Me, Him, and our Little Birds: May 2011

Hello everyone, here is our small and modest collection of photos from our "vacation" in New York!

I know you have all been dying to see them.

I have to throw out this disclaimer though: on our trip, it rained for the majority of the time. I was sort of nervous to bring out the camera a lot and have it rained on.

Aside from that, I will try to describe our time in interesting and amusing detail!

Wrennie spent her time back in Edmonton with both sets of grandparents, in case you are wondering. She decided it would be more fun to play with them instead.

On Friday, we arrive. We had been up since 5:30am that morning, and were a little pooped when we arrived at Laguardia airport around 6:45pm. The only thing I had officially scheduled into our trip was a concert. The concert just so happened to fall on the evening of our arrival...at 8pm. In order to make it in time, we hopped into a cab and headed for our friend's place where we would be spending the next couple of nights.

The cab ride from the airport to Brooklyn was insane. I felt like I was back in Italy again, certain we were going to hit every single car in sight. We arrive in one piece and meet Sarah at their apartment. Bryan was at a work function (that is sort of an understatement...more like party of the year for the design industry I think?) and would meet up with us later.

We dumped our stuff in their apartment, and took off again for the subway to get back to Manhattan for this concert. Getting on that subway train was an immediate deja vu for me again. It's been three years since my travels in Europe, and I still had not gotten over having to use subway systems yet. Ugh.

Our concert is right by Time Square. The concert we are seeing is a Tribute to Kate McGarrigle (of the McGarrigle sisters) who passed away from cancer earlier this year. Her famous children, Rufus and Martha Wainwright, were putting on a benefit concert, with a bunch of other musicians and singing her songs. You heard me- I am seeing Rufus Wainwright in New York! Ahhh!!!!

We arrive to Time Square...and I nearly have a seizure and fall over on the street from the insanity of it all! It looks like broad daylight even though the sun has already gone down. It's bright, crazy, loud, and full of people. Sarah helps us find our concert and we slip in, only missing about 15 minutes of the beginning.

How was it? A-mazing. Norah Jones, Emmy Lou Harris, and Teddy Thompson were just a few of the guests on that night. The music was incredible, and Kenton and I didn't even know any of the songs. We were so glad we made the effort to go! And because it was a concert Rufus (and his sister) put on, it was also quite sparkly :)

We go out for dinner with Sarah afterwards, get back to their apartment, chat with Bryan and Sarah until we can't keep our eyes open anymore, and then hit the hay.

Saturday is spent walking across Brooklyn Bridge, Italian pizza (it rivalled Famoso for sure), visiting a furniture store called Karkula, and a sail boat trip to see the Statue of Liberty and the city skyline.

Here is the nicest picture of Kenton and I on the Brooklyn Bridge. It's one of two photos of us actually together.

I am definitely hoping to get some of Bryan's photos from that day, because we sure didn't take very many.

We made a visit to Ground Zero. Annnd...wow...look at all the cranes. Let's move on.

The boys have similar taste when it comes to style.

This is Karkula, a furniture store that carries pieces from Kenton's work, IZM. Bryan informed our friend (one of the owners) in the middle, that Kenton works for IZM. He was very surprised and excited. He offered us a lot of ...white wine? champagne? Whatever it was. They were also serving a lot of one-bite brownies. mmm...

Pretty cool lights! And Bryan was really excited about this IZM table.

The piece on the far left is another one of IZM's. It's a chest of drawers...so to speak. Check out the rest of their line here.

We raced down to the dock to catch our sail boat tour. We were afraid it had already taken off, but it had not. So we stood around and laughed and chatted, and then realized that the whole boat was already loaded up and we had to hurry up and get on.

It was a cold and windy evening, not exactly what we had all hoped for. But they served wine, so who felt the chill?

Hey neat, the Statue of Liberty.

After the two hour sail boat trip which was filled with laughter and hilarious story telling, we took a cab to a favourite spot (or once favourite spot) called Black Iron Burger I believe. The onion rings were to die for. People in New York eat dinner anywhere from 6pm-12am. Seriously. It was a big day, and we were beat! Again!

On Sunday we hustled to Time Square (largest seizure inducing location in the world) to go put our names in for a Broadway show lottery. We tried to see The Book of Mormon. You put your names in and then have a chance at winning two tickets to the show. We didn't win. Bummer. But then Bryan took us up for a tour of his office at O Magazine. You heard me, Oprah's magazine. Bryan transfers the magazine onto the iPad. Pretty cool. We even got to see the door to Oprah's office. Whoa! and Gail King's office is right there too. Here's his little space.

Afterwards, we took a stroll through Bryant Park. This is Sarah, Bryan's girlfriend. She was fun and knew the subway system like the back of her hand. It was impressive.

