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!

Goodbye 2011!!

When planing this New Year, we wanted to do something a little cheaper than past years but still fun and with close friends.  A lot of our friends were out of town this year but when our good friend and Chris' old roommate asked us if we'd like to get out of the city with him and his fiance - we got excited about this NYE's potential!  We planned a weekend away in the Hamptons with Cesar and Courtney.  We rented a car to drive the 2.5 hours out to the Hamptons, rented a house with a grill and hot tub, and made dinner plans for NYE.  Although it wasn't a cheaper NYE, it was a fun, relaxing, casual and special New Years. We spent the first night in grilling, sitting by the fire, and then having champagne in the hot tub. 

First night in the house, Chris grilled steaks.

First night - Cesar and Courtney snuggling by the fire

Chris and Kate by the fire

The second day we woke up late, had a big breakfast and watched some football.  We walked around the downtown area of East Hampton before heading back to the house to get ready for our New Years dinner at Serafina.  There was an amazing pre-fix deal.  Basically every course came with truffles!  After dinner, we headed back to the house for champagne, our own personal dance party and more hot tubing. It was lovely to be away from the chaotic NYC new years we've experienced in the past.

New Years Eve dinner at Serafina - so good!

At the house, Cesar and Courtney introduced us to one of their New Years traditions:  Open a bottle of champagne and everyone makes toasts to people and accomplishments from the past year.  You do this until the bottle is gone.  This was a really special and fun tradition that I hope we do every year.  We won't share (or be able to remember) all of our toasts that evening, but here are some highlights from 2011.

1) We got engaged in Maui

2) We embarked on a world trip (the inspiration to start this blog)

3) Chris graduated with his masters degree from Columbia Business School

4) We moved into a new apartment in September

5) Chris started a new job

6) Chris' Grandpa celebrated his 90th birthday surrounded by dozens of family and friends

7) We celebrated two friends' weddings in Dallas: Josh & Dani and Paul & Mel

8) Friends John & Denise had their first child: Ryland Patrick

9) We went to the Coachella Music Festival in Palm Springs, CA

10) For Chris' spring break, we went to Cabo with friends Kerry & Chris and then visited friends Erin & Craig in San Francisco.  We also managed to make it to Napa for a wine-tasting day-trip.

11) Chris turned 30!! (more on that in a separate blog post)

12) Kate's friend, Malinda visited us in March

13) We've had many visits from family. Both our families came out for Chris' graduation in May, Kate's sister, Sarah has traveled to NYC for work several times, and Kate's parents came to visit in November.

14) Chris went to New Orleans for a bachelor party

15) We celebrated two friends getting engaged: Cesar & Courtney and Bharni & Anu. And Kate's cousin Tyler got engaged.

16) We started the year in Los Angeles, celebrating the New Year and our friend, Lauren's birthday. (And we got to party in Jim Morrison's old house on NYE!)

17) Chris took many snowboarding trips including one to Colorado in Janurary with fellow Columbia Buisness School students.

Needless to say, 2011 was a great year!  We already have a lot to look forward to in 2012:  Chris' sister and brother-in-law are moving to Houston, many of our friends are expecting babies, we already have two weddings on the calendar for May, and we'll be planning our own wedding (date TBD 2013).

9/11 Memorial Site

At the end of November, we went to see the newly opened 9/11 memorial site with our friends Liz and Fred.  The site isn't completely finished - the museum isn't open yet but the memorial is and it's really beautiful.  Although the site is free to visit, it's so popular that you have to reserve tickets for a specific time and date.  We heard the tickets were unavailable for months but that wasn't the case, there were plenty of dates to chose from.

Chris, Liz, Kate and Fred in front of one of the fountains and in front of the base of the Freedom Tower

The still work-in-process Freedom Tower

The fountains (there are two of them) are set in the footprints of the twin-towers and are huge.  The center of the fountains appear bottomless from all angles.

The outer ring of the fountains is circled with the names of the people who lost their lives on 9/11

At the back of the photo, you can see the museum which is still being built.

The Freedom Tower

The courtyard of the park

We visited the park in the late afternoon which ended up being a great time because we were able to see the fountains in the daylight, at sunset and at night.  Even though you are still in the city, the park is very quiet and serene.  It's a wonderful experience. If you're interested in seeing the memorial, visit: http://www.911memorial.org/

The Holiday Season: Thanksgiving & Christmas

We LOVE the holidays.  Chris' favorite holiday is Thanksgiving and Kate loves Christmas.  We spent the holiday seasons like most people - enjoying time with friends, family and good food!

