I'm Back from NYC

Yesterday evening Matt and I came back from a four day trip to New York! It was my mother-in-law's birthday on Sunday and we all gathered in the city to celebrate since my brother-in-law now lives there. 

It was a great weekend of eating and drinking and exploring. The temperature wasn't much lower than here in Charlotte, but it felt FREEZING when you're walking around most of the time ;)

It's completely overwhelming finding things to do/eat in New York since there are so many choices, so here are some highlights that I would recommend:

- Chelsea Market Food Tour: This was the best tour I've ever taken and I am not completely obsessed with the Chelsea Market. I highly recommend it, especially if you love to eat. :)

- Yotel: This is where we stayed.. it's a tiny little room with no frills, but it was comfortable and so budget friendly.. we got this room for around $100/night. Crazy good!!

And maybe it's just me, but I would much rather stay in a small, all white box than a larger room decorated badly.

- Da Andrea: Thank God for Yelp!! That's how Matt and I find every restaurant we go to when on vacation. We found Da Andrea on yelp, and it was some of the best Italian food I've ever had, and very budget friendly. Even our waitress was Italian. You know you're at a good restaurant when you want to have a little bite of everyone's dinner!!

- Balthazar: This is where we had Joan's birthday dinner. We all really loved this place!

- Rocco's: Amazing dessert, need I say more. It was SO GOOD! I ate so many desserts in New York (and the scale showed it when I got home!)

Red Velvet Cheesecake... that was mine. And it was so, so good!!

We always love visiting the city, but it's nice to be home! (Although whenever we do go, we joke about moving there. Matt's career has many options there, and I love dreaming about being a decorator there. Fun to think about, but I don't think we could survive there!)

In other news, today is a really fun/exciting day. I'm having a photoshoot of a space I decorated. I can't share all the details yet, but I will as soon as I can! 

Charleston, SC

Phew! We just got back from Charleston, SC for a short weekend away for my husband's birthday. We left Sunday morning and got back Monday evening.

Charleston is such a beautiful city full of amazing food and breath-taking homes.. two of my favorite things. But let me tell you, it was HOT... like real feel of 105 degrees. Way too hot to walk around the city, which was a bummer. But it didn't stop us from doing A LOT.

We got into Charleston around lunch time and started our mini-trip off with Sunday brunch at High Cotton (sooo good).





We walked around the city after brunch but got pretty overheated, so we retreated back into the AC until our dinner reservations at Husk. (I kept asking myself... HOW did they do it back in the day with the heat and their long dresses and suits and no AC?!?!)

Husk was a great restaurant and I was flipping over the design.









My pictures didn't do the restaurant justice - seriously click here to see how gorgeous it is!

Monday morning we took a carriage tour of the Battery area.. it was so amazing! I took a million pictures of gorgeous old homes and architecture... here are some:






















I loved Henry, the guide horse.

I will tell you what NOT to do - tour the Calhoun Mansion. We passed it on the carriage tour and the guide mentioned it's open for tours. Given it's history, we thought it'd be really cool to check out the inside of an old mansion. Well the new owners are apparently billionaire hoarders. I am pulling this off of Trip Advisor.. it's exactly how I felt: "It is best described as cluttered, tacky and junky. You can no longer enjoy the Tiffany original decor and chandeliers for the new owners myriad of eclectic things that do not belong in this grand piece of Charleston architecture. It is sad and a shame. The longer the tour lasted today, the sadder and madder I got."

After the tour we ate our last meal at Hominy Grill. Just like the rest of the food on the trip, it was amazing!

It was a great little vacation and I'd love to go back!

Labor Day Trip Pictures

Mom finally uploaded her pictures :) so here are a couple of our great mini-vacation to my uncle's house on the lake in South Carolina over Labor Day. It was such a fun little way to say goodbye to Summer.

The lake was amazing and so where the lake houses.


Isn't my little brother cute? He's single, ladies.


Spending much needed quality time with the brothers, I never get to see them :(


Yes, my husband is shorter than me and nope it never bothers me (single ladies- don't hate on a guy just cause he's short!). No, he doesn't usually wear trunks like that (my brother forgot his so he wore Matt's and Matt wore my uncle's). Yes I LOVED red and pink lipstick that weekend :) Oh and yes, Weight Watchers works!!


lol at our faces in this picture. Do you think we'll make cute kids? I'm not sure..


My aunt and uncle's cute dog, he loves the lake.

New York City - June 2009

Finally! Pictures [and a recap] of the trip! I'll jump right in...

Let's start with saying that I love food. Probably one of the things I was most excited about was the food in NY. We flew in Sat night red eye, got to the hotel and slept for a couple hours. Around 9 am, we left the hotel and headed straight to the local NY bagel place...



It was really really good. Everything bagel + egg + cheese. When we walked out of the tiny bagel shop we looked for a bench to sit and eat. Umm.... NO benches in NYC. It's funny how New Yorker's don't sit and just enjoy their breakfast ;) [little did we know we could have walked just a couple blocks to eat on the steps of the library]. We found a Starbucks with a window view to sit down and eat.

After breakfast we walked to Hell's Kitchen for a little flea market perusing.





There was so much great stuff...





but I didn't buy anything.