Still in Bryant Park, behind us is the library. The sun you see shining down on us in this photo is some of the only sunshine we saw the entire trip. Yes, a bit of a bummer. But there was still lots to do and see!

This is the library. It's more like the museum library...not the actual public library where you borrow books from. That one is across the street.

Inside we saw the original Winnie the Pooh collection that actually belonged to the real Christopher Robin. So cute! And look how worn out they are from so much love. Poor Kanga is wearing a neck brace for crying out loud!

We hit up some Fifth Ave shopping...where we saw JANE LYNCH. Okay...unless you watch Glee you might not care. She plays Sue Sylvester. Does this help?

She was marching down Fifth Avenue in sunglasses, but she is pretty unmistakeable. Given my shock at seeing our first celebrity, I gawked. I couldn't help it. I'm just a humble Edmontonian girl. She smirked under her sunglasses, and then disappeared into some doorway. Fun! No, she was not wearing her trademark track suit.

We shopped in stores like J. Crew and Anthropologie and bunch of others I can't remember their names. In J. Crew, there is a line called Crew Cuts and it's children's clothing. I picked up a cute pair of baby shorts that were going for a whopping $80.00. And then I bought them for Wren. Just kidding. But I have never seen cooler kids clothes in my life.

We visited a bookstore called The Strand, and then a huge grocery store called Whole Foods and picked up things to make dinner. Actually, Bryan and Sarah made us a delicious dinner. Later that night we checked in to our hotel...we stayed at Nu Hotel in Brooklyn. Check out their site too, such a great place!

On Monday Kenton and I were on our own as Bryan and Sarah had to work.

We shopped until we nearly dropped in Soho, and went to stores like Madewell and Uniqlo- both stores that we don't have in Canada and I really wish we did.

We made our way to Rockefeller Center where I desperately hoped to see Tina Fey shooting a hot dog stand scene for 30 Rock. Okay, I just hoped to see her in general. Or Alec Baldwin.

This is the view looking out and across the street.

I am 99% sure we also saw the actress, Jennifer Connelly with a handful of shopping bags walking down the street (we were quite close to those really swanky stores like Saks, so it could have been!)

They also had an Anthropologie store inside the Center! While Kenton checked out the cathedral (seen one, you've seen 'em all...right?), I went to go check out Anthropologie again...even though I was just at one yesterday too..and the fact that we have one at home...oh the irony.

After a long day of walking, we also squeezed in a visit to MoMA. (Museum of Modern Art). BIG mistake. Kenton and I actually do not appreciate modern art. We especially don't appreciate it after a long, tiring day of walking around confused in a big city. We breezed through the entire place in an hour.

We struggled to be moved by pieces like this...

(window blinds strewn on the floor)

and this...

(homeless person's collection of stuff in shopping cart)

Okay this one was actually cool.

We head back to our hotel, look up somewhere good for dinner, and end up eating at the best Italian restaurant of our entire lives. It was called Frankie's 457 and it was in Brooklyn. If you are ever there, go. It was recommended to us by a girl I asked in a cute little clothing shop. She said it was the best place in the whole area. We were such pigs we had 3 entrees between the two of us. Oink.

On Tuesday we headed to the largest cathedral in the world. The picture certainly doesn't do it justice. Kenton was really excited to see it. It was really far away from our hotel. It was rainy out that day and gross. We get there, and a grad ceremony is taking place and we won't be able to go inside for another 2 hours at least. There is nothing interesting for us to do nearby. We leave it. Kenton is disappointed. We train down to the Museum of Natural History, our next stop.

This is the whale we really wanted to see. The rest was pretty okay. We were tired of walking around these places.

We managed to make a stop in Grand Central Station. It went sort of like this:
"Hey, this train makes a stop at Grand Central, maybe we should get off there?"
"Why?"
"Because it's a pretty big station that is quite famous."
"Okay."

We stopped, and we were so glad, it was amazing! The ceiling was incredible.

Once again, we have to make another visit to Time Square. We are heading to TKTS on the Square to get discounted Broadway tickets. We have to wait in line for one hour until the booth opens up. 15 minutes into our wait...outdoors...it POURS. A guy selling umbrellas is standing by our line up looking at us sad sops and saying "brella, brella, brella...5 dolla...5 dolla..." looks directly at us, "Brella...5 dolla." Like, hello people, it's raining, the umbrella is only 5 dollars, you know you want to buy it. Just buy it.

We bought one.

We end up getting tickets to How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying. It was starring Danielle Radcliffe. Yeah, him! Once again, maybe some don't care because they couldn't give a rip about Harry Potter movies either. But come on, he's pretty big, you have to admit it. I actually have not found him to be a very good actor, at least in the HP movies, but we will see...

