Patriot's Day

I joined my mom, aunt, and cousins in Boston for a quick weekend of fun.  I got in really late Friday night, so we stayed up into the wee hours talking, laughing, and catching up.  Saturday we spent ALL day shopping.  I'm sure my aunt and cousin would have preferred to have their teeth cleaned, but they were good sports while I found some good finds for Spring on Newberry Street.  We stopped to have a great lunch and take a load off.

They had already set up for the marathon on Monday, so we took a few pics at the finish line.

My mom was prepared with her Vibram Five Fingers.  :)

Then it was back to more shopping.  We ended the night with some early birthday drinks.

Sunday we walked to the Charles River and by Fenway Park.  

Spring in the air...

Cousins!  My cousin Kristen was comin' as I was goin'.  

The fun was just beginning for Patriot's day, but it was already time for me to catch the train back to NYC.

Easter

Easter Eve we had date night downtown.  We tried a new restaurant that I found in the same article that lead my husband to Catskill Distillery for Peace vodka a week ago.  It was called King which I thought was appropriate for the night before Easter.  The Sicilian Choke cocktail which was featured in the article actually ended up being my least favorite thing there.  We started with ramps and remesco, tots with bernaise, and fluke crudo.  Although it's not an Italian restaurant, we both ordered pasta for our entree.  I had beef ravioli with black truffle sauce and he had spaghetti with duck ragu.  Everything was wonderful!  The pasta was so fresh and some of the best I've ever had.  I would definitely return!

The next morning we got up early and went to mass at St. Patrick's Cathedral.  I feel lucky to have this as our local neighborhood church:

 Easter lilies...

And then we walked up Park Avenue on our way home so I could look at all of the tulips.  

We picked up breakfast and then took a nap.  The only thing we were missing was family!

Upstate Update

Last week, we went upstate to check a few to-do's off the list.  We got a new land survey so we could determine where to place the house on the lot.  (I don't know if I've mentioned on here that we plan to build a house!  It is a long-term project, but hopefully, in about a year we'll have something close to completion.)  Anyway, we have a VERY funky shaped lot, but we have more space than we thought!  :)  From the far back corner of the lot you can't even see the cabin.

We plan to have a big side porch.  I think this is what the view will be when we're sitting outside.  Not too shabby...

All the snow has melted, but it's still cold and cloudy.  Not a creature stirring (oh, wait, we did see mice!  Eek!).  The water looked like glass.

This is my favorite view driving down the mountain.  I can't wait for Spring and all of the brown to turn to green.

On our way home, we took a small detour to The Catskill Distilling Company in Bethel, NY.  Trivia for the day:  Did you know Bethel, NY was the host of Woodstock?  Not, in fact, Woodstock, NY?  My husband had read about the distillery in a magazine article, so we picked up a bottle of Peace vodka and looked around for a couple of minutes.  Look at the awesome copper pots!

I hope in the summertime, the place gets a good crowd because it was a really neat spot.  I'd love to come back and sit on their patio and listen to some live music.

Spring Break 2012

After lots of whining about needing a vacation, one morning a few weeks ago I awoke to a plane ticket in my inbox.  My husband arranged for us to spend a week in Jupiter, Florida at one of his friend's family's beach house.  We had an entire week together to do nothing except relax in the sun.  We had beautiful weather, took in a Spring training baseball game, went deep sea fishing, and asked ourselves everyday what should we do – beach or pool?  Those are the tough life questions.

 The million dollar view.

Marlins vs. Rays

Josh Johnson in action.

Daily walk on the beach.

In 5 foot waves in the Atlantic.  Not very many other people around.

Flying Fish that jumped into the boat and brought us luck.

Reeling in the catch of the day.

King Fish.

Night out at the Square Grouper Tiki Bar.

Sunset the last night at The Yacht Club.

Even though we had a mild winter, I think a warm spring trip is required every year.  It’s just what I needed, except coming home to over a thousand emails at work.  It was fun while it lasted.  Too bad we didn’t hit the mega millions or else we could have done it every day for the rest of our lives.     

St. Patty’s

Two weeks prior to St. Patrick’s day is Hoboken St. Patty’s day.  Even though the official parade was canceled this year, we still celebrated at the annual house party of my husband’s friend.  It’s my husband’s second favorite day of the year after Derby day.  He was awake before 7 am on a Saturday, so you know he was excited.  I finally got up and ready and we arrived by 11:30.  On the elevator up to his friend's apartment (after the host not answering the buzzer or phone calls) my husband said, oh, I think it starts at noon.  What?!  I was so embarrassed, but we still went in and cracked open a cold beverage before noon.  The night before, my best friend (aka TWN) and I spent way too long baking Irish car bomb cupcakes.  Had she not helped, I’m not sure if I ever would have gone to bed!  Everything was made from scratch.  The cupcakes had Guiness in them.  I scooped out the center and filled them with Jameson chocolate ganache, and then my TWN topped them with a Bailey’s frosting.  They got very high marks from a couple of the guests at the party, but the cake was a little off – it stuck to the paper when you tried to peel it off.  I’m still proud though.

Chopping lot o' chocolate

Making it into ganache

Coring the cupcakes

Beating lots o' butter into icing.

Ta da!

Real Irish car bombs

Real St. Patrick’s day was a mess of intoxicated, loud, crazily dressed people in the city.  I think it should be called Spring Halloween.  How different times are compared to 5 years ago when my girlfriends and I walked into an Irish pub, and at closing time I walked out with who I would later figure out to be my husband.  May not be a romantic story but I’d say we’re both so lucky to have found each other that night!  We went to bed much earlier than 5 years prior because the next morning we were off to Jupiter, Florida….