After the flea market we headed over to the history museum for an amazing astronomy exhibit/movie called Cosmic Collisions. I love astronomy and it was so fun! We also checked out the dinosaurs..




That's one scary face! (me not the dinosaur)

Are you still with me? Can you believe the first day isn't over yet? Next up we headed over to the famous Shake Shack. We were expecting something earth shaking.... I'm sorry to say it disappointed.



I have to admit, it looks pretty freaking amazing in the picture. But I'm still an In n Out girl at heart.


The shake was pretty good.


We were pretty hungry, so we filled up and headed on over to Central Park for a much needed afternoon of R&R


It was one of the most beautiful days ever... the temperature was absolutely perfect and I took an amazing nap on the grass. Matt took a picture of me napping but I am definitely not showing that one ;)

After our lovely afternoon, we headed back to the hotel to relax some more (we did take the red eye after all!) and decided on dinner. We picked Di Fara's. I saw on Yelp and other sites that it's the best pizza in all of New York. We hopped on the Q subway and headed for Brooklyn.




This old man makes all the pizza and has been for 40 years. He pulls the pizza out of the oven with his bare hands (!!!)



Ohh my gosh it was amazing. BUT here's the catch - we waited two and a half hours for it!



Remember I said I love food? Matt got a little crabby after the second hour had passed, but the second we got it, it was all worth it.

Phew! It was a long first day but we had such a great time doing so many things. What an amazing city!

The next two days the husband had his work meetings (did I tell you? The entire trip, minus my airfare, was free thanks to my husband's meetings! Hence why it was so last minute). On Monday morning I met up with Jessica from What I Wore. She took me to one of the best thrift stops I've ever been to! (Beacon's Closet). It was so amazing and I got some great stuff. Unfortunately I completely forgot to take pictures (I even hauled my heavy DLR to Brooklyn.. bummer!). She is so sweet and I had a great time. Thanks, Jessica!

We spent the rest of the day walking, walking and walking from Chinatown to Soho to NYU. During the walk I found some great paint colors...





I got some great little Chinatown items (earrings and sunglasses) and we sat in the park by NYU. A great afternoon. We then ate in Little Italy with my husband's cousin who lives in the city.

On the way home we did finally pull out the camera to snap some pictures.


I loved those benches! Probably only tourists use them, eh?



The last day was really low key. The husband went to his final meeting and I headed over to the Met art museum. Unfortunately I didn't have enough time to check out the exhibits before our flight, but I did a little walking around.


See those rain clouds in the background?


Right when we got back to the hotel it started pouring. I LOVED it and the hotel employees thought I was crazy for getting excited about rain. I told them how it rarely rains in California, especially never that hard. It reminded me of home (I grew up in tornado alley).

After the showers passed, we walked to an awesome deli that had pretty much everything. I ended the trip with an amazing bowl of hot ramen.



Sorry the post is so long winded!

We had SUCH a great time full of beautiful sites, amazing food and great company. We've decided that whenever my husband has meetings in NY I'll tag along with him (it's usually once or twice a year).

To be super cliche... I heart NY :D

5 pm and In Bed

It's close to 5 pm and we've been lounging this afternoon. Yesterday us old folks went out to LA to see one of our favorite comedians and now we are exhausted.

I had to blog because we had some "LA" type experiences...

After the show (around 12 am), Kirsten Dunst stumbled in front of our car. I was staring at a really cute dress, then I looked up at the face and oh! There she was right in front of me. Cute hair.. cute dress... I'm trying to google pictures just to see if our car happen to make it to a paparazzi pic.

We knew the show would end pretty late (for us) so we decided last minute to get a hotel thanks to Priceline. We got back pretty late to the hotel (stupid LA traffic), and were awoken at 7 am with some serious screaming. Right outside our hotel balcony was a large film production.

We were curious and called the front desk, they were filming 2012, which will be released next summer. We spent all morning watching the scene.

I know for those who live in LA these things are a daily occurrence, but it made for a very interesting overnight stay for us non-locals :)

Now it's back to our mundane lives of folding laundry and Office Christmas parties. Be back Monday!

Day 4: Plano, TX to Austin, TX

First, Happy Thanksgiving to everyone! Check back later to see my camera phone pics from today. I hope everyone has a great day filled with great food!

Yesterday we drove from my parents house in Plano to my brother's condo in Austin.


We passed by the downtown skyline as we headed out of Dallas.



My new ring - my grandmother gave it to me while in Tulsa - it's literally a huge rock (with crystals growing off of it), and I love it.



We stopped in Salado, Texas on the way to Austin - they had a lovely row of antique shops, and I just had to stop in one.



This shop was so great... I could have bought a thousand things, if it weren't for the issue of bringing it back to CA (oh yeah, and affording it).



I fell in love with these cobalt blue goblets - I imagined drinking wine from them, I'm sad I didn't get them.



My brother Blake's apartment - he shares this tiny little room with another guy - ah college days.



I painted the guitar for Blake, and got him that little painting of Dylan from Etsy. Blake's an amazing musician, I'm going to post a song of his soon!



We ate at such a great place here in Austin - Magnolia's.



I was soooo happy to finally have queso after 3 years of living in California - when you say "queso" in CA they bring you a block of cheese :/