Music, Music, Music!

This past wkd was perfect in so many way! It was sort of like the wkd I'd always wanted to have in NYC and it finally happened! My wkd started on Thursday night when Jenn and I made our way down to the West Village for tapas at Las Ramblas...so good, you MUST go there! It was a tiny, hole in the wall tapas bar where the food was to die for, the sangria delightful, and the atmosphere so cozy that you felt transported to Europe. Once our bellies were full we headed over to Madison Square Garden (MSG) for the Black Keys concert! I don't know what to say other than AMAZING!!! I think this qualifies as my first "real" rock concert. The venue was great and for being so massive, the sound was so clear! The Arctic Monkeys opened, they were so-so, I only recognized 2 of their songs and liked those, but they were a lot different than the other 6 or so that they played. Once the first note was played by the Black Keys I felt like I was transported to a happy place...or maybe that was due to all the ppl openly smoking joints all around me! I became a Black Keys fan while living out in LA and certain songs just take me back to memories of driving to Santa Monica Beach, or to fun outtings with friends in Palo Alto who were also Black Keys fans (shout out to Lisette!), and these days it's a toss up between Florence + the Machine's Ceremonials and the Black Keys El Camino for my wake up/shower/get ready to start your day routine. Just saying, you should download them, PRONTO.

MSG is starting to fill up!

Rangers jerseys

besties!

Everlasting light. Everyone loves a good disco ball.

Friday night Jenn was cancelled from work and we headed down to the LES to Piano's for the New Facility concert. Our friend Dave was childhood friends with the drummer so we went purely from his recommendation, and I have to say, they were really, really good! After some great new band discoveries and getting our groove on we headed over to a sports bar to cheer on N.C. State Wolfpack. I WILL NOT cheer for the Tarheels, but I will sport some red (accidentally) and make the pack sign during March Madness since my Blue Devils are out. Between some cheering, some music, some air hockey with PBR cans as mallets (I googled what you call the thing you hold!), and an unfortunate last minute loss for State we managed to somehow squeeze in this tiny photobooth to get this!

Leading Lady of the Color Bars,
she was awesome.

PBR air hockey w/ Dave 'n Jenn

 

Photobooth!

Saturday was lovely as I had no company and no work. I slept in, met a friend/coworker for the Hunger Games where our theater was oversold so we "exchanged tickets" (actually we snuck back in later with the help of a kind ticket booth agent), got some brunch, went back to the movie (AMAZING), then I ran home, changed, ate again, and headed over to the West side to the Highline Ballroom to meet up with my friend KC for the Dave Barnes concert. Yes, this is my 3rd concert in a row! I've got a few of Dave's CDs (you should check out his Christmas album!) and have known about him for several years, mostly in part because of my sister who was a huge fan of his while in college. Turns out KC's friend from Bible study is best friends with Dave's wife so it was really fun to hang out with "his friends" and hear stories about him and his mutual man crush with John Mayer (whose name was ON the guest list, but I don't think he was there due to the lack of fainting/screaming women). If you have the chance, you should see one of Dave's shows. He's really funny, quirky, and has John Mayer's stamp of approval. After the concert, KC, myself and several of her friends from church walked down to the Brass Monkey to hang out. We all called it a night early as it was Saturday night, and we all had church plans the next day.

Dave Barnes 

He's probably saying something funny,
he talks for half his concert

When I got home I texted a friend of mine who I had spoken with earlier this week about going to church with me. Knowing how much this guy likes to have fun on the wkd I wasn't 100% sure that he'd join me in the morning, but God answered my prayer above and beyond. When I called him with a wake up call I was not expecting him to already be up and getting ready! Then when I got to his neighborhood I was surprised again that his girlfriend and another friend of theirs would also be coming! We walked the block and a half to church and were only a few minutes late. For being a young, small church and it only being my 3rd visit I'm surprised out how comfortable I feel there. Afterward we went out brunch at Elmo and I'm so thankful for the courage to ask them about what they thought of church and what their backgrounds are. Talking about "religion" can be difficult and often cause rifts but I'm thankful for the openess that we shared over our meal and hopefully it was a nice introduction or reminder about the importance of fellowship in addition to our private relationship with Christ.

