^^ Welcome to 2015, my friends! This year is going to be a big one for me and Chris (starting with a move to Denver, which kicks off this Thursday!), and we rang in the brand new year with lobsters, champagne and some celebrating in Pennsylvania with the fam. Happy Merry Jolly New Year to you all — here’s to family, friends and fabulous fresh starts!
^^ Well friends, here she is — my final 52 Project photo of 2014 — holy cow! I absolutely love this one, too. It’s now 12:30 a.m. in Sydney, Australia, and Chris and I fly out in just a couple of hours back to the states. This trip to Australia has been a whirlwind, but it’s been an absolutely lovely one. So farewell for now, sweet Australia – until we meet again! I’ll be back tomorrow with my year in review, but until then-bis bald, friends!
^^ Well friends, this photo pretty much sums up our past couple of days out here in Australia. We’ve been traveling around a ton, visiting friends and family in other parts of the country, and it’s been really beautiful to see the area this way. We’re settled into Bathurst now for the holidays with the family, and we’re really looking forward to it. So happy holiday week to all of you — and look out for my Year in Review post, coming at cha super soon 😉
^^ Happy holidays from down under, everyone! Chris and I are spending time with friends and family in Australia through the end of December, so I’m just trying to get used to a warm-weather Christmas — I think I can handle it 😉 See you all next Monday!
^^ Picked up a pretty little Christmas tree with the fam last night. It’s a tradition of ours to hit up this place every year for some holiday shopping and to get our tree. And today, we’re off to sunny Australia! Quite the weather difference, wouldn’t ya say?
Bis bald, friends!
^^ Holy cow, did I just write my first December 52 Project post?? Does that mean I may actually be close to successfully completing this series in its entirety for the year? Amazing. So as you can tell from this photo, which I took from my mom’s front window, it’s been looking a whole lot like December around here. A big ole’, beautiful snowstorm hit last Wednesday (right before Thanksgiving), and managed to make everything super gorgeous. On top of that, Chris and I were lucky enough to have two awesome Thanksgivings — one here in upstate NY with my mom’s contingency, and the other in Jersey with my dad and those lovely peeps. We now officially leave for Australia in one week (wahoo!), so I’m pretty sure these next few days will simply fly by. Happy December friends — here’s to making the most of the holidays! I’ll be back tomorrow with the first installments of our Ecuador trip.
^^ Well friends, this is the fourth and final photo that I’ll be posting for the ’52 Project’ series from our trip to South America. We saw this little guy when we were about halfway through our bus ride from Escazu to Tamarindo, Costa Rica, and he pretty much embodies what I think of when I think of Costa Rica. Vibrant. Lively. Fun. Pura Vida, baby! As I type this I’m sitting at my mom’s dining room table back in upstate New York. We arrived home from our trip around midnight last night, and I’m looking forward to going through all the photos and posting some more in-depth info from the trip which was, without a doubt, the trip of a lifetime.
^^ Hey guys! So once again our internet abilities is forcing me to post a 52 Project photo on a Sunday instead of a Monday. We are currently in Escazu, Costa Rica, and we leave bright and early tomorrow morning for our 5th and final destination of our South American tour — Tamarindo, Costa Rica. The photo above, though, is from my new absolute favorite place on earth – the Galápagos Islands. There is so much I can’t wait to share about this trip, but I can say without a doubt that the Galápagos Islands are one of the most amazing places I’ve ever been. I’m making it my travel mission to get back to this place again. Bis bald, friends – my next post will be coming at ya from back in the States. Massive bummer.
^^ So I know it’s Sunday, not Monday, but Chris and I will be in the Galapagos all this week with no internet connection, so this post comes at you now or never, friends 😉 We just arrived back from the Amazon today, and it was an absolutely spectacular time. We loved the lodge where we stayed, and we saw so many amazing creatures and had tons of adventures. For example, the shower in our lodge was screened in at the back and offered a full-on view of the jungle, and the second night we were there I just happened to catch the little guy above and about a half dozen of his friends playing in the trees right outside. Can’t say that’s something that’s ever happened to me before! Much more to come on the Amazon in the upcoming weeks — bis bald friends!
^^ Happy November friends! Chris and I are now in Quito, Ecuador, on our way to both the Amazon and the Galapagos. We finished our tour of Peru, and it was more than we could have hoped for (reference the photo above of myself and Chris, enjoying the view of Machu Picchu after trekking up the Inca Trail. I was hoping to be able to blog more, but to be honest … I’ve been exhausted! And we’re about to head into no-Internet territory, so even these weekly photo posts may be late coming. But needless to say, it’s been a pretty once-in-a-lifetime experience so far — and we’re so looking forward to what else is coming. Bis bald, friends!
^^ Well friends, it’s been an insane week. Chris and I packed up the past six years of our lives in apartment 4W in NYC, and we left yesterday for the first leg of our four-week South American tour, landing in Cusco, Peru, early this morning (hence this photo). I’ll do my best to keep you guys updated as the trip progresses, but I may not always have the Internet. Stay tuned!
^^ My melancholy (and that’s putting it very lightly) string of farewells continued this past weekend with drinks and dinner at some friends’ new apartment in the Bronx (served with an appetizer of sobbing, done by me) and a Sunday afternoon meet-up at Dominique Ansel Bakery in Soho for some cookie shots with amaretto milk (above) and flaming smores. The tastiness of these treats did not, however, quench my sadness :/
^^ Well friends, it begins. Our rounds of saying good-bye to friends as (possibly) the last time as Manhattan dwellers has commenced. Last week I saw an old boss and a former co-worker, and tonight and tomorrow I have drinks with old friends, as well. Over the weekend I headed to my parents’ house over in Jersey to spend some quality time with my sisters (at a winery, naturally), and help my parents babysit our nephew while my sister and her husband went to a concert.
