional life.  Kate had quit her job before the world trip we took this summer. When returning, she found a difficult time finding the right job for her.  Kate was lucky to get some freelancing work and after months of searching, she was offered a full-time job at a creative agency at the end of January!  Chris' professional life has had a few changes as well.  After months of rotating through various groups at the financial firm he works at, he was assigned a permanent group in early January.  He was lucky to get the group he wanted but this meant it was time for the work to truly begin.  Which means, his work hours have increased significantly.

Somehow, we made the time to make it to several parties and celebrate our dear friends' birthdays!

Cesar's birthday celebration over some college football watching...

Cesar, Chris, Courtney (Cesar's fiance'), and Kate

Anu and Bharani, who got engaged in the Fall of 2011, share a birthday week.  They join their birthday parties but since this year was Bharani's 30th, Anu wanted to surprise him with his own karaoke party.



Anu and Bharani

We had quite a turn-out for Bharani's surprise birthday party

Last but not least, we celebrated our friend Nicole's birthday in a private party room at a Mexican restaurant in Tribeca.

Kate, Nicole and Patricia

These birthday parties brought our good friend, Fred in town for a couple of weekends in January.  Fred's out in Philly for grad school and we're always thrilled to have him in town.

Kate's sister and boyfriend also came to NY for a long weekend.  Kate's sister, Sarah, travels to NYC for work and when she does she takes a long weekend so we can spend some time together.  We went to see War Horse at Lincoln Center, did a little bit of shopping, had some delicious food, saw the broadway show The Perfect Crime, and hung out at our apartment. We're looking forward to the next business trip Sarah takes to NY!

We've also been enjoying a mild winter.  It's only snowed (and stuck) once this year and temps have stayed in the 20's and 30's.  It's still cold but not the bitter cold that we expected.

Hope everyone else's January (and now February) were filled with good health and good times.

Travel Memories: Our First Trip

We've traveled to many, many places together.   But the first travel memory to share is not the most exotic, or the most adventurous, or the most beautiful place we've been to.  Our first travel memory that we want to share is our first trip together, 4 and 1/2 years ago in Nuevo Vallarta, Mexico. 

In September 2007, we traveled to Mexico for a small couples trip with Chris' best friend John and Denise (John's then girlfriend/now wife).  

We were looking for some beach/pool time

some adventure 

and lots of romance.

Chris, John and Denise also did some zip-linning while Kate played tennis at the resort.  Kate and Denise were able to get in some spa time while the guys went off to play golf.  Needless to say it was your typical but perfect couples trip in Mexico! And because it was our first trip together, it will always be one of our favorite travel memories. 

More Travel Stories to Come

We've blogged just about all we can on our Summer 2011 Round-The-World Trip.  But that doesn't mean the travel stories have to end!  We've visited some amazing places before the world trip and we don't plan to stop traveling.  We want to keep this blog full of our travel memories.  It'll be fun for us to dig through our old photos and remember those trips we spent together.  So... stay tuned for our stories in the U.K., Germany, France, Italy, Turkey, Croatia, Greece, Mexico and even some U.S. travel fun.

Chris' 30th Birthday!

There are a handful of birthdays that you look forward to, that you dread, and that you really need to celebrate.  A 30th birthday are all of those things. It's a milestone birthday.  The year you're supposed to leave behind your crazy 20's and look forward to a more mature lifestyle.  In our opinion, this meant there should be a variety of celebrations for this milestone in Chris' life.  

To celebrate leaving behind the crazy 20's, we invited friends to join us at Chris' favorite Irish pub on the Upper East Side: O'Flanagans.  He used to live across the street from this bar in his mid-20's, his first two years in NYC.  They have a band on the weekends and beer pong in the back room.  Perfect way to re-live the 20's. Looking at the pictures, we think our friends had a good time!  We'll only post a few so we don't embarrass anyone with drunk pics.

Chris & Kate taking a birthday shot

Tom, Brittany, Fred, Chris, Brandon, and Kate

Chris and Brandon playing beer pong

Brandon playing beer pong

Brandon, Chris, Kate, Liz, Anu, Bharani, Magoo, Fred, Allison

To celebrate entering the more mature years of Chris' life, we invited a smaller group of friends to one of the best restaurants in the tri-state area.  Blue Hill at Stone Barns is a high-end restaurant located on a farm in NY state, about a 40 minute drive from Manhattan. We had been here once before for dinner but this time we went for Sunday brunch and we took a tour of the farm. Blue Hill is different from other restaurants.  It's a farm-to-table restaurant where the ingredients grown / raised on the farm are the ingredients that make it into your meal.  In fact, the menu is only a list of ingredients.  The chef chooses what dishes to serve you based on what ingredients you dislike or are allergic to and based on how many courses you choose to have.  We're so glad this is the way the restaurant operates. We probably wouldn't think to order some of these courses and the food is beyond amazing.

Courtney, Cesar, Ana, Liz, Chris, Kate, Mikki

Kate loved the beet-infused vodka

The birthday boy and his birthday cake!

Ana, Mikki, Kate, Chris, Courtney, Liz, Cesar - having some wine at the start of our farm tour

The hen houses - for the hens that lay the eggs they use

The greenhouse

Interesting fact: the ewe are marked with colors after they have "been with" a ram.  This allows the farmers to know that everyone has been fertilized within the same time period so that all the lambs are born within the same time period.  

Of course they had pigs!

And hens!  Apparently there's a different breed of chicken for laying eggs, than for eating.

Geese!