Old Friends, New Places

A few years ago several of my Raleigh friends and I visited NYC, and ever since we've talked about doing another trip up here together. Never did I think that I'd be living here and in the position to invite them to stay up here with me for the wkd! Meg and Mel are old friends from my former church, Providence and they brought along their new friend Josie that they also know from Providence. The girls flew in early on Friday morning, we grabbed breakfast together, and then they were gracious to let me sleep after working all night and kept themselves occupied visiting WTC and the Statue of Liberty/Ellis Island. We met up that evening for dinner and headed down to my favorite place in Little Italy, Da Gennaro where the food never disappoints and then over to Ferrara Bakery for some yummy Italian desserts. Side note, I actually did not watch the Duke v. Lehigh game, choosing instead to spend time with my friends and having confidence in Duke's reputation as NCAA champs so I figured I'd have plenty of other games to watch during March Madness. God graciously blessed me with an amazing sister, who does not care at all about basketball, but she loves me enough to call me when she knew I was not near a tv and give my a play by play of Duke LOSING, nixing us from the sweet 16. While I was devestated at the loss, my heart was full with how much she cared about the game for me!

Tiramisu to heal my broken heart

Saturday morning we ventured to the Upper West for brunch at Isabells, so yummy! I LOVE a good eggs benedict and they have a filet mignon benedict with an onion ring and au juo hollondaise sauce...are you drooling yet? You should be! It was so nice that we were able to sit outside and people watch. By the time we finished it was already early afternoon and we meandered through Central Park making our way to the East side where we found a big rock that overlooked 5th Ave where we watched part of the St. Patty's Day parade. After an hour of kilts and bag pipes it's all pretty much the same so we made our way down to Times Square to check out TKTS. The girls scored some great seats for Mary Poppins, we grabbed some pizza, then I dropped them off at the theater and headed downtown to the Financial District where a traveler friend of mine lives. Megan and her husband threw a fun little party, sadly I missed the rooftop part, but her balcony view was still great and she has a great view of WTC just a few blocks away. I'm so glad I could meet up with them and make some new friends/see people outside of work. Around 9 it was starting to wrap up so Jenn and I made our way closer to home to meet up with Dave and his crew. It had been MONTHS since I'd hung out with these friends I'd met when I first moved here. After hanging out for a bit I headed home to meet the girls after their play.

YUM!

CP

a lot of kilts & bagpipes

even Empire was celebrating.

Sunday morning I took the girls with me to the Gallery Church in the Flatiron neighborhood. My sister met Pastor Freddy at a conference in Louisville and recommended it to me. This was only my 2nd Sunday but since it was a smaller congregation (70+) I felt fairly comfortable there and saw several familiar faces from the week before. Afterwards we headed over to Tspn & Tbsp, a cute little cafe I've walked by several times and had been wanting to try. It was a great little place with British accents, from the restroom being labeled "Water Closet" to the waitress' accent. By this point in the day the cloudy skies have finally let the sunshine through and as it warmed up we walked down 5th Ave to Union Square and caught the train over to Brooklyn. I always love walking the Brooklyn Bridge so I was excited to share this experience with my friends on a nice, sunny day. We wrapped the day up with dinner at Le Bon Soup to rekindle old memories of our first trip here together, then back down to TSQ to get cheesecake at Roxys. Once we were officially in a sugar coma and our feet were to the point of exhaustion we headed back home, only to sleep, pack up, and put them in a cab bright and early Monday morning!

Mel, Meg, & Josie with the Manhattan
skyline in the background

old Raleigh friends in new fun places!

Solo Tourist Day

On Tuesday the temps hit low 70's and I forced myself to get out of my pj's and into the sunshine. It had been awhile since I'd had a solo exploration day so I did some googling to figure out what to do. There's a great website that lists some free/discounted days for NYC exhibits and while I realize most plants aren't in season right now, I decided to go ahead and visit the Brooklyn Botanical Garden. First, it's huge and my big discovery for the day is that I WILL need to go back, especially next month for the cherry blossoms! I LOVE CHERRY BLOSSOMS! Maybe it's the pink? Maybe it's the good feelings of DC? Maybe it's just a true signal that spring is here? Whatever it is, I LOVE it. There is a huge area dedicated to them and lucky me, 1 tree had already bloomed! I can't tell you how happy that made me! Another area that I can't wait to explore soon is the Cranford rose garden. I really want to pack a picnic and chill there, I'm sure the bees will love that. It was fun to browse around and watch all the kids playing in the fields. Everyone was out enjoying the free admission and the sunshine.