The week of Thanksgiving Kate's parents came up to New York to visit and to do some wedding planning.  We took them to four wedding venues and all agreed on one final one! Now we just need to pick a date and start the contract!  We also took Kate's parents to Chris' favorite steak place - Keens.  This is where Chris wants to have our rehearsal dinner so that was our "excuse" for going to dinner there and taking a tour.  As expected, they loved it.  It wasn't all wedding planning while they were here.  We also took in some NY pizza, an Irish pub, visited Former President Grant's tomb, and saw the Broadway show War Horse.  If you haven't seen War Horse at Lincoln Center, you must!  It's such an amazing show and the theatre is small so there are no bad seats.  This Christmas the movie version came out.  We haven't seen the movie yet but heard it's good but not as good as the show.  Most movies aren't as good as live theatre, though. We always love when they come to visit.  And every time they visit we go to at least one Broadway show. 

Kate's Dad, Dave, enjoying an Irish pub specialty - Shepard's pie

A scene from War Horse (a pic I found online) - the horse is actually a puppet but after a few minutes into the play, you forget it's a puppet and accept it for a live horse

 After Kate's parents left, it was only a few short days until Thanksgiving!  Ever since moving to NY 4-5 years ago, we've spent Thanksgiving here with friends and now we really look forward to meeting up every year for Thanksgiving.  Everyone still gets to bring their favorite side dish or dessert but we order in the turkey.  NY apartments don't have big kitchens or ovens so putting together a large dinner like this really involves a lot of planning.  Thankfully our friends Liz and Tina are the perfect team in organizing this dinner.  And Brandon and Tina have a great dinning table to fit the 10 people who end up spending this holiday together.

Brandon, Liz, Chris, and Tina preparing Thanksgiving dinner

Tina and Liz making dessert

Now, fast forward to Christmas!  We are lucky that Kate's parents and sister live only 30-40 miles from Chris' parents and sister.  Our trip to the Dallas-Ft. Worth area for Christmas is hectic but at least we get to see both families. 

We spent the first few days of our trip with Kate's family.  Our first day we wrapped presents and went to our favorite Tex Mex restaurant, Uncle Julio's.  As you can imagine we bought pretty much all of our presents on our Summer trip and so we shipped those to our parents house - which is why the first day was focused on wrapping presents and getting ready for the holiday.  On Christmas Eve, Kate's sister's boyfriend and his family came over for a fancy Christmas dinner.  We eventually ended up in the living room drinking wine, eating dessert, and watching old home movies of Kate and her sister, Sarah.  Everyone had a good time laughing at how silly and adorable Kate and Sarah were as little girls. After our company left, we opened Christmas presents with Kate's family before heading to the 11pm church service.  Kate loves going to the late service because it lets out at midnight which is Christmas morning!  We really enjoyed watching Kate's family open their presents from around the globe.  And of course, we loved opening our gifts from them!  We got clothes, DVDs, some "How to be a great husband/wife" books from the 50's, and many other things.

Amazing homemade sweets!

Olive, Kate's sister Sarah's dog - all dressed up for Christmas dinner

Beautiful (and tall!) tree with oh so many presents!

Kate's sister, Sarah, modeling some Christmas gifts

Kate's parents, Dave & Linda, showing one of my mom's gifts from India

Christmas Day was very hectic, as we're sure it is for most families.  We had a large breakfast of homemade cinnamon rolls, blueberry muffins, eggs, bacon with Kate's family.  Then we opened our gifts from "Santa."  Around lunch time, we headed over to Chris' parents house to open presents with his parents, sister and brother-in-law.  We had a light lunch of sandwiches, cured meats and cheeses.  Of course "Santa" had gifts here, too - toothpaste and candy!  What a sense of humor "Santa" has! :-)  We then watched Chris' family open the many presents from around the world.  And of course we got some great gifts as well.  The celebrating, and eating,  didn't stop there! Next it was off to the neighbor's for dinner and then to Chris' brother-in-law's family for amazing ribs and Tex Mex.  To say we over-ate on Christmas would be an understatement!

Kate's mom, Linda, joined us for Christmas with Chris' family

Derek (Chris' bro-in-law) with Linda (Chris' mom) and Michelle (Chris' sister) in their Japanese kimonos

Derek and his new bookends from China

A very traveled-looking present.  Shipped from India, purchased in Cambodia

Inside the package: rice paper artwork from the temples in Cambodia!

We weren't in Texas for very long but we did both get to catch up with some friends we don't get to see often. 

Amanda and Kate at Library Bar at the Dallas Warwick

It's difficult, and very expensive, for us to come down to Texas for Christmas but it's so worth it.  We always have a great time and enjoy seeing our loved ones over amazing food.