Sigh.
Were you guys fans of the show “The Office”? Well in the series finale, there’s a scene where Andrew Bernard says, “I wish there was a way to know you’re in the good ole’ days before you’ve actually left them.” Well that’s exactly what this feels like to me, friends, the good ole’ days. And I’m feeling very sad to leave them …
^^ This past weekend we celebrated our fifth (and final that we can actually attend) wedding celebration. This one was for my freshman college roommate, and it was held at Sleepy Hollow Country Club in Tarrytown, NY. Although the day started out gloomy and rainy, by the time we all made it back to the Country Club for the outdoor cocktail hour and photos, the skies had cleared and the sun was glorious. It turned out to be a beautiful day! Congrats to Carla & Ryan — we love you guys!
^^ I’m not gonna lie my friends — it was hard to pick just one picture from this past week to share. (More on that to come later.) But here she be, the one photo I decided to pick– my husband, manning the camera on our glorious Breakneck Ridge hike on Saturday. Gotta love a man who can wield a camera — am I right?
^^ We spent this past weekend in Penn State (where my older sister went to college and met her now-husband) with some of my family (including this adorable little guy above). Every year my family picks one Penn State game to attend and tailgate beforehand. It’s always a pretty amazing time. More photos to come tomorrow.
^^ We had so much fun at my former roommate Alexis’s Long Island wedding this past weekend! Being a bridesmaid has come to mean so much to me this past summer — it’s been a great way to stay in touch with friends and see them at different things like showers and bachelorettes. Everyone is so busy these days — having an excuse to hang out is always a plus in my book 😉
^^ This weekend was jam packed and amazing — just the kind of NYC weekend I needed to get back into the swing of things after a crazy, hectic, mixed-up kind of summer. I’ll talk about all the different things we did in a couple of posts throughout the week, but for now this photo is one of the many spectacular views from The Cloisters, the branch of The Metropolitan Museum of Art devoted to the art and architecture of medieval Europe.
^^ Welcome to September (and Fall!) my friends. Oy this year. I sound like a broken record, I know, but this year has been — and continues to be — quite the year. This past weekend, Labor Day weekend, Chris and I attended a wedding of one of my besties from high school. She was married to an amazing man at Red Maple Vineyard in West Park, NY, and while it was unfortunately not the best of weather for when they had their own ceremony, my mom and I visited the venue again on Labor Day (for our own personal reasons … ahem little sister who just got engaged!), and took a trek up the hill to see what the view would have been for Faye, had the weather been nice. Simply. Stunning. Hope you guys all had a fabulous Labor Day weekend, and are as happy to welcome in a new season as I am!
^^ I have a BFF in town visiting for a couple of days, and on Saturday we headed out to Times Square to check out “This is Our Youth”, a play about three young kids growing up in the early 80s dealing with drugs, sex and general adulthood. We weren’t too sure how we felt about it at first, but in the days following, as we continued to chat about it, we realized the play did exactly what it was meant to do — get us talking about it — so that means it must have been good, right?!
^^ I’m not gonna lie — this summer is kicking my you-know-what, guys! It’s been hectic and crazy, happy and sad, stressful and fun … sheesh! It’s also been a bit hard keeping up with this blog, but I’m doing what I can! Anyway, this past weekend I attended my final of four bachelorette parties for the summer. This one was in Atlantic City (again … had one there earlier this summer as well!), and we stayed at the Revel, which, sadly, is closing Labor Day weekend. We were worried about the service we would receive when we heard this news, but we found nothing short of amazingly friendly and lovely people, and the hotel itself was gorgeous with a specular view of the ocean. All in all, it was a super fun, very nice weekend. Hope you guys are all having a fabulous summer!
^^ Well friends, this summer has been a lesson in ups and downs, highs and lows, happy and sad. Saturday, though, was a decidedly happy day when my little sister and her awesome boyfriend got engaged! A huge shout-out to Brian for inviting us all along to surprise Steph. Brian popped the question on The High Line, then we headed over to the Gallow Green rooftop garden at The McKittrick Hotel for a bottomless, boozy brunch (more on this later) and then to American Whiskey to keep the celebration going. I seriously cannot believe my baby sister is engaged, and she couldn’t have picked a better guy 😉 Congrats you two, we love you!
^^ It’s been a rough couple of weeks over here, my friends, but taking a stroll around the Central Park Reservoir always seems to calm me down, even on an overcast day.
^^ A shot of the gorgeous room from the wedding we attended on Saturday at El Caribe Country Club in Brooklyn. The cocktail hour had no less than 10 stations with fresh cheeses and meats, pastas, veggies, seafood and much more. The entree menu offered six meal options and the Venetian hour has about a dozen dessert tables with everything from popcorn, cookies, snow cones and fondue to omelets, a sundae bar, cotton candy and a cannoli table. This, my friends, is how the Italians in Brooklyn celebrate a marriage, and I’m happy to be a part of it 😉
^^So this past weekend was a whirlwind of crap that I won’t go into detail on, but let’s just say the week that preceded it was pretty awesome. I was down in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, with about 30-40 family members, and this photo is just one of many I took during our Seafood Night extravaganza. It’s tradition for us to do one night where everyone gathers at one house and eats all the seafood we can stuff into our faces. Blue crabs. Lobster. Oysters on the Half Shell. Steamed Clams and Clams on the Half Shell. Shrimp. Chicken. Steak. Corn. I mean really — it’s an extravaganza. YUM!