 

 

My next advenuture for the day was to catch a sunset view of the skyline. My hair stylist had recommended taking the aerial tram across the East River over to Roosevelt Island. (FYI: you can use your metro card!) I looked up the history which is pretty bleak, it was known as Welfare Island for awhile, it used to house prisoners, and also have an asylum, sounds appealing right? They are definitely trying to spruce up the place and make it more livable but there are still old ruins on exhibit...creepy but cool. However, on a positive note, it's fun to ride the tram (only several minutes) as you get a look into some high rise apts (it's their fault they didn't shut their blinds!) and once you reach the island you have a mile of unobstructed skyline views. There's a nice pathway that people walk/run/bike on and tons of benches to relax on. I'm not sure what they have over there as far as stores and restaurants so I packed my own water and snack to munch on as I waited for sunset/dusk. I'm so glad I went, it was really worth the wait. As much as I LOVE cherry blossoms I also really love skyline pictures. Check these out,

 

 

Hopefully I'll have another post up soon about this upcoming wkd, I'm so excited to see some of my Raleigh girls who are coming to the city!

I MUSTACHE you, how do we look? Part 2

Sorry for the delay, but I had to wait until the pictures arrived (thanks Aunt Lori for the CD!) before I could post.

 

After touring the exquisite Greenbrier Resort we headed back to my Aunt's house for her next surprise, a party that we left the men in charge of! Yes, we are brave in our family and we left the men to decorate the house and lay out all of the pre-prepared food. They did a great job!!! We went with a classy black & white theme and had a ton of "over the hill" types of posters scattered around. The food was amazing (good job Rach!) and we had our favorite white chocolate/raspberry creme cake made by Emily, the most amazing cake maker in WV (we basically only have family celebrations so we can have her cake!). Overall, close to 40 ppl were there to celebrate Aunt Lori which is great b/c she is one of those women that just gives and gives and gives and we all appreciate and love her so much but she doesn't get the appreciation she truly deserves! For fun, my sister made a photobooth backdrop (yep, she looked up a how to online, constructed a PVC frame, and sewed a background with her new sewing machine I gave her for Christmas) and printed out lots of fun props which we taped to skinny dowel rods and we asked our cousins to bring some hats, etc for more fun! Of course, everyone was supplied with a mustache and it's amazing how good they look on some of us women.

 

Uncle Greg with his incredibly young looking 50 y/o birthday girl!

Aunt Denise & Uncle Dave

Dad had to give it a try too!

Can you tell they are related?

Kraft family at our best!

the Queen and King of fun!

you better watch out Mister!

my grandparents are biker babes!

Aunt Lori and her girls

some of Em's wonderful props

the girl cousins! 

Some of the best moments of the night happened in that photobooth. We saw a really fun side of our Aunt Denise and Uncle Dave come out when they dressed up as a Chinese couple. Every time Uncle Dave put his hands together to bow he made this funny "hmmm" sound. Do Chinese ppl make that sound when they bow? Haha. They were laughing so hard we could barely get a decent picture. He also did a studly cowboy pose for us, not expecting that. My grandparents also were hilarious! Someone dressed them up like bikers and Granny was a hoot as she revved her engine! They were such good sports, and quite photogenic for their age.

 

We had such a great time, and I'm so glad that as I'm getting older I'm appreciate more and more my wonderful and quirky family. I hope you all have a reason to host a mustache party sometime or at least have a photobooth of some sort b/c it really does bring out the best in ppl, and by best, I mean the fun!

On Sunday morning the sister and I headed back to Louisville just in time to go to the 5pm service at Sojourn. It's funny that I've now visited several times over the years I feel really comfortable there and have made friends with some locals. Afterwards we headed over to Blake and Jenelle's for dinner. They are on a big P90x kick and made us the most delicious black bean & sweet potatoe wraps ever (from the P90x cookbook)---oh and the granola/oatmeal/blueberry dessert was out of this world. I aspire to be half as good of a cook as they are! We enjoyed a relaxing evening together, celebrating Blake's new EMT job, loving on Penny & Lucy (their adorable Pomeranians), and sipping wine by the fireplace while Blake played guitar for us.