One of the evenings, we met up with Bryan and Sarah again, and went to see the movie, Bridesmaids. SO FUNNY. Go see it.

On one of these days (it's all running together now and I can't keep them straight), we eat at Cafe Cluny. It's mentioned on A Cup Of Jo (my favourite blog), so we thought we would check it out. She never mentioned the restaurant, and entire neighbourhood is loaded with celebrities! The second we walk in, we see Hilary Swank in one corner with her agent. A few other B-list celebrities make their way in (can't even tell you their names, we didn't even know), and I see Erin, from The Office, going for a jog past the cafe. Crazy!

I should also mention that on that day, I chose to wear a navy and white striped shirt. The second we walk in, we notice that all of the staff are wearing shirts like that! Oops :)

Another restaurant worth mentioning that we had dinner at, was Prune. I had originally read about it in the Edmonton Journal. The owner has written a memoir called "Blood, Bones and Butter" by Gabrielle Hamilton. I bought a signed copy there!

It was amazing, the food was so fancy. For an appetizer, we had no clue what we ordered. All we heard was "Trout roe". We must have been the only people on the planet that didn't know what "roe" was. Fish eggs.

But the dish was fantastic, and I am glad we tried it! The whole experience at the restaurant was great, and we were so happy we made the effort to find it. (Let's just say that addresses in the city make almost no sense.)

What else was noteworthy...Thursday I got sick. Like, stomach flu sick. I couldn't get out of the hotel bed. It was sunny out, the first sunny day of our trip. I was so sad. I had really really wanted to go to two areas of the city still, Chelsea and the Meatpacking District. I never made it.

I watched tv all day, and Kenton went out to see that cathedral again because we weren't able to see the inside of it before. I had the worst night as well...I will spare you all details, and had to be up at 5:30am the next morning to catch our flight. Luckily I was feeling less gross and was able to get up and ready.

In true Air Canada style, they put our luggage on the flight behind us...not our flight. So it was going to come in later that evening. Our car keys were both packed in those bags. Our car was parked at the airport.

We got a ride home, and had to go get our luggage and car later that evening.

But when we got home, Wrennie was waiting with Nana for us. Wrennie saw us pull up, and got so excited and said "Mama! Dada!!" We are home!

And that was our trip!

You know what is the best? A perfect day. Today was one of those perfect days where it was easy going, fun, and relaxed, but you still got stuff done.

We brought Wrennie to our favourite craft fair, The Royal Bison, (the first time we went she was 4 days old...can you say, obsessed?), and checked out our usual tables.

I bought the prettiest necklace from my friend Alanna that has switched from making cute baby items to the coolest earrings and necklaces.

We also nabbed 6 cupcakes from my friend Andrea (we used to work together at Big Brothers Big Sisters) who made lemon, pistachio and chocolate VEGAN cupcakes. They were unreal. Andrea, read: UNREAL. No soy, no eggs...but moist, delicious, and incredible. I'm not just saying that, I love cupcakes, especially from Flirt on Whyte Ave. Wren's favourites were the chocolate and lemon, especially the lemon icing. We ate all 6 on the grass right outside the craft fair. And then hit up the hot dog stand at the Farmer's Market. Oink.

Anyway, go there tomorrow. Buy some jewellery from Alanna, and then get your cupcakes from Andrea. And also check out cinder & smoke clothing when you walk in the door on your right. Lucky for my bank account, there were no more sizes left in the nicest tank top I have ever seen. Oh well, next craft fair!

Wrennie's old sunglasses were getting a little bit small on her face. Naturally, we bought a bigger pair. She feels pretty cool wearing them, if you couldn't tell.

This afternoon, Wren and Kenton both went down for a nap. I went for groceries, figuring they would be up when I got home. Nope, everyone was still out cold at 3:30pm! No one really wanted to get up...okay actually just Kenton.

By the way, what is up with Wrennie's toes in this picture? They have a major slant going on!

Seriously. That face.

Then Wren and I did some weeding: Me weeding, and Wren throwing chunks of dirt into the garbage.

I hate weeding. My dad used to pay Andrea and I something like 5 cents a dandelion when we were kids to dig them out of the yard. I would dig about five, and then Andrea would make a killing off of my dad. Not even money could motivate me.

But for some reason, with your little person (and I mean Wren, not a midget...you know they are called "little people" now, right?) playing around you, helping "weed" and eat the dirt on occasion, it kind of makes weeding fun in a strange way.

To end my really nice day, I just found one last extra Andrea cupcake in the fridge that I had saved from earlier. It had fallen off of Wren's stroller when I balanced it to feed her a hot dog. The icing smushed on the sidewalk, but it was still good, so I brought it home. I forgot about it, and just found it, and am now really excited to eat it. Wow, it really is the simple things in life that make me happy some days.