 

It was hard to believe that while we were having fun in WV with the fam so many ppl close to the Louisville area and even a part of the Sojourn family were affected by the tornados. Em had received several heartbreaking emails about parents looking for their children whose daycare had been destroyed, and about houses that were blown away and parents either being trapped or greatly injured trying to search for their children in the rubble. This is probably the closest I'd ever been to a nature related tragedy. I wish we would have been able to make it back sooner from WV so we could have gone with Em's community group to IN to help with some outreach, but I'm thankful for the experience of just the proximetry to disaster which opened my eyes to how precious life is outside of the hospital. Sometimes I forget that bad things can happen out there, ya know, "the real world" and that I don't always see the worst of it here, within my hospital walls.

I MUSTACHE you, how do we look? Part 1

 

This past wkd I escaped from the city for a country wkd family celebration. After working Wednesday night I had breakfast with a few friends, finished packing, and squeezed in a last minute mani before heading to the airport. Unfortunately my plane was delayed on the runway and I got into Louisville a little later than planned, and I have difficulty sleeping in public places so by the time my sister picked me up I'd been awake for 24 hrs and sometimes the lack of sleep just makes me a little more outgoing than usual. While pulling away from the airport Em saw a worship leader from her church and next thing you know, I'm yelling out my window "Hey Mike, love ya man! Every Sunday! Great!" and he's blankly waving at me. I like to shake up these church people every once in awhile :) We made a quick stop at the Scarlet Hope House where my sister volunteers to meet some of the girls (former strip club dancers), and then met up with my dear friend Cassie. I met Cassie in nursing school, then we moved to Raleigh at the same time, and attended the same church, and I'm so excited that she's moved closer to her home and family in KY so that I can now visit her when I come to see my sister! We had some great Mediterranean food at Shiraz, then topped it off with some really yummy ice cream at The Comfy Cow. By this point I was blanking out and had been awake way too long! Em kindly took me home and put me to bed while she stayed awake to finish some crafts/props for our Aunt's surprise party.

the photobooth Em made!

Me 'n Cassie

On Friday the sister and I roadtripped it to WV, about a 6 hour drive to our aunt's house. Along the way she was getting emails and text msgs about tornado precautions, we were glad to be escaping the bad weather in L'ville, and made a pit stop in Huntington to catch up with some college buddies of mine. 

old LU friends, Steve, me, & Joe

We hit the road again and made it to our Aunt's house just before she got home from going to see a movie. Em, Charity & Rachael (my cousins) and I hid in her bathroom to surprise her! She definitely wasn't expecting us...but even better, she wasn't expecting my parents to show up later that evening...or my grandparents and additional aunts/uncles/cousins the next morning! On Saturday all the girls headed to Lewisburg, voted coolest small town of 2011 by MSNBC, to dine at Stardust Cafe---so yummy and definitely the place to be! All of our food was so good & locally sourced, the "tap" water is actually spring water, and I'm now addicted to putting granola on my salad inspired by their Trust Me Salad. Before getting back in the car we grabbed some coffee at The Wild Bean, definitely another "must stop" if you ever pass through. I got some of their flavored coffee but my cousin got their Swiftkick (espresso+brown sugar) and not I'm kicking myself for not getting it ;)

Charity & Em waiting on our food

Birthday girl and her party planner daughter, Rach

Next stop was the Greenbrier Resort, a 4 star resort that's housed 26 Presidents and also hides a Presidential bunker from the Cold War days. Aside from the great historical qualities this place is just gorgeous! It's free to tour and we definitely enjoyed walking around the lower level filled with high end shops, then exploring the second level filled with dining areas, ballrooms, and various sitting areas. The colors, patterns, and textures were phenomenal! So many things mix-matched, yet it worked together. We just happened to be there in time for a complimentary afternoon tea & desserts (again, SO yummmy!) which as quite a formal affair. While I was busy exploring and taking silly pictures (and going into places I probably shouldn't) my sister asked a Greenbrier staff member to prank me and the woman came over, straight faced, asked what I was doing and informed me that room was closed. It got awkward really fast, we all froze, my aunt started to defend me, and Em couldn't take it so she blurted out that it was a joke! She didn't make me sweat it very long, but it was definitely funny. I'm the one who is usually pranking someone so it was good to get a dose of my own medicine.

an example of the crazy colors/patterns

entrance to the most luxurious place in WV!

pretty foyer

hallway

the Gentile sisters 

Granny was so helpful, always taking
good care of her daughters

tea & crumpets

playing around in the forbidden ballroom

 

after getting pranked!

 

pretty in pink ballroom

Granny offered our tired 50 y/o her wheelchair

stay tuned